Diving to 200' and Beyond

[The Chairman]

I have dove air at 175'.

Deep air doesn't bother me. I've made far deeper dives, especially before I knew better. The issue for me is the badittude and Bob really articulated that well. Probably the most deadly sin in diving is oneupsmanship.

For the record, those cells were recalled before the dive. When I worked as a mechanic, I had a kid come in with unsafe brakes on his Karmen Ghia. They aren't known for stopping well on new brakes and I told him and his attorney mother to not drive the car until they fixed it. She thought I was too expensive for such an old car and her son drove off... and into a Sheriff's car. Yeah, I got sued and the kid said he hadn't gotten into an accident before I looked at them. They even had the Sheriff on the stand as an "expert witness" and he was surprised to hear that I told the kid not to drive. We even had his signature beside the statement that he and his mother acknowledged that we felt that the car was unsafe. You can't fix stupid: not even with duct tape. The second most deadly sin in Scuba Diving is the "it can't happen to me" mentality. I dare say, most CCR accidents devolve from that very thought process. At least the ones I have been privy to.

Cave diving used to be incredibly dangerous. It still is for those who ignore, bend or break the rules. The same is true for CCRs.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Yeah, I've stopped trying to figure out why peeps do things for the most part. I take blind people diving. They dive just to dive and blow bubbles. They give no apologies for not being able to see a thing. They just enjoy it and I think that's enough. I did a dive with a black bag in my mask as part of my @DiveHeart training. I totally got it. It was a blast!

Yeah, I kind of figured that there must be a few blind people who have enjoyed diving for the feeling of it. But as I said, that has nothing to do with what's been described here as the French lady's motivation.

 

[The Chairman]

that has nothing to do with what's been described here as the French lady's motivation.

This is where we will have to agree to agree.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

If this is in response to my comment, it doesn't matter what I personally think. My point was that the collective wisdom today--the agencies, etc.--seems to lean toward discouraging diving to any given depth unless there is something you want to see or do there, and you can't see or do much of anything on a 150-foot bounce dive. Our French woman, or at least the picture of her that's been painted for us, is not exhibiting today's mindset. Diving with an old school mindset may be a niche, like diving with vintage gear, but the original question was whether this is (still) the norm in some places.

I have always assumed that the people who talk about diving in near-zero vis do it because there is something that they see or do there, however uninteresting it may seem to the rest of us. Whatever it is, I have to believe they're not seeing or doing it in one minute at the bottom of a bounce dive to 150 feet on air. If there are people out there who dive blindly because they like the feeling of the water around them or whatever, I am glad it gives them joy, but that's a different story.

This is getting tedious... she is NOT diving to 150 feet and the dive time was described as an hour (not one minute) by the OP - I think.

The whole idea that you can only spend one minute at 150 is ridiculous - almost as ridiculous as you continuing to try to define other people's recreational pursuits as valid or not. As an FYI, I can dive to OVER 150 feet in less than one minute. It does not take a whole lot of gas to get to 200 feet or more, if conditions are right and the diver is skilled at swimming, streamlining, equalizing etc... (you know the basic scuba skills).

I don't know which is more frustrating, the attempt to dictate recreational enjoyment or irrelevant comments from people who apparently have no clue about diving deep and what it might entail.

 

[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

I still think some of the stories she could tell would be worth the cost of a few beers. However She may be an example of someone who has a great run of luck/ability.

Luck as a bad habit of running out!

 

[DevonDiver]

From Gareth Lock's "Human Factors in Diving Skills"

 

[Nemrod]

Rules are for the people who follow them.

While it might appear she is just lucky or foolish, it could be argued she has been doing these dives long enough to long ago have run dry of luck. I might suspect that she knows what she is doing and having a bit of fun with you. Just because you do not understand her method does not mean she does not have one.

N

 

[DevonDiver]

Just because you do not understand her method does not mean she does not have one.

For the sake of debate, what methods would she have learned 'back in the day'?

We all appreciate that diving practices and equipment have evolved considerably over the decades. Far less of us truly appreciate the nuances of how things were done by those older generations. My own experience extends only to have avidly read Cousteau's books..

How would a diver, trained in the '50's or '60's, have been prepared for decompression diving at, or beyond, what is understood as contemporary extended ranges? What protocols, procedures and principles were followed by that 'pre-tech' generation?

As per the picture I posted a short while ago... what were the "safeguards and defences"; and what was the capacity for "the system to fail safely"?

As I understand it; the lady mentioned is either unsafe but incredibly lucky... or has a some workable approach that is so intrinsically different from modern, accepted practices that people fail to understand it. I'm interested to explore what that approach could be...and whether it really is safe, rather than lucky.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

For the sake of debate, what methods would she have learned 'back in the day'?

We had no "methods" other than ensuring a slow ascent that I recall. We completely relied on the rig to work all the way down and all the way up. These were always bounce dives and I wonder if her dives were also bounces.

Fast forward to today's "methods" ... not uncommonly we do 300 foot cave dives on CCR's and 400 foot wall dives on CCR's with significant bottom times and LONG deco times...not just bounces. Of course we have redundancies and have done analysis of failure modes and have come up with defenses to these failures, at least we tell ourselves that... as part of the "method" to the madness :whacky:.

It will be interesting to read about how the divers in 20 years view our practices of today.

 

[Bennno]

For the sake of debate, what methods would she have learned 'back in the day'?

I don't think that she's learned methods. My 'theory' is that more people got weeded out in training, now I'm under the impression that everbody can get deco trained like the trimix trained guy in my example that panicked on a 120' dive only because of a reg freeze.

I don't think anyone of us can judge whether that lady has been lucky or not. Maybe she's had a bunch of gear issues in the past but managed to stay calm and got out of it Ok, we don't know.
Over 40 year she must have had some gear issues.