When does diving become "ridiculous"?

[Stoo]

Too much Stoo. It's certainly OK to ask why, but let's be very careful about doing the "coulda, shoulda" analysis, especially from those who haven't done those kinds of dives.

I don't mean to keep coming back to this specific dive. I have thought a lot about this sort of thing ever since I lost a friend in the caves three years ago. His demise came about as the result of a stupid error. He wasn't even a close friend, but I had done a few dives with him and we had many friends in common. He left behind a lovely wife and a very young daughter who I had met on several occasions. I know that this guy adored his kid and I can't imagine that he ever seriously considered that he could die doing a stupid dive.

As for this particular EN dive, I am not in any way trying to analyze how these guys planned or executed their dive. Most of my dives, the planning part consists of making sure there's something in my tanks, and deciding which way to point my boat when I leave the harbour! I guess all I am asking is whether this sort of thing is worth the risk and the subsequent fallout when things go wrong. Exactly "what" these guys did wrong and "why" they did it is up to much more qualified people than me to try to determine, but clearly, they did something wrong or they would be with us today.

 

[Stoo]

Perhaps this will shed a little light.

Cave Diving's Mysterious Allure—and Risks

LOL. Jill and I spent the weekend before last diving together at my place in Tobermory. I am pretty familiar with her angle on this kinda stuff. ;-)

You might have seen this image floating around... that good looking guy would be me...

 

[CuzzA]

So then I think you would know the answer to your question better than anyone. Maybe the two at EN had aspirations of doing even bigger things. The stuff that Jill does.

 

[CuzzA]

@Stoo, I do believe you have a point though and perhaps a better example would be Doc Deep's fatal dive. There was nothing to learn or explore. It was nothing more than getting your name in a book and if everyone (anyone) involved would have just stopped and thought about what they were doing, they likely would have said, "wait, this dive is ridiculous!"

 

[Stoo]

All I will say is that Jill often says how "averse" she is to risk. When she says that, I think I just get a "Seriously?" look on my face. As we have have discussed in this thread, "risk" is all relative to any individual's experience and circumstances. Oddly, she and I don't tend to chat much about the details of her dives, more "big picture stuff" about some of the projects she's working on. Maybe my visible "cringing" is enough to cause her to tone it down... ;-)

 

[Stoo]

@Stoo, I do believe you have a point though and perhaps a better example would be Doc Deep's fatal dive. There was nothing to learn or explore. It was nothing more than getting your name in a book and if everyone (anyone) involved would have just stopped and thought about what they were doing, they likely would have said, "wait, this dive is ridiculous!"

Ya, that sort of thing is just stupid in my opinion. The only thing that would have been startling about that exercise would have been if he DIDN'T die...

Having said that, times change, right? I mean 20 years ago, the though of "technical" divers routinely doing 250' dives was pretty far fetched. Back in the 60s and early 70s, some of the first divers in Tobermory routinely did 60' + dives on pure O2 rebreathers. I did a presentation at a conference a few years ago about these first divers and had the pleasure of interviewing some of the guys. They would talk about "feeling funny" on deeper dives and knew it was the first signs of OxTox. They talked about deciding to dive "with someone" (i.e. a buddy) so that the pair could keep an eye on each other. How one would black out underwater and his buddy would drag him to the surface, slap him back into consciousness and after a suitable recovery time (in minutes, not days), they would resume diving. No doubt there was some exaggeration, but I really believe a lot of it was true. "Risky" doesn't come close to describing that sort of diving. Back when "Men were Men"!

 

[CuzzA]

I'm not an old school diver like some of you guys, but having done some homework, you are right that times are changing.

If someone has the money they can walk into a shop as green as the grass and buy a rebreather and begin training that weekend from OW to Full Cave. That is kind of scary when you think about the capabilities of that machine.

 

[Bob DBF]

I think that diving becomes ridiculous when other people decide what, or if, dives can be made by a diver.

It is a sad day when we loose any diver, regardless of the reason, and many good people are adversely affected. If one decides to give the SCUBA police a set of rules to protect everyone involved, when taken to it's logical conclusion, it's everyone out of the pool.

As more of a freedom loving guy, the trend in society to determine rules of behavior by how much it might cost government and how upset families and emergency personell might be, bothers me. At its logical conclusion one would be allowed to go to work so taxes could be paid and otherwise confined to his house because any other actions could be detrimental to their health and the mental well being of others. A citizen, in the states, would no longer be a sovereign in his country, but a subject.


Bob

 

[PfcAJ]

But that was hard-core exploration. This particular dive may have been dabbling at "exploration", but mostly it was just doing the tourist thing, but at an 11 in the scale of 1 - 10. And what will we learn from this double fatality? Don't dump your life-support equipment when you are umpteen hundred feet back in a cave and 260' down? Pardon my bluntness, but I kinda knew that already, and I don't cave dive, or do 300 footers. It sorta seems like "Life 101" stuff.

Since you don't do these types of dives, I think it's tough for you to relate to them. You can suggest that cave divers of this level as some sort of adrenaline junkie base jumpers with zero margin for error, but you're so far detached from what really goes on during these dives. Frankly, I find it rude to characterize me and my friends as some sort of reckless hooligans who disregard their families and further disregard the recovery divers that respond to an incident (who are also me and my friends). You think I haven't had some serious conversations with my girlfriend (8yrs) about this stuff? You're dead ass wrong if you think I haven't. I know the deal, and so does she. And fwiw, I've now had to console 3 wives of deceased cave divers. The only reason it wasn't a 4th is because she wasn't around.

Your super simple life 101 ideas become not so simple when faced with what seems like the only option to survive.

 

[Stoo]

I think that diving becomes ridiculous when other people decide what, or if, dives can be made by a diver.

I hope your interpretation of my comments isn't ^^^this^^^. I am not in any way suggesting that someone should be preventing "us" from doing whatever dives we choose. My question, was simply at what point are some dives so filled with potential for disaster, with little apparent benefit, that they seem (to me!) to be verging on ridiculous.