Guy,
It should be very clear what would occur. You would not be allowed to do that dive. And rightly so. If you were on a BAUE charter you would either a BAUE member or diving as a guest of a BAUE member. In either case you will have agreed to abide by the rules that the club has outlined. Not really sure what the issues are here.
No problem, if BAUE has such rules I'll abide by them on the dives they sponsor. But we were getting into an area where interpretation of the rules is allowed. We've had people state in the course of this thread that there is in fact some interpretation of GUE protocols, i.e. diving air when at <= 100 feet, Max. depth +- 10 feet, 107' on 32% etc. I'm just trying to establish what latitude is allowed. Will BAUE allow us to do Ballbuster on 32% on their charter despite it being at greater than 100' END, as Lamont says he does frequently?
I am with Clinton. Funerals suck. Be safe.
No argument there, as long as I'm the person who decides what's 'safe' for me (and any team of which I'm a part does so collectively for itself).
BTW, I was first made aware of DIR when I was checking conditions along the Monterey side a month or two after I got my OW. I saw a couple of divers just exiting the stairs into the parking lot at Otter Cove, who had a gear configuration that looked completely different than anything I was familiar with, so I asked about it. They spent 40 minutes or so clueing me in about their gear, DIR etc. I'm not sure which impressed me more, the training they were describing or the fact that they looked perfectly warm and comfortable after an hour-plus dive, while I was shivering slightly in my street clothes in the cold breeze. I resolved to acquire both the training and a drysuit at the first opportunity - the drysuit came first.FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=0" The divers were Clinton and Dave Chamberlain, and although I would have discovered DIR for myself eventually they certainly hastened the process, so credit (or blame
) where it's due.
BTW, Guy, I actually empathize with you about the lights. I feel very sorry for the creatures that get hit by the full power of my 21W HID, and after I find something, I cover much of the light with my hand, and let only a small part of it escape to look at the octopus (or whatever). And a 21W HID at night, in clear water like you have in the tropics, is massive overkill. But, of course, in such conditions, you can do your communication with a much smaller light.
One of my dive buddies has a rant on DIR divers with poor light etiquette. Of course, they may not have been DIR divers at all, but he assumes that any group using can lights in our area is. Anyway, he was doing a night dive and calmly videoing an octopus from a reasonable distance, everything's cool, when the team with can lights shows up and all three of them hit the octopus in the eyes with their hot spots, and hold them there. My buddy said you could see the octopus cringe, and try to cover its eyes with its tentacles. Allowing for a certain amount of bias on my buddy's part (mentioning DIR to him is like waving a red flag to a bull), that's the kind of thing I try to avoid. I'm glad that you're sensitive to this also.
I would never dive without a light, though, because there is such wonderful color in the depths, and without a light, one doesn't see it. And I have found many interesting things by perceiving depth (something sticking out of a wall, for example) that wouldn't have been in relief with ambient light. And, of course, in Puget Sound, in the summertime, below about 30 feet you are in the DARK -- you won't see much of anything at all without some kind of good light. Having a natural experience of the underwater world is a great concept, but doesn't work under the murk layers we have in the shallows during periods of the year.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that I dive without a light, just that I use it as little as possible. During Fundies at BW this weekend we had 8-10 feet of green, chunky murk on Saturday, and 5 feet ditto on Sunday. Not sure how that compares with PS, but I've dived with buddies in similar viz and kept track of everyone sans lights (albeit with a higher anxiety level). But in that poor vis, light pollution is less of an issue; the beams are quickly diffused by all the particulate and don't carry very far, so I've got no problem with using them constantly in those conditions. I've been known to use the highbeams on my car, too.
At any rate, I have assessed lights versus no lights, and come to the conclusion that lights add so much in the way of increased safety and reduced stress that I am willing to deal with their downsides. You may make another decision, which is fine, but it is not DIR.
Is that the case for a rec dive; as gsk3 points out, no lights are even required for a rec pass, so what happens on those dives? And Rob mentioned that in tropical water he and Allison don't bother with the lights, because they can't be seen. So, if it's acceptable to dispense with passive/active light comms in that case and still be considered 'safe', why isn't it the rest of the time assuming adequate vis? I'm talking about recreational dives here, not tech dives.
I've done about a million recreational dives to ~107 feet on EAN32.
So far nobody has taken away my GUE card.
And would BAUE let you do so those dives on their charter, or is that definitely a non-DIR dive? Kevin?
The bigger point is understanding what you lose if you're not using helium there, and understanding when you might want to pull the trigger with helium at that depth.
Absolutely, and one of the things I will do at the first opportunity is to go to a depth where I can detect no signficant impairment on air/nitrox, and then switch to Tri-mix and see if there's a significant difference. Rob mentioned that he'd had to do this once, and it was as if everything suddenly snapped into sharper focus. He also mentioned that for him personally, anything under 30% He seemed to have little effect, as least far as his perceptions went. Presumably the physiological benefit was still there.
If that's the way that you think, you simply won't dive GUE.
I've never understood why people care so much about personalizing the way that they dive. Do you design your own steering wheel on your car? Do you use a web browser that someone else wrote? I'm perfectly happy using JJs system because it works pretty damn good, and there's a lot of other people who use it. If I dive with those people then I don't have to wonder "where is my buddies SPG?" i just know its in exactly the same place as the SPG that i've been diving for the past 6+ years.
You're speaking to someone who makes equipment purchasing decisions with ergonomics being heavily weighted in the decision. Take cars: I spec options very carefully, opting for individual items as opposed to packages when necessary even though it may be more expensive that way, precisely because I will be using this 'tool' a lot. I want it to be as efficient as possible for me, doing everything I want it to do in the way I want it to do, with nothing extraneous. I've removed or had dealers remove options that were included for free, because they were irritations or distractions. If I could build a car just for myself I would, because only in that way will it be fully optimized for me.
Failing that I get as close as I can, and that may well include replacing steering wheels/gearshift knobs/rear view mirrors/radios with poorly arranged controls etc. My backpacking, skiing, and climbing gear has all been chosen/modified/optimized in the same way, if I didn't get it completely custom. To me, the only difference between this and adjusting your harness so that the backplate and D-rings are in the ideal place (for you) is a matter of degree, not kind.
Then why are you posting in the DIR forum? Clearly this forum is primarily for people who don't have the same values as you. What's the point? I don't subscribe to, much less post to, the solo divers forum for a reason.
Kenn answered this.
In the end, DIR really might not be Guy's cup of tea. That's fine if it happens to be the case, but I do hope that the time, effort and money put into the class served him well.
Best value for time/money I've gotten from any dive class (which was no more than I expected going in). And now that I've taken the class, I want to do some DIR dives to get some real world experience.
As to some of the minor points, my own take is:
1. I don't see how the BAUE boat scenario applies at all. If you wish to dive with a club, you naturally need to agree to dive within the club's rules and protocols. If you don't want to do so, you don't have to get on the boat, it's that simple. And likewise, it remains your choice to dive whatever and however you want (I'm willing to bet some DIR divers regularly dive solo). There seems to be some confusion over what it means to adopt DIR. Nobody's saying that once you get your GUE card you agree never to touch air again, don a jacket BC or mount your can light to a butt plate. You just can't say that doing so is DIR.
There is indeed some confusion, which is why I'm trying to establish the limits of tolerance between the standards as written and taught, and what goes on in the real DIR world.
2. I'm not a solo diver, so I can't say if some subset of people are naturally more comfortable alone than diving with an ideal team, but at this point in the process, I'm willing to bet that a good percentage of the people who feel this way haven't yet had the opportunity to dive in a real, smoothly functioning team-oriented environment. I'm very lucky to have a regular team of friends to dive with, and for me the enjoyment and stress-free nature of that can't be beat.
Fofo and I work extremely well together as I team, and we share similar conditioning, swim speeds, and interests. But I am absolutely certain, judging by the unanimous comments on the solo divers forum from many people who are also comfortable team tech divers, that those of us who chose to engage in solo activities often derive more enjoyment and have lower stress when doing so. If you want to have a read of that thread so you can judge for yourself, I'll find and link it.
3. And just for kicks, in regards to the SPG over the shoulder bit, it seems very much like the frequent arguments brought up for routing the SPG under the armpit to the left shoulder D-ring. At the recreational level, it seems like a good solution that doesn't get in the way, but one of the tenets of DIR is standardizing in a way that provides benefits further up the experience/training tree (beginning with the end in mind), and if you're later doing deco dives with two bottles hanging off the same shoulder, or find yourself with a stuck inflator you need to disconnect, you may find that formerly ideal solution is really getting in the way moreso than when you first tried it, or at a time when you really can't afford it. I don't know if that's really the case here, but that's my thinking on the issue, which I think got dismissed with merely a "my personal preference vs. yours" argument, which seems to miss a big point.
I've been diving with my SPG clipped off to my left hip for over two years now, and knowing I was going to take Fundies I deliberately decided to leave it there until after the class, even after trying it the other way and preferring that. And I'm sensitive to the argument that slinging bottles down the road, the left hip may well be the best place for it; that argument was made in that thread. But I also know that there are very experienced tech and cave instructors and divers who are perfectly happy routing the SPG along the hose while slinging stages.
At this point, I lack the necessary experience to say what I may find when (if) I ever get to that level. But for the recreational diving I'm doing now, I definitely found having the SPG out in front to be more efficient and natural, even if I'd normally keep it turned away so that I'm forced to think about my gas consumption before checking it.
Generally either a diver 'gets' the standardization argument or they're never going to wind up diving GUE/UTD/DIR.
If you see the advantages in having everything standardized, interchangeable and consistent across the team, you'll gravitate to GUE/UTD/DIR.
If you value your "independence" and don't want a bunch of fascist divers in high springs, Fl telling you how to dive, then you won't gravitate to GUE/UTD/DIR.
You're limiting the choices to either/or. I can see the advantages and disadvantages. It's up to me to weigh them and decide which side I come down on, or if I switch from side to side of the fence depending on the nature of the specific dive.
I'm hitting the point now where I'm forgetting some of the arguments that I knew by rote about the DIR gear config years ago. It just doesn't matter that much. The SPG at the hip works for me, everyone diving DIR dives this way, it all works really smoothly. Primarily I don't see the need to fix any problems I don't have. If you think that makes me close-minded then DIR isn't for you. I'd rather go diving than thinking about pro-vs-con lists about where to put your SPG -- you're not 'inventing' anything new, and your 'independent thinking' is just as unique as the thousands of divers that have come before you (just like all the 'non-conformist' high school kids that like to dress exactly the same to prove how different they are).
OTOH, ISTR that in your Rock Bottom article, you said that for recreational dives you wouldn't follow DIR protocols for RB/deep stops, but would instead ascend to 30' instead of 50% of max. depth, because you felt that was safer. I raised the same point in class to Rob, so I guess we're non-conformists together. I draw the line at Goth make-up, though.
My feeling is in a real OOG emergency on a recreational dive (which by definition allows a direct ascent to the surface from max. depth with minimal risk), having already had one major failure it's far more important to get to a depth where you can do a CESA easily if you should suffer a second failure, than to worry about blowing off some non-mandatory stops. Rob has to represent the agency viewpoint so I understand his answer, and I'm sure they're trying to train us for when the stops will be mandatory and we can't just blow them off. Nobody wants to emulate the Rouses. But I know what I'd do in the specific situation mentioned, and I'll make my own judgement about what's safest (as you did).
Guy
