What To Do About Reckless Divers?

[CamG]

Thank God no! Just a reference to the everyday mortality we all experience.

 

[zaberman1]

im no expert but i have 75 dives, an advanced cert and i dive HP 119's, and ive been qestioned on why im down at 250psi. im 24 and run 10 miles a week, my sac might as well be 0. not trying to brag but if I/those guys know what their talking about, its their life to risk. I can shoot a fish at 500PSI finish it then head up and still reach the boat at 400 with a safty stop.
i gues bottom line is if i mess up i die not you.

is this a joke?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

im no expert but i have 75 dives, an advanced cert and i dive HP 119's, and ive been qestioned on why im down at 250psi. im 24 and run 10 miles a week, my sac might as well be 0. not trying to brag but if I/those guys know what their talking about, its their life to risk. I can shoot a fish at 500PSI finish it then head up and still reach the boat at 400 with a safty stop.
i gues bottom line is if i mess up i die not you.

Congratulations bud, you win a prize ... pick out whichever one you like ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[scubazachary]

Yeah... but, if you're on my boat, and mess up, we'd probably have to haul your butt to a chamber, and blow our second dive...

Fare enough, i can respect that response.
As for having a low SAC and yet draining a 119 there is a difference between sitting at safety stop and wrestling an AJ or cobia. One takes a lot of air one doesn’t. but your right 250 is lower than I like to go, yet hitting the boat with more than 500 in my tank is a waste of air. With a 119 500psi is a long time. Of course there are other factors, how many times you’ve dove that site, current, ext. My comment was based off where I dive and a low current day. I’m not trying to tell you how to dive just explaining myself.

 

[djtimmy77]

Based on what I have learned from my much more experienced dive buddies, we would swim away from these guys as we like to keep our distance from reckless divers.

 

[HowardE]

On a recent trip to the Hole-in-the-Wall in Jupiter I had the pleasure of diving with some really aggressive and reckless divers. For those who dont know, HITW is a deep dive into a short overhead cave around 130-140FSW and subject to swift currents.- beyond recreational limits for sure

I planned 135 for 30 minutes, deco on 70% and was surprised to hear that three others would dive similar profiles... HP100s with no redundancy and flying computers the whole way.!? It should be said these divers are seasoned veterans with 1000s of dives and posses a bit of seniority on the boat- nevertheless, it concerned me a bit when one showed me 500psi with 10 minutes of hang time to go...:depressed:

As 'experienced divers', they obviously knew what they were getting into so i elected to mind my business

What would YOU do?

What was your back gas? What was their back gas?

Did you ASK if they had a dive plan, but still just flew the computer?

I fly my computer all the time on deco dives. I do however have a backup plan - in my pocket... So if you did a tech dive with me, you would probably ONLY see me diving my computer, unless of course I had a malfunction with my primary computer, which would cause me to refer to my bottom timer and backup table - which would be in my pocket, and you wouldn't have known until I pulled it out.

The 500 psi back on the boat "rule" is totally bull. Maybe with an AL 80 and new divers it's somewhat important for them, but in an HP 100... How much GAS is 500psi? And at shallow depths... fully relaxed ... how long will that last?

Diving with a buddy, is that not additional backup gas as well? This sounds like a team of 3 divers. Reckless to me would be making this dive Solo. Without a redundant air source.

Before anyone would/should condemn these people for being irresponsible, aggressive, or reckless, shouldn't you know all of their plans before saying it's irresponsible?

 

[AfterDark]

Or you could do this: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/vintage-equipment-diving/305612-scuba-police-vintage-diver.html

 

[RonFrank]

Based on what I have learned from my much more experienced dive buddies, we would swim away from these guys as we like to keep our distance from reckless divers.

Well, that is a rather selfish attitude. Don't avoid divers that you think *may* get into difficulty. I would not go out of my way to stay tight with them, but that is a kinda callous attitude.

As these guys were experienced divers, it maybe your butt they end up helping!

Not everyone feels the need for reserve/emergency gas, even if I don't agree with that. The fact that they were diving as a team also introduces some built in redundancy.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

im no expert but i have 75 dives, an advanced cert and i dive HP 119's, and ive been qestioned on why im down at 250psi. im 24 and run 10 miles a week, my sac might as well be 0. not trying to brag but if I/those guys know what their talking about, its their life to risk. I can shoot a fish at 500PSI finish it then head up and still reach the boat at 400 with a safty stop.
i gues bottom line is if i mess up i die not you.

This is a perfect example of the hubris of youth.

There are things I did at that age that did not phase me at the time, but make my knees shake 20 years later and in the scheme of things the risks you are taking are fairly small - but you are getting firmly into the area where you have little or no margin for error and no real reserve for the unexpected, The problem with risk at a young age is that at age 24 you have not really lived enough to know what you are really risking.

I hope you are still around in 20 years to talk about it from an older and wiser perspective.

----

It's hard to tell if someone is just flying a computer. It could appear that I "fly" mine, but only after cutting tables for the dive on my palm and doing gas planning based on that dive schedule. I know what to expect for deco so I can cross check the computer and I know what to expect for gas consmumption and reserves, so even if it quit cold, I am still covered for both deco and gas plans.

It's harder to excuse ending the dive with 500 psi in an HP 100.You can make the same argument about ending the dive with 500 psi. That's about 14 cu ft assuming the gauge is accurate, and about 11-12 cu ft over and above what you'd need for a safety stop. It's a lot of gas at a safety stop but at 5 ATA even with a low SAC you are using at least 2 CFM and under stress that could double or triple giving you only 2-3 minutes to resolve a problem on the bottom.

So it is a case of it being a fine plan when everything goes well, but less than stellar if anything unexpected happens.

 

[Blackwood]

Avoid the Noid.