When does diving become "ridiculous"?

[Diving Dubai]

It is all a question of perspective.

I have no interest in proper technical diving, mainly because for me hanging on a line fulfilling a large deco obligation, is right up there with going to the dentist. Lots of my friends however enjoy the big dives. We have a U Boat at 110m, a couple of nice intact wrecks in the 60 - 80m range.

But these friend look at me and a few others with incredulity with some of the diving we partake in.

My favourite site is one that can only be dive a very few times a year. Its a channel with a ridge going across it at 40m sharply dropping off each side to 120m. You can only dive it at slack and even then require scooters.

Even at slack there is a flow, you have to fight to get into position and hang on. There is the ever present and very real danger of push downs from down currents and up wellings too. If you get blown off you need to make haste for shelter otherwise it's a long ride in the current while your being bashed around in the blue trying to clear your small deco.

If things go wrong the site is 60 miles from help

We of course take every precaution it's a dive not open to all. The payback for this dive is fantastic pelagic action while feeding just after dawn, being with mother nature in a place which is well off the beaten trap, known to very few and certainly not accessible to vacation divers. A place where even the local fishermen refuse to drop their pots.

I'm sure there are people here who participate in the big cave dives who would shake their heads and say "no way, you're mad" Just as I do with caves. For me big currents are the norm because of the area we live.

Again it's all a question of perspective....

 

[chillyinCanada]

Dubai, how did anyone ever find that site in the first place?

 

[Storker]

You think I haven't had some serious conversations with my girlfriend (8yrs) about this stuff? You're dead ass wrong if you think I haven't. I know the deal, and so does she.

Doesn't this show that @Stoo's questions are relevant? I don't do tech, I don't do overhead and because of that neither my wife (of 26yrs) nor I have seen any need for a talk like this. After the Plura accident, I had some discussions with non-divers about how that dive differed from normal rec diving. I compared the difference between those two types of dives with the difference between an expedition to Everest - or rather to K2 - and a one-day hike in the nearest recreation area. I still stand by that comparison.

 

[huwporter]

It's like speeding. i.e. anyone going 10% faster than you is a reckless idiot endangering everyone on the road, anyone going 10% slower than you is a loser who should learn to drive properly.

Anyone doing dives more than two levels above your comfort level clearly has a ridiculous death wish.

 

[Freewillow]

I have explored DRY caves when I was young. I have got enough "incidents" while doing it, that the idea of doing this underwater just freezes me to death .

But who am I to judge others

 

[Diving Dubai]

Dubai, how did anyone ever find that site in the first place?

By studying Admiralty charts and looking for clues. When on the dhow checking out surface disturbances when the current is flowing, using depth sounders and occasionally throwing a Go-Pro over board and a weighted line and taking a look at the footage. Even in areas we "know well" we're always on the look out, Sometimes when you drop to an area of interest it's a disappointment, at other times it's great, especially when you know it's unlikely anyone has dive it before.

 

[seeker242]

When does diving become "ridiculous"?

World record bounce dives seem kind of ridiculous. But obviously not to the people who are doing that.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

A green diver would never be able to make it through cave training. On my first ascent from 100' to 40', I almost knocked myself out cold when I forgot about the expanding air volume in my counterlungs.

@boulderjohn - The cave instructors I know in Mexico are at least as serious and exacting as the ones in the USA.

Fair enough - I don't know any cave instructors but I have seen folks in sales when their back is up against the wall in debt do some funny things that they would not normally do. I am not trying to malign Mexico cave instructors per se - I just assumed like everywhere else with enough money you can get by marginally if you really wanted to... Buy a certification - if you are telling me that can never happen - I have no facts or first hand knowledge to back that statement up.

 

[Neilwood]

. . .To step from a daily life that is carefully bounded by laws and safety locks and guardrails into a predicament where your life hinges on your own ability to assess a dangerous situation can be both disconcerting and exhilarating. . . there is a profound desire for this kind of self-reliance among many people who live in an era when, in the Western world anyway, there is very little opportunity for it.

In a difficult or risky situation in the wilderness, the total reliance on oneself and trust in one's teammates and the need for total focus -whether climbing a rock face, skiing a steep chute, or paddling a whitewater canyon- brings a crystalline awareness of the world around . . . One hears it again and again: that at moments like this the participant feels acutely alive.

There are risks of course -risks of all sizes- and sometimes the participant pays the ultimate price for them. . . there are no sure answers, no solid black lines to demarcate caution from boldness, and boldness from foolishness, or rather that those lines constantly shift depending on circumstance and the individual . . . So why go in the first place? . . .It is here where you must utterly rely on your own judgment:

. . .Ultimately, each person who ventures out must make his or her own decisions about how far to go and what point to turn back. There's an old saying among prospectors who comb the hills for gold here in the American West: "Gold is where you find it". You can say the same about adventure. For that matter, you can say it about risk, about death, and about being acutely alive. . .

(Abridged, from the Introduction in the book, Last Breath: Cautionary Tales From The Limits of Human Endurance by Peter Stark)

This is my kind of take on it - some people will always try to "feel out" their own limits in whatever pursuit they choose to follow.

No matter what leisure pursuit or job, people will always try to push the envelope that bit further. Some might be to figure out what they can do (you only truly know your limits by pushing them), others might be pushing the technical side.

Examples of other dangerous pursuits:
Space - why would we go there? The casualty rate is horrendous - link
Motor racing - why the need for speed?
Mountaineering - even in Scotland the list of casualties is high every year with annual fatalities often in double figures.

So much of modern life is mundane - we as a species are bred & trained to push things and strive for better.

 

[Lorenzoid]

. . .

. . .Ultimately, each person who ventures out must make his or her own decisions about how far to go and what point to turn back. There's an old saying among prospectors who comb the hills for gold here in the American West: "Gold is where you find it". You can say the same about adventure. For that matter, you can say it about risk, about death, and about being acutely alive. . .

(Abridged, from the Introduction in the book, Last Breath: Cautionary Tales From The Limits of Human Endurance by Peter Stark)

The interesting question to me is why some people are of a type that continually push limits, take on ever more risk, seeking ever more challenge or exhilaration or whatever, while other people are of a type that reach a level at which they feel full satisfaction and have no desire to do more. There are people who have skied for decades but have never had a desire to jump off precipices. There are people who for decades have run 10k races but have never had a desire to do marathons. And there are OW divers who for decades have dived coral reefs and have never had a desire to go beyond. I think there's a real division between these two types of people, not so much a continuum. I make no judgments about either type.