Wreck penetration and queuing

[Jim Lapenta]

If you look at my post I do have a guideline for what I consider acceptable. Less than a body length and that which two divers can pass through easily side by side in proper open water diving buddy position. So your arch above would be fine.
The second photo would be one where I see numerous hazards that the average diver would not necessarily pick up on. I have a similar photo in my presentation on overheads and recreational divers. But I am going to also steal this one for use in classes as it is clearer and easier to pick out all the places where a diver not trained for overheads can get into serious trouble in what looks like a space with a lot of openings. Those can be deceiving.

 

[NAM001]

Thanks i think you summed up the overhead issue very well. Each and every diver will no doubt have a different opinion to these pics. As you said for us that are more seasoned this is no biggy. but to a new diver, engaging in this diving questions the legitimacy of the training they have received. Skills alone do not always get you through. Sometiomnes you need experience and diving maturity to access situations safely. I agree totally with you idea of including topics such as this in the AOW training areas. The assumption being that x amount of experience has been achieved so l ong as ther would be a required time or logged dives ect as a prereq to starting AOW. That concept makes perfect sence as the AOW card will reflect a degree of experience needed to handle deeper diving. Perfect, not by a long shot but a giant leap in the right direction.

Thanks again

This has been a very interesting discussion to follow, particularly the topic of overhead environments.

Since most of the people participating in this conversation are well seasoned, very experienced diving professionals, I'm going to weigh in with an opinion just to offer a view point from someone who is not. After all, this is the basic discussion forum.

I originally got OW certified about 20 years ago through PADI. I dove off and on over the next 10 years or so and ended up going through PADI AOW and Nitrox and then I did NAUI rescue and public safety diver. (I work in public safety so I was able to do these courses through the GA fire academy.) Unfortunately life happened and I quit diving for a long time. I'm just now getting back into it after a hiatus of about 10 years. In many ways that puts me on the same level as a brand new diver as far as I'm concerned. (I only relate this because nobody here knows me and to help shed light on my point of view.)

IMO one of the biggest problems with this topic (and the 60' vs. 130' depth limit to a degree) is applying the concept of absolutes. It is my belief that you do the new diver a disservice when you take this approach with them.

If you take a new, average dive trainee out into the ocean for a 60' check off dive, certify that individual as an OW diver, and then tell them that overhead environments are an ABSOLUTE no-no that's all well and good. Well what if the very next dive they go on they encounter this?

Is it an overhead environment? Technically, yes. But the newly minted OW diver is going to look at it (and the other divers swimming under it) and wonder what the big deal is. They're going to head over and swim through it like everyone else is doing and think you as their instructor are crazy for telling them they're not trained/equipped/qualified/ready to swim through the arch. The problem this creates is that you as their instructor and a diving professional have now lost credibility with them, at least to some degree. As this line of reasoning continues, the new diver now starts to wonder what else you were wrong about.

On their next dive out they might encounter this:

Swimming under the arch was a piece of cake so how hard could this be? It has huge openings in all sides, plus one in the roof. So in they go and the next thing they know they've kicked up the silt and now they can't see. Suddenly they realize they're tangled up in God-knows-what and can't get loose and they drown.

Perhaps a better approach would be for the diving industry and training agencies to acknowledge the concept that all overheads are not created equal and adjust their teaching methodology to account for that. I don't pretend to have the perfect solution, but maybe the AOW course could be modified or a specialty course introduced that would teach recreational diving students important criteria to look for and how to identify the features that distinguish a safe swim through from a more advanced wreck penetration. Teach them to identify entanglement hazards, narrow passageways and openings (too narrow to pass through while sharing air), and the hazards of silt-out and loss of visibility. I'm not necessarily saying to teach them how to deal with/mitigate these problems at this level, but if they at least know what hazards to look out for then they will be more likely to avoid them and you (their instructor) will maintain a greater level of credibility with them than the guy who simply says "NO."

Just a thought.

(Images above were found on Google/Facebook.)

---------- Post added July 16th, 2014 at 04:31 PM ----------

I really like the the pics that was posted. Most new divers would think that this is an easy environment to explore. If courses would cover these types of places, not to teach how to dive them but to engage in discussion about how things could go wrong when you least expect it in seamingly safe zones. Doing it to reinforce the reason for not venturing in to such places. Since you cant police wht a diver does you can at minimum attempt to equip the diver with the mental processes to make a good decision. perhaps in conjunction with adavertizing follow on courses. Lets see how would it go.

Congradulation you have completed your ow course and will be getting your cards soon. In the mean time lets watch a diving video that will introduce divng types that lay before you with the proper training. So a video with the enviromnent above is shown with a diver in it and the cloud cover cuts the light and as result, panics the diver sturring up the silt and vis goes to nil. A rescue trainge diver goes in and gets him out. Next a comment that says dont let you day be ruined by such an event. Such areas require special skills to perform this dive safely. The training you have completed brings you one stop closer to safely experiencing such oppertunities. See your diving professional for information concerning training for diving in overhead environments. Similar footage for solo, deep, wreck, cave ect. common themes will be discovered by the new certifieds and will be thought of every time a questionable situation occures. wether it is dropping over a wall or passing under a arch.

 

[slane]

Entanglement doesn’t concern me much on this one. Collapse on the other hand does. I would never send my brother in there.

It doesn't concern me much either.....at first. And then I think that if I go in there, my buddy will follow me in. Now there are two of us. What if I'm diving with three others? Now there's four of us in there and suddenly the space is a whole lot smaller and the risks of silting the area and/or entanglement are much higher. In theory my buddy should be able to help me out, but the problem could have been avoided altogether if only someone had taken a little time and explained to me what some common but serious potential hazards are and how to identify them ahead of time.

ETA: Thanks for the link to the other thread.

Good thoughts Steve. I can't see the first image you posted, and the second one looks pretty wide-open. What I'd like you to consider is the possibility of what could happen if you suddenly lost your visibility. It looks pretty good in there, but a lot of wrecks (most?) collect silt inside ... or develop "rustcicles" on the roof that can emulsify when your bubbles hit them. I've experienced the latter before, and vis goes to maybe a foot. Would you be able to find your way out? Even the most benign-looking overhead could be hard to find your way out of if you can't see where you're going. That's why it's always a good idea to have a backup plan ... which assumes you're capable of developing and implementing one.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Here's a direct link to the first picture in case it's helpful.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4106/5201915258_15b62088c1.jpg

Thanks for the comments. As the saying goes "you don't know what you don't know" and I just learned something I didn't know. It would have never occurred to me that my bubbles impacting the roof could cause a problem with visibility, but makes complete sense now that you've pointed it out. Thanks for that.

If you look at my post I do have a guideline for what I consider acceptable. Less than a body length and that which two divers can pass through easily side by side in proper open water diving buddy position. So your arch above would be fine.
The second photo would be one where I see numerous hazards that the average diver would not necessarily pick up on. I have a similar photo in my presentation on overheads and recreational divers. But I am going to also steal this one for use in classes as it is clearer and easier to pick out all the places where a diver not trained for overheads can get into serious trouble in what looks like a space with a lot of openings. Those can be deceiving.

I did see your criteria where you laid them out in previous posts. However, what I was getting it was getting the diving community/industry at large to come up with something other than a blanket statement that all overhead environments are bad. However, as this would be a total paradigm shift from the way overheads are officially viewed now I suspect it will be slow to come, if ever.

I especially liked the second picture because in my opinion it is a very good representation of an advanced dive that looks deceptively easy for someone who can't identify potential hazards.

Thanks i think you summed up the overhead issue very well. Each and every diver will no doubt have a different opinion to these pics. As you said for us that are more seasoned this is no biggy. but to a new diver, engaging in this diving questions the legitimacy of the training they have received. Skills alone do not always get you through. Sometiomnes you need experience and diving maturity to access situations safely. I agree totally with you idea of including topics such as this in the AOW training areas. The assumption being that x amount of experience has been achieved so l ong as ther would be a required time or logged dives ect as a prereq to starting AOW. That concept makes perfect sence as the AOW card will reflect a degree of experience needed to handle deeper diving. Perfect, not by a long shot but a giant leap in the right direction.

Thanks again



I really like the the pics that was posted. Most new divers would think that this is an easy environment to explore. If courses would cover these types of places, not to teach how to dive them but to engage in discussion about how things could go wrong when you least expect it in seamingly safe zones. Doing it to reinforce the reason for not venturing in to such places. Since you cant police wht a diver does you can at minimum attempt to equip the diver with the mental processes to make a good decision. perhaps in conjunction with adavertizing follow on courses. Lets see how would it go.

Congradulation you have completed your ow course and will be getting your cards soon. In the mean time lets watch a diving video that will introduce divng types that lay before you with the proper training. So a video with the enviromnent above is shown with a diver in it and the cloud cover cuts the light and as result, panics the diver sturring up the silt and vis goes to nil. A rescue trainge diver goes in and gets him out. Next a comment that says dont let you day be ruined by such an event. Such areas require special skills to perform this dive safely. The training you have completed brings you one stop closer to safely experiencing such oppertunities. See your diving professional for information concerning training for diving in overhead environments. Similar footage for solo, deep, wreck, cave ect. common themes will be discovered by the new certifieds and will be thought of every time a questionable situation occures. wether it is dropping over a wall or passing under a arch.

Thanks for your comments.

With regard to the bold paragraphs, I believe we're on the exact same page.

 

[fire_diver]

This thread gone WAY WAY past the OP's question about him as a brand new diver following another diver's line inside an unknown wreck.

 

[boulderjohn]

I did see your criteria where you laid them out in previous posts. However, what I was getting it was getting the diving community/industry at large to come up with something other than a blanket statement that all overhead environments are bad. However, as this would be a total paradigm shift from the way overheads are officially viewed now I suspect it will be slow to come, if ever.

You evidently missed the part of this thread that discussed at length the fact that PADI has approved a Distinctive Specialty called Understanding Overhead Environments. This specialty goes over the differences between different levels of difficulty and danger in different overhead environments so that divers are more able to judge which ones can safely be navigated at their levels of training and which ones require greater training.

 

[slane]

You evidently missed the part of this thread that discussed at length the fact that PADI has approved a Distinctive Specialty called Understanding Overhead Environments. This specialty goes over the differences between different levels of difficulty and danger in different overhead environments so that divers are more able to judge which ones can safely be navigated at their levels of training and which ones require greater training.

I guess I did. Is this course already available or is it still in development? Either way it's excellent that official training is/will be available for this. I hope there's a big push from PADI to encourage new divers to look at this course since so many untrained divers are entering these environments on a daily basis.

 

[boulderjohn]

I guess I did. Is this course already available or is it still in development? Either way it's excellent that official training is/will be available for this. I hope there's a big push from PADI to encourage new divers to look at this course since so many untrained divers are entering these environments on a daily basis.

It exists--new this year. As a distinctive specialty, it can only be taught by those who have applied to teach it. I don't know how many there are.

 

[slane]

It exists--new this year. As a distinctive specialty, it can only be taught by those who have applied to teach it. I don't know how many there are.

What's the official name of the course?

 

[Hawkwood]

What's the official name of the course?

"Understanding Overhead Environments"

 

[slane]

"Understanding Overhead Environments"

Thanks.