Wreck penetration and queuing

[beanojones]

many thousands of OW divers go into overhead environments every year. It is a rare first dive in Cozumel that does not include swim throughs. Want to dive in South Florida? Just about every first dive of a boat trip goes to a wreck, and everyone penetrates. What percentage of them have taken a cavern diving course? I am sure it rounds off to zero. Cavern diving is primarily a skills course. This is not a skills course. In the last section, it teaches what courses are needed to enter more complex overheads. One of the recommended courses would be cavern.

As is noted above, many thousands of divers enter overheads without any training now. They have no guidance to help them make the decision on whether it is safe to do it. The entire purpose of the class is to give them that guidance, which they are not getting anywhere else

The way to get people to stop violate basic rules of their training ("Don't dive into overhead envirnments, and always have direct access to the surface") is not to legitimize the violation of the rules of their training by saying "just kidding, we did not really mean no overhead environment, nor did we mean you must always dive so you have direct access to the surface"

Rather it is to change the "You cannot do this EVER" with "You need this much training, experience, and equipment preparation before you can do it". PADI made the foolish decision to fake it with the Cavern and Wreck specialty course because they used to not have a tech side so they had to get the money somehow, so they violated their own standards in designing the Wreck and Cavern course. They no longer have to do that.

"No overhead environments without appropriate training, equipment and experience" is a bright line rule that the cave community long ago recognized. Yes this is also in their own interests as cave training organizations. The question is this: has it somehow worked against safety and diver's enjoyment that they have maintained that bright line distinction?

My brightline answer is this: no, not in the slightest: I benefit daily from gear and methodologies developed in the cave community. The industry benefits as a whole through a whole range of things. I would say anyone who has taken a cave course has said they are far better divers even if they never plan on going in a cave ever again. As much as I hate BP/W (as in a metal plate and wing) and would never again wear one, I know they work better than jackets for a lot of people, and the backplates and long hose choices would not be there in the general marketplace if not for the cave training organization's work on equpiment choices.

Has PADI's solution to fudge their way around following their own standards benefitted anyone in any way other than financially, with the instructors teaching it and PADI processing PICs and selling 'educational' materials? Does anyone think enabling non-redundant, underskilled, and undertrained divers into overhead environments (wrecks/caves/deco) is benefitting anything other that divers fleeting pleasure?

Yes I realize divers wil swim through wrecks all the time. Kids play in streets all the time too. People drive drunk all the time. And drivers text while driving. Almost all of the time nothing bad results from these things. (or people whould have stopped doing these things on their own, a long time ago, whether we had rules about these things or not.)

Is any of these things safe? Is the fact that there is hardly ever a bad outcome to these actions even slightly on point as to whether they are safe?

Even though texting while driving has recently surpassed DWI/DUI as the number one cause of driving fatalities, most people who text while driving will never have a wreck, without killing themselves or some innocent third party, because most of the time bad things don't happen, in general. Most drunk drivers make it home without killing themselves or some innocent third party. Most kids playing in the road survive just fine(Game on!). Most divers go into overheads environment make it out just fine.

That does not mean the rule(s) does not make sense. It just means we as human beings are remarkably bad, unspeakably incoherently bad, at reasoning out why we have rules in the first place. They are not in place to protect from inevitable results of our actions. Not even slightly.

See several posts in this very thread that make that reasoning flaw.
1. I shot a video of divers inside a wreck/ I went in a wreck/People go in wrecks all the time.
2. no one died in the cases I am referring to
so
3. it is safe, and there is no reason to restrict access to wreck or caves or deco diving

Life itself does just fine at teaching us direct cause and effect lessons. Touch red hot stove, and you will get burned. Not possibly, but necessarily. It's cause and effect. I have never heard of any place in the world passing a law against putting one's hands on a red hot stove.

Cause and effect is not the reason for rules. The rules are in place to prevent high societal/personal cost versus low personal benefit mistakes from happening, especially to people who have incomplete ability to make intelligent choices about repercussions/risks concerning their actions. Like teenage drivers, or non-tech trained divers who go into overhead environments. Most kids don't die despite their utter foolishness.

So should we do away with the rules that not every kid follows, or that all rules if breaking them does not necessarily result in bad outcomes?

 

[NAM001]

You have some good points beanojones. my 2 cents worth is this. like anything else no one is on the leading edge of the problem. We have a syndrome that says you dont want me to do theis cause .....some lame excuse.... adn I think there is good reason for many to just do it. When a new diver sees a group do a swim through will no ill effect and can see no ill effect when they do it, then they do it them selves. When everyone is doing it then: you have to do someting when they start getting hurt. All the cries on SB says a swim through will get you killed. Ther person that says this looses all credibiity when others have done it with out a negitive outcome. We are back to,,, you dont know what you dont know. Its human nature to test boundries, first a short swim through then a longer then short pentration, and then longer till someone dies. Even in todays culture of passing the buck the grim reaper signs are taken as just loop holes that locations has to take to avoid liabiity. Top this off with the fact that the goroups are invincable to begin with. There is no answer to this delema. You cant take a AOW course and show what is required to do such a dive and then tell them that they need more training to do this. Thread after thread says all these courses are created to make money for the system. So what is a new diver to think when they see guided group doing swim throughs and minor penitrations. There is more evidence in favor to say the industry is over-reactionary to training needs than can be seen by would be trainees. In order for the industry to survive it has to take assets from from beginners. In the eyes of the new divers it is simple. At the end of the day whose pocket is my 100 USD going to be in. If you want an example. In the earlier years an open water course was xxx bucks. now that same amount of training is in, at minumum 4-10 courses, at a price tag of perhaps 2000 usd. Beginners know this cause they read about it on SB. All the more reason to substantuate that courses are rip offs. Many threads reference doing 100 ft dives on an OW card. Once again training is a waste of time and a rip off. Not only hat but the course lmits are a lie. If the limits of OW were valid, no boat would take them to spots deeper than 60 ft. Most people are not stupid, they make, relativly speaking, intelligent decisions. Unfortunately their best decisions are at times based on bad input. That we can not fix. Nor can we change the conditions that will make them decide otherwise. To do so would mean that guided tours would have to change globally as well as dives permitted on boats. ie no OWs on this trip because we are going to 90ft. No operation that depends on passenger's for income will change to require training to meet the dives being done. Its always easier to design a waiver for the systems shortcomings and pass teh buck to the diver, than to make corrections or change behavior.

 

[Redshift]

All the cries on SB says a swim through will get you killed.

I don't think that's what's being said. A swim through won't kill anyone. Nor a cave dive. If nothing happens.
We have had recent topics of divers with free flows and regs stopping to work at depth that required the divers to ascend directly. What if this happens when they are inside that nice, easy and not at all dangerous wreck or cavern swim through? And more, in these places, often divers don't fit side by side.

This opens a bad precedent in which there is a rule and then it's said the rule can be broken. What stops divers then from breaking other rules?
As beanojones said, maybe they should rephrase that rule.

I don't know how that distinctive specialty is, but I hope that it shows divers very well what can go wrong.

Of course there are dives like these done every day without consequences. It's something inevitable. I've done some before having training. It is an added risk, but many divers do dives that involve more risk than others. It's up to the individual. But they should do it in an informed way. And there shouldn't be a conflict between rules and practice that can lead to more rules being broken.

 

[NAM001]

Redshift



Its not our educated perspective on this issue that counts. Its the perspective of those that dont have our background and exepriences. Those who are invincable do not plan for the unexpected. Training teaches us what dangers are there and how to mitigate them. Many of us can do dives we are not specifically trained for. Most of us know the difference in what could be done and what cant be done. Most of us will walk the line but know when we are treading too far over that same line. The same can not be said for new divers. Ive always had a thing for wanting boats to require AOW for at sea trips that exceed the OW limits. The mention of such limitations is often met with the ikes of OW is good for 130, I train my students beyond the min levels required . bla bla bla. The end result is if bob can go to 100 feet with a OW why cant I and why waste my money getting further training. Same goes for enterng overhead environments and other types of dives. We see it al over, complain about it but are unwilling to change the system to force training requirements. You cant get air without a c card, but you can dive to 130 with an OW card that still has wet ink on it.

I don't think that's what's being said. A swim through won't kill anyone. Nor a cave dive. If nothing happens.
We have had recent topics of divers with free flows and regs stopping to work at depth that required the divers to ascend directly. What if this happens when they are inside that nice, easy and not at all dangerous wreck or cavern swim through? And more, in these places, often divers don't fit side by side.

This opens a bad precedent in which there is a rule and then it's said the rule can be broken. What stops divers then from breaking other rules?
As beanojones said, maybe they should rephrase that rule.

I don't know how that distinctive specialty is, but I hope that it shows divers very well what can go wrong.

Of course there are dives like these done every day without consequences. It's something inevitable. I've done some before having training. It is an added risk, but many divers do dives that involve more risk than others. It's up to the individual. But they should do it in an informed way. And there shouldn't be a conflict between rules and practice that can lead to more rules being broken.

 

[boulderjohn]

What rule? Where is it officially stated? By whom?

A rule that is broken by many thousands of people every year is not much of a rule, and it provides no guidance for future decisions.

I used to stay in a place in Cozumel that had a good snorkeling are on its shore. It featured an arch about 7 feet down. People with crude snorkeling skills would frequently dive down and swim through it. Do you honestly believe that an open water diver with 1,000 dives cannot negotiate that overhead environment safely.

The class does not say it is OK to violate the rules. It says there is no such rule. It replaces it with something a little more reasonable, something that people can actually follow. Something that gives them some guidance as to the difference between a 7 foot deep arch and a cave.

---------- Post added July 6th, 2014 at 07:58 AM ----------

Rather it is to change the "You cannot do this EVER" with "You need this much training, experience, and equipment preparation before you can do it". PADI made the foolish decision to fake it with the Cavern and Wreck specialty course because they used to not have a tech side so they had to get the money somehow, so they violated their own standards in designing the Wreck and Cavern course. They no longer have to do that.

What standard did they violate? Be specific. When did they create those courses? Was it before or after they made their original cave diving course in the mid 1970s?

"No overhead environments without appropriate training, equipment and experience" is a bright line rule that the cave community long ago recognized. Yes this is also in their own interests as cave training organizations. The question is this: has it somehow worked against safety and diver's enjoyment that they have maintained that bright line distinction?

Where is this rule stated among the cave diving community? I am a member of that community. This course was discussed within a significant portion of that community before it was created. The majority of people felt the extra education was a benefit, and members send pictures and other information to be used in the training materials. Drafts of the course were submitted for comments to the NACD, NSS-CDS, and TDI before it was submitted to PADI. None of them raised any objection.

 

[DogDiver]

This thread should probably should be moved to the Tec forum.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NAM001]

Perhaps I am not readig this with the same view but as i see what is being said. The rule does not have to be a hard written rule. rules are strong positions of caution ect. Its like dont cross the street alone, being told to a 5 yo. Yet the 5yo sees a 15 yo do it and says it is a folish rule and ignores it. When enough 5yo's do that the moms get together and get a stop sign put up because the pandora's box of crossing alone has been opened and they cant cope with it in any other way. The last OW course i sat through had documentation and course content that said the trainee agrees not to go deeper than 60 ft, dive in overheads, dive with in NDL and use no gasses other than air till trained to do so. For a student those are rules. The class defines swim throughs as overheads. Makes me think of the snorke issue. The last class the instructor said that the student had to wear a snorkle for the course, but once the course was over you probably wont use one. To the student a snorkle is the standard and the instructor said it was a stupid standard. Once again it is the students perception ofn the rules and not the makers of the rules that counts.

What rule? Where is it officially stated? By whom?

A rule that is broken by many thousands of people every year is not much of a rule, and it provides no guidance for future decisions.

I used to stay in a place in Cozumel that had a good snorkeling are on its shore. It featured an arch about 7 feet down. People with crude snorkeling skills would frequently dive down and swim through it. Do you honestly believe that an open water diver with 1,000 dives cannot negotiate that overhead environment safely.

The class does not say it is OK to violate the rules. It says there is no such rule. It replaces it with something a little more reasonable, something that people can actually follow. Something that gives them some guidance as to the difference between a 7 foot deep arch and a cave.

---------- Post added July 6th, 2014 at 07:58 AM ----------

What standard did they violate? Be specific. When did they create those courses? Was it before or after they made their original cave diving course in the mid 1970s?
Where is this rule stated among the cave diving community? I am a member of that community. This course was discussed within a significant portion of that community before it was created. The majority of people felt the extra education was a benefit, and members send pictures and other information to be used in the training materials. Drafts of the course were submitted for comments to the NACD, NSS-CDS, and TDI before it was submitted to PADI. None of them raised any objection.

 

[boulderjohn]

Perhaps I am not readig this with the same view but as i see what is being said. The rule does not have to be a hard written rule. rules are strong positions of caution ect. Its like dont cross the street alone, being told to a 5 yo. Yet the 5yo sees a 15 yo do it and says it is a folish rule and ignores it. When enough 5yo's do that the moms get together and get a stop sign put up because the pandora's box of crossing alone has been opened and they cant cope with it in any other way. The last OW course i sat through had documentation and course content that said the trainee agrees not to go deeper than 60 ft, dive in overheads, dive with in NDL and use no gasses other than air till trained to do so. For a student those are rules. The class defines swim throughs as overheads. Makes me think of the snorke issue. The last class the instructor said that the student had to wear a snorkle for the course, but once the course was over you probably wont use one. To the student a snorkle is the standard and the instructor said it was a stupid standard. Once again it is the students perception ofn the rules and not the makers of the rules that counts.

PADI standards are generally for courses only. Students are required to have snorkels, and instructors are required to have them as well. There are no standards for the diving that anyone does outside of the course, though, stupid or not. There is not one word in PADI standards that says a snorkel must be worn outside of instruction. The same is true of overhead environments. They are not allowed in instructional situations except for very specific instances. That is even true in the Introduction to Overhead Environments course. The course teaches that some very basic overhead environments are acceptable without specialized training, but the course itself cannot have any actual dives in an overhead environment. In addition, the content must clearly state that the course does not provide any training designed to prepare students to dive in overhead environments. It simply goes into the different kinds of overhead environments, explains why most require specialized training, and tells the student how to get that specialized training.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

PADI standards are generally for courses only. Students are required to have snorkels, and instructors are required to have them as well. There are no standards for the diving that anyone does outside of the course, though, stupid or not. There is not one word in PADI standards that says a snorkel must be worn outside of instruction. The same is true of overhead environments. They are not allowed in instructional situations except for very specific instances. That is even true in the Introduction to Overhead Environments course. The course teaches that some very basic overhead environments are acceptable without specialized training, but the course itself cannot have any actual dives in an overhead environment. In addition, the content must clearly state that the course does not provide any training designed to prepare students to dive in overhead environments. It simply goes into the different kinds of overhead environments, explains why most require specialized training, and tells the student how to get that specialized training.

They could get all that knowledge for free on here. No course needed.

 

[Frosty]

beanojones-I get where you are coming from 100%.
I do though feel that there are wrecks and there are "wrecks"
Basicly you have to start wreck diving somewhere.
I would NEVER advocate for a milisecond a person without specific dive training get involved in a dive where a rec reel is deemed nessisary.
BUT-there are wrecks that have been specifically created for OW and AOW trained divers.
In the case of EVERY dive I have personally been involved in the boat is sub 100 feet. In every case it is clearly spelled out what areas are strictly out of bounds. Its also spelled out that OW qualified divers are basicly diving a" reef that happens to be boat shaped" so no touching and no going in PERIOD. Advanced divers are allowed to do swimthroughs with a clearly visible entry and exit point.WITH a dm at either end of the group.
I have to tell you that in those controlled conditions you very quickly remove forever the risk of 80% of divers wanting to do a serious wreck (they are happy to say its not for them) and those that show a real interest (like me) are actively encouraged to get the appropriate training.
which I am.
BUT there is NO way I would be spending my money on gear upgrades and training if I hadn;t gotten a good taste to see if i was happy in an overhead enviroment.