Drinking & Diving

[billmosel]

When I was learning to dive I was told that drinking and diving was a no no. At that time it made sense because of what was said of dehydration and possibly impair my judgement

When doing liveaboards we are told that our 1st drink meant that we had done our last dive of the day.

My question is..
If I have a beer at lunch (noon) and want to dive at 3:00, how is that going to impair my judgement or dehydrate me?

 

[divermike1011]

It's probably not going to. While some purists may scold you for diving after a single drink I think it's highly unlikely one unit of alcohol would impact your diving at all unless you have some other factor that would be affected by one drink.

Michael

 

[bracko]

indeed it won't.

it's a company policy to mitigate any injury which is alcohol related...

you talk of "1 drink" and it's "effect" 3 hours late, which is completely subjective to the individual.

a 220lbs guy who sinks a 6 pack or more every night, vs. a 90lbs woman who never drinks will react very differently to 1.5 standard drinks, or ~2 if they drank a pint of beer.

so it's a flat rule to eliminate that safety risk. Also I'm sure it'd be an insurance requirement for the liveaboard's underwriters.

 

[fnfalman]

I say buy your own boat and do whatever you want to do.

 

[theduckguru]

On a live aboard, I don't know what other policy you could have. They are serving which is problematic and once you grant 1 drink, someone is going to argue they're fine with 2.

 

[TSandM]

Three hours after one beer, if you are fairly good sized and if you had food with it, your blood alcohol level will be low.

But it will not be zero. And I would not dive with you as a buddy. Nitrogen is bad enough.

And one beer will have an effect on your hydration status, because unlike caffeine, alcohol is a powerful enough inhibitor of normal fluid retention processes that the net effect of an alcoholic beverage is fluid loss.

 

[Kilili]

Not the point. Rules are rules. Conform, get them changed, or do your business elsewhere.That would pretty much eliminate most liveaboards, though.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

For those who have been on liveaboards with such drinking rules...
How late and how much will the crew allow a customer to drink at night?

I can see how drinking too much or too late the night before...and then waking up to do an early morning dive might not be a good idea. In fact, depending on several different factors, it could be worse than having one beer at noon and then diving 3 hours later.

 

[Doubler]

Very good point Bubble. I have seen people get hammered on a liveaboard, drinking to 1 or 2 am and make the first dive in the morning with nary a word said.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Very good point Bubble. I have seen people get hammered on a liveaboard, drinking to 1 or 2 am and make the first dive in the morning with nary a word said.

The other thing I was wondering about has to do with the interaction of alcohol and whatever anti-seasickness med that a diver might be taking. Are most divers on a liveaboard trip aware of this?

I'm prone to seasickness, so this means that I'll almost certainly be dosing with meclizine...and not drinking any alcoholic beverages.

I wonder how many people consider this prior to deciding to drink beer/wine/liquor on a liveaboard.
I think about this whenever I see divers running around with a scopolamine patch behind their ear and a beer in their hand. I suppose it would be OK (from a diving perspective) if the person wasn't going to be diving anymore until the boat reached the dock. It might amplify or change the side effect profile of the anti-seasickness med, though.