Split from Deep diving advice ... The Exley side-bar

[Wookie]

Wookie, nope, I did not miss that, nor do I applaud any of these efforts at depth records. All I was doing was comparing the written commentary here with what apparently happened, according to his dive buddy Jim Bowden. You simply cannot compare these record attempts to a recreational diver diving to 120 feet on air. That is like comparing flying a piper cub to the private attempt to produce an orbital vehicle. The two are not in the same ballpark, to mix metaphors completely.

By the way, I found a thread here an the cost of tri-mix. It seems like the tri-mix is somewhere over $50/fill for a single 80 AL cylinder. you are advocating tri-mix for a dive greater than 50 feet in depth. This is sounding like a fear-mongering scheme to make money off gullible divers.

SeaRat

Someone may be advocating that. I believe I've stayed pretty opinion neutral in this thread. Except that I think it was foolish to publish the results to the masses unless you want the masses to follow you. I'm pretty sure I haven't brought up trimix, as the thread is about deep air. I may be wrong, and it really isn't worth going back to look... I know I haven't brought up Exley, Irvine, Lenihan, Bowden, Pizzio, Kohler, Chatterton, Silversteen, Crowell, at all, and only Billy Deans once.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Wookie,

My apologies then. But there are some here who have been advocating tri-mix below 50 feet.

SeaRat

 

[100days-a-year]

Koolaid at either extreme.There are those who advocate air for everything at any depth and those who advocate Mix shallow.It seems sad and funny.No one is gonna change because someone pontificates their internet found knowledge.

I'd rather dive with macho commandos then dubious knowitalls tho.I know the commando will risk all in any situation,the braniac will freeze as soon as the situation morphs into something he doesn't have a ready answer for.

As far as impairment,I was intrigued by those test scores...perhaps I should only dive with those with that particular skillset.Certainly safer than a guy on mix that can't outperform an old guy on air.

 

[DaleC]

I don't get why seeking depth records needs to have such a bad rap. A bit of revisionist thinking IMO. People have always pushed the limits, and paid a price for it. Joshua Slocum circumnavigated the world solo in an old oyster boat. He also died in that same boat on a later voyage. Christopher Columbus set off to find India in the wrong direction in a boat that would not pass today's scrutiny for sea worthiness. He succeeded but also died subsequently. Some guy just jumped out of a balloon from the stratosphere and succeeded but almost couldn't recover from a high velocity spin.

Those guys were seeing how deep they could dive and they, more than anyone else in the field, knew what they were doing. They weren't dummies any more than someone who tries to do 10,000' penetrations for no other reason than because they think they can. I don't feel bad for Sheck and I don't think anyone "did" anything to him. He was following his passion and probably felt fully alive right up to the end. I feel sorry for some of the elderly I work with who live good lives yet spend their last years not being able to remember who they, their wives or kids are.

Does that mean we should still seek depth records. I don't think so. But that's just me. The mystery has been taken away and there is really nothing left to learn by doing it so the risk really doesn't seem to be worth the reward. But then again, free divers still seek to set depth records for no other reason than the record itself. Like some cave divers, they try to be as safe as they can but every once in a while death bites them in the azz just the same. Who am I to judge what they do.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I think there is a motivation aspect to this that people don't think much about. For almost ten years I did things others usually would not do--jump out of "perfectly good airplanes," for instance (even though there is no such thing--a parachute is much more reliable), or jump out of a helicopter to recover some pilot's bodies, or fly into North Vietnam to get two pilots out of jeopardy. During that ten year period, I was part of the Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service (ARRS), and our motto was (and is) "These things we do, that others may live." I was part of the alert team for Apollo 13, covering the first minute of its flight from then Cape Canaveral (now Cape Kennedy). We were all part of NASA's team to explore ways to get to the moon and back. As everyone knows, Apollo 13 had problems several days later, on the way to the moon. But with ingenuity and persistence and teamwork, the astronauts made it back. Not only did they make it back, but using a sextant, watch and slide rule (no computers in those days), the fired their re-entry rockets with such precision that they landed within a few miles of the U.S. Navy recovery ship (we in the USAF did not get any manned Apollo missions, but we got one Gemini and one Mercury capsule recovery).

What am I rambling about? Well, our motivation to dive for many of us is not explore, but to serve those who explore. I was dive master and safety diver for the Warm Mineral Springs Underwater Archaeological Project in 1975. I have posted below one of several of the dive logs I have for that project. You can see that Larry Murphy and Sonny Cockrell dived to 220 feet on air on February 18th to place a buoy at the cave entrance, unsecured. They did this successfully, and it became the center buoy of subsequent studies of the whole of Warm Mineral Springs. If you'll look at the #12 dive, you'll see that it is written down as a 120 foot dive; this was not planned, as Bill and Toni hand an "Unplanned descend to 120' caused a deviation in plan." They also "Used wrong decom. schedule (but weren't in bad shape)" because of it. Their dive was planned for 60 feet, but they had an unplanned descent for some reason (unrecorded) and had to decompress according to the 120 foot schedule. They used a different decompression schedule; with their 6 minutes of residual nitrogen time, they should have used the 120, 50 minute schedule rather than the 130 foot 40 minute schedule; which would have given them stops at 20 feet for 15 minutes and 10 feet for 31 minutes. Luckily, we were using oxygen decompression, which helped and they had no symptoms. We monitored them, but there was no DCS symptoms later too.

I dive to investigate life, so deep diving (air or not) is not really something I want to do. I enjoy diving to 25-30 feet in the Clackamas River. I see things others probably have never witnessed, such as the spawning of fresh water mussels, or coming across a large sturgeon. I am also now 68 years old, which influences my decisions about diving and risk-taking.

But having been a part of NASA, and ARRS, I know that there are appropriate times to take even high risks. The NASA astronauts took those risks, and some have died as a result; we are all better for their having done so. Some of the pioneers of diving also took risks, and we as divers are better for their having done so. This is how human experience is built.

I have worked in the safety profession for over thirty years before retiring, and know that mitigation strategies are possible even in high risk jobs. I worked hard to find these in logging, in the high tech industry, and in the high-purity chemical industry. But that doesn't mean we don't take the risks at all--no progress is possible without some risk.

"A man in armor is his armor's slave." Glen H. Egstrom, Ph.D., U of C, opened a chapter on "Effect of Equipment on Diving Performance" in the book, Human Performance and SCUBA Diving (The Athletic Instituen, 1970, page 1, SBN 87670-805-X). I see examples of this throughout diving, especially with the DIR and side-slung diving where a diver is carrying up to 4 cylinders of "gas" and trying to have everything an expedition used to provide on his or her own body. This causes its own problems, independent of the gas being breathed. I would rather be breathing air at 70 feet with my twin 72s on than breathing tri-mix at the same depth but with it slung sideways, inhibiting my motion and ability to move. We have to look at all the ways we inhibit divers, and not just the breathing gas within the recreational limits.

SeaRat

PS--Please note that I am able to pull out the exact dive schedules from 1975 on my hard-copy dive logs. That was about 39 years ago. Do you think you will still have access to your computerized files in 35 years?

 

[danvolker]

Another distinction I would suggest....regarding "Records" and Explorations and the Pioneer Spirit.

My personal belief on this is that there are a small percentage in the population, with the Explorer Gene....and they are bound to find new territories. I think this is fine, and if you are one of those people, you need to embrace this, and become as good as you can be at your form of exploring.

In diving, there is exploration of cave systems, of deep reefs or wrecks never before seen by man, and what each exploration has in common, is that you are "going to see" a definable physical objective". Also in diving, in what mighyt sound like the risky pursuit of a world record cave dive ( as when George and JJ made it in over 3 miles at an av depth of 280 feet, before turning around and heading back)....is not really risky at all, when this is compared to Depth Records.

In the long cave dive excursion, teams had left large piles of stage bottles all along most of the system, in strategic locations. The exploration team would always have huge back up gas on them, and continue to use the stage drop gas rather than cut into their carried backup gas. The depths were entirely common to them, and the challenges of the depth were only the time that would be needed for deco...

In contrast, with a new Depth Record, as in the Sheck Exley attempt, the real exploration was whether a human could handle the exertion and depth with a given mix...or would they be rendered unconscious or dead by pressures no one before had succeeded in surviving. There was no object of great interest to see..no pyramid from Atlantis, only a point on a depth gauge and a depth in an empty expanse of water. This would be more like Christopher Columbus, purposely sailing to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, to prove that a boat could go this far...but he would see no land --and just turn and come back. I don't believe we ever had any of our great explorers ever do something this foolish---each actually had a real land point they wanted to reach. As is similar in Freediving, you have guys that want to make money or fame, by surviving a breath hold dive to 500 or 600 feet....whatever the current record is, knowing that those that died before in these attempts with cerebral hemorrhages and more, had exceeded their physical potential with their depth record attempts....and worse still, all this would prove or demonstrate is that someone with a freakish genetic potential can either reach this depth, or die trying. It does not suggest anything about man's future in the ocean, and it does not help with any techniques that we may someday use in Aquaculture, and there was no new "land or object", looked for or discovered.

If you knew this person desiring the record depth attempt, and saw them just prior to the dive--how could you not suggest to this person that they might question why they should make such a suicide likely dive?

And if this person used to be smart about their risky behaviors, and some new peer group has them now going for record attempts that this person had previously considered foolish, then what does this tell you about the new peer group? And if this person was to die in the poorly thought out attempt....how is this not partially the fault of the peer group for pushing this person into such a foolish direction ;
In easier terms for most----you are drunk with 2 dozen others at a party--really drunk, and there are 3 people that are real friends, telling you to sleep on the couch...and 4 other people telling you that you don't need to be able to walk--you drive seated, and that you'll be just fine! If the irresponsible 4 manage to convince you that you are OK to drive in this sloppy drunk condition, then their actions helped lead to your resultant death when you don't notice the tree you are driving into at 70mph. Peer groups are a huge big deal to technical divers, and to those with the explorer gene. Having the right friends can make the difference between your life, and your death. That is where this "Don't Dive with Strokes" rule came from....to keep friends away from people like Bowden and his ilk.

 

[captain]

The 130 foot recreational limit was adopted from the Navy but the reason for it was not narcosis. It was because a scuba diver could not carry enough air to allow a decent amount of time to accomplish an adequate amount of work to complete a job. Usually the Navy used doubles. Scuba on air was allowed to 200 feet for a job that could be accomplished in a very short time, such as a quick inspection or recovery of a lost object. The early training agencies simply mimicked the Navy diving manual without explaining the reasoning, but implying it was about norcisis.

View attachment Suitibility of scuba.pdf

 

[DaleC]

An amazing number of explorers have done what they have done for no great reason.

Shackleton, learning that Amundsen had achieved the pole, made up the excuse of a trans Antarctic crossing. He became a well known explorer because of his complete failure in that attempt. He later died while on route for another polar adventure. Roald Amundsen, who made the south pole, later died in the arctic trying to cross that pole in a plane (actually responding to a distress call and crashing).

Gerry Spiess sailed across the Atlantic in a 10' boat, simply to sail across the ocean in a 10' boat. He was successful in something that was thought improbable. So successful in fact that he then sailed across the Pacific in the same boat. Gerry is a well respected sailor. Since then someone has done it in a 4' boat.

Again and again and again, people like this do these things because they want to do these things - not because they are civic minded in the sense of adding to a knowledge base. That is just the excuse they use to justify their pursuit of passion.

Athletes are always trying to better human performance, sometimes by 100th's of a second. Why? What do they add or what unknown quality do they discover. None. We recognize their pursuit of the goal itself as justification.

The truth is, we applaud success and criticize failure. If Sheck had survived he would have been a hero and a respected deep diving leader. If JJ and George had died a mile inside a cave they would have been called fool hardy for the attempt.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Dan,

I like what you are saying now, but how you said it earlier turned me off completely. In professional safety, I have been using Dr. David DeJoy's Human Factors Model for Accident Causation:



Note the "Decision-Making" component; it has Pre-disposing, Enabling and Reinforcing Factors. Your mention of peer group pressure comes under the "Reinforcing Factor" side of this model. But you ignore the other two, the Pre-disposing and Enabling Factors, in Sheck Exley's case. A person doesn't go through the process that Sheck Exley did without internal motivation. In his case, the Macro-task and Micro-task environments, as well as the
Ambient Physical Environment, where overall factors in him having a fatal dive. But the motivation cannot be external-only in such an endeavor. Accidents always have at their root causes in multiple-causation. The group dynamics is a factor, but only one of many.

And, none of this has any relevance to diving deep on air (again, my definition of deep on air would be to the 120 foot level).

SeaRat

 

[Akimbo]

There are often financial motivations, or at least justifications, for record setting deep dives. Hannes Keller’s 1962 dive just over 1000' was to prove to oil companies that he could put divers there to work. I am confident that Bret Gilliam planned to use his dives in a number of ways. I don’t have any problem with that.

Risk-reward calculations are fine. Risk-“I held an obscure and meaningless record for three months that added nothing to the knowledge base and didn’t make a dime”… not so much.