Basic scuba diving rules

[redacted]

You know, I'm with you on this and would add an eleventh item: Never Dive beyond your training. I think his book predated Cave C-Cards, or least most of the deaths he examined predated Cave C-Cards. I think the eye opener for me was to realize that all the deaths in the Eagle's Nest system were on dives where the decedent exceeded his training. You're a fool to enter that system without a Cave and a Tri-mix card.

Statements like this would be more credible if they were not mostly make by dive instructors who sell C-cards.

If one never pushed themselves beyond their training, how would anything advance beyond previous achievements?

Formal training and certification is one way to advance. It usually has the advantage of being efficient and low risk. I often has the disadvantage of being expensive and pre-packaged.

There are other alternatives some of which are essential to new discovery.

BTW, what happens if you breath tri-mix without a "tri-mix card"?

 

[victorzamora]

Statements like this would be more credible if they were not mostly make by dive instructors who sell C-cards.

Okay, fine. Never dive beyond your training.

There, it's been said by someone who couldn't give a dead rat's last crap about selling C-cards. I'm not a DM, I'm not an Instructor, I'm not affiliated with a shop or dive professional, and I have nothing to gain from you getting a card or not. What I will say is this: let's take any diver that thinks they can dive beyond their training (Spivey would've worked) and take him on a dive with an instructor. Just a Full Cave instructor and them. Go on a dive....not even Eagle's Nest, I just mean JB or Ginnie or wherever else that people consider "safer" caves. Then, let that instructor do what they do to divers taking their class. Turn off the lights, pull them off the line, spin them around, just be mean to them.....like the instructors are to those taking the class. Then we see who gets out. I don't care how much reading you've done, or how much self-study you've done, or how many other pieces of plastic you've got going on......let's see if they make it.

 

[Texas Torpedo]

BTW, what happens if you breath tri-mix without a "tri-mix card"?

You might get cold, if you are diving dry without argon...?

Or... If you were in EN with your also-untrained son on some popular hypoxic mix you read about online but don't actually understand, run the tanks dry and get lucky enough to CESA but blow all your deco = you are probably going to wish you died the way these two did.
There's getting bent on air.. and then there is getting bent on He, way off the beaten path, a long way from the chamber, with possibly nobody around to help.. Now that would be a really bad way to go..
Of course, you might survive..

I know what you are actually saying... But, it sounds a lot like what if you dive a cave without the cave card...

 

[redacted]

Okay, fine. Never dive beyond your training.

There, it's been said by someone who couldn't give a dead rat's last crap about selling C-cards. I'm not a DM, I'm not an Instructor, I'm not affiliated with a shop or dive professional, and I have nothing to gain from you getting a card or not. What I will say is this: let's take any diver that thinks they can dive beyond their training (Spivey would've worked) and take him on a dive with an instructor. Just a Full Cave instructor and them. Go on a dive....not even Eagle's Nest, I just mean JB or Ginnie or wherever else that people consider "safer" caves. Then, let that instructor do what they do to divers taking their class. Turn off the lights, pull them off the line, spin them around, just be mean to them.....like the instructors are to those taking the class. Then we see who gets out. I don't care how much reading you've done, or how much self-study you've done, or how many other pieces of plastic you've got going on......let's see if they make it.

There is no need for an 11th rule to account for Spivey's accident.

But I do agree with your suggestion of offering in-water tests based on established standards as an alternative to pre-packaged formal training.

 

[victorzamora]

I'm not saying we NEED to add an 11th rule. I mean, I think not diving beyond your training is crucial, but that wasn't my point. You said that that statement was a lot less credible coming from an instructor that makes a living off of said C-cards.

Also, to be clear, I'm NOT advocating an in-water test as replacement for proper training. Too many cocky morons would be destroying the insides of the caves that we, as a community, love.....and all because they're too cheap/dumb/stubborn to get proper training.

 

[TSandM]

I think the question of not diving beyond your training is actually a difficult one.

If I have never dived at night, do I need a class to dive at night? Or can I go to a familiar site at twilight, go paddling around and watch it change as it gets dark? What are the risks of doing that? What might I not be able to think of on my own? How good am I at making accurate assessments of my own capacities? What other resources do I have available to me?

I think most of us would say that one can learn to dive at night by doing so in the company of a buddy who is comfortable with night diving. Learning that way, you might not get all the details you might get from a good night diving course, but you'd probably figure out enough not to get hurt. Most of the major problems with night diving are apparently after a little thought.

Cave diving is another story. The risks may not be obvious, and it is certainly clear that the magnitude of those risks is not clear to people who make the decision to proceed without training. I do think you can probably learn to cave dive through mentoring -- people obviously did for a long time before certification agencies proliferated. As with night diving, there would be nuances that might get skipped -- the big advantage of a class is that it has a curriculum which ensures that things don't get left out -- but you could probably learn to be fairly safe. However, I don't think there are very many cave divers who would undertake the training of a friend, without any education in teaching, because we know what the risks of what we do are. I'll cheerfully introduce someone to night diving; cave diving, no.

I think there are lots of things in the world that one can self-teach -- I know a number of people with good jobs in IT, with no formal credentials. But the more dangerous the thing you are proposing to do is, and the smaller the tolerances, the more getting training from someone who knows what they are doing makes sense.

 

[Rich Keller]

In my opinion rule #1 is: If you panic, you die. Rule #2 is: If you panic in pairs, you die in pairs. There are no exceptions to rules 1 & 2 other then just dumb luck that allows you to get out alive. Training is good but if you do not put enough hours in the water to master what you have learned it is useless.

 

[The Chairman]

Statements like this would be more credible if they were not mostly make by dive instructors who sell C-cards.

My most popular class has no C-Card associated with it. Go figure. I'm not that big of a fan of C-Cards, but they are often essential to dive where I want to dive.

Training vs C-Cards. I think quite often people get the two mixed up. Training gives you the tools, ie the basics to dive safely. A C-Card is proof that you've undergone some formal training.

Let's take your "what if you breathe tri-mix without a tri-mix card" troll. If I am at the surface, well nothing. If I am at 200 ft, then also: nothing. But if I don't know enough to ascend at a different rate with far more stops, then a lot happens and none of it good. Do you need a c-card or some sort of training to dive tri-mix safely? If you just wing it without any preparation then you'll end up like Spivey. There are a lot of things you can learn here on the interwebs. Boyles Law, deco procedures and the like are all valid areas to seek informal training here on ScubaBoard. However, when you get to a few areas, like an overhead environment, eyes on & in the water direct supervision is essential, especially at the very start. You can't teach situational awareness on the interwebs. You can't teach a frog kick either or do an adequate and timely evaluation of any skill.

Training vs Experience. Which is most important? Both. Training without experience is worth nothing and experience without training is dangerous. You need to look no further than Eagle's Nest to verify that. That environment actually requires two areas of expertise: cave and tri-mix. Of the eight people who have died in Eagle's nest, none of them were adequately trained in that regard. NONE OF THEM. %100 of the people who died in Eagle's Nest lacked the prerequisite training to enter that environment. No one who had the prerequisite training died in there.

Formal Training vs Informal Training. It's your life: dive it well. There are no Scuba Police. I dove for many, many years without much training and no C-Card. It can be done. When I finally got certified, my instructor was less than exemplary. I still learned an awful lot and saw how my previous diving style was incredibly dangerous. Even then, I needed ScubaBoard to fill in a lot of holes left by my formal training. Training can come from a lot of different sources. The more you learn the better off you are. In the end, only YOU can decide if you're going to do a dive or not. Make the wrong decisions and you'll end up like Spivey: dead.

 

[victorzamora]

Even then, I needed ScubaBoard to fill in a lot of holes left by my formal training.

Wow, if you needed scubaboard, you really WERE in bad shape. Or are. I'm not sure which is worse.... needing to learn from it or actually learning from it.

Jokes aside, that brings up the point of continuous learning and proper mentoring....not to mention approaching your limits cautiously.


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

 

[billt4sf]

I think the question of not diving beyond your training is actually a difficult one.

I think it's even more difficult than Lynn mentioned in her post about cave and night diving.

When I first got certified back in the 70's, my first dive after OW, I went diving with a brother-in-law who had a number of dives. We went into a fresh-water cave about 30 feet -- it was cool. I wanted to go in more, he said no and that was that. I had no idea until recently how dangerous it probably was.

More recently, we have done night dives, drift dives, cold water dives, black-water dives, dives with lots of current, and dives with low visibility. Only by actually doing those dives did I learn what I was good with and not good with. Now I know my limits, I know what safety equipment is appropriate, and now I can (usually) assess what might be beyond my limits. (FWIW, those limits are: >10 ft viz daytime, 20 ft night, < 1 knot current, < 50 ft depth when with my wife).

At least in my case, my OW class did not prepare me to evaluate what dives I was prepared for. (I am being honest about my limitations here.) ScubaBoard helped ALOT ! I bet there's alot of newly-minted divers that are in the position I was. I have friends that dive and I know they are not prepared to evaluate their limits.

I'm not sure how that gets fixed, if at all.

- Bill