Scuabamau diving accident

[Christi]

Well, we seem to be learning that some unnamed shops do routinely take customers on dives like this. I am feeling like a real babe in the woods here, but I am quite surprised.

Maybe there are some that do it routinely - but certainly not all of us - and certainly not planned to 300+ feet.

Just a clarification of a fact Ann - there was at least one customer on the boat diving a different plan with another DM - it was not only the three of them - and for further clarification, Heath is/was not a shop employee, but a very close friend of Opal's.

 

[flots am]

And now somebody posts that Scubamau and supposedly other dive shops on Cozumel routinely dive beyond rec limits on air on a "wink wink... nudge nudge"... as long as you know the secret knock or handshake.

People do deep dives all over the world, and many are "unsafe by design", and many are done from dive boats, however the dives I've been aware of have always been "unofficial" as in "be back on the boat before we leave"

It's really not an unusual event. They're not "secret" and usually just involve some friends who want to quietly go off and do whatever it is that makes them happy.

flots

 

[Jackie]

I think the point was there was not a customer on the DIVE. At least this one. No one has come foward to name dive ops who take customers out on the 150' plus dives on a routine basis.

In terms of who does this and how often I am reminded of the adage " there are old divers and bold divers but no old, bold divers...."

 

[cruiser]

Okay am I retarded or what?

No, you're not retarded, just reached a new level of awareness.

 

[boulderjohn]

In terms of who does this and how often I am reminded of the adage " there are old divers and bold divers but no old, bold divers...."

I think the problem is that this is not necessarily true. If you do "bold" dives within some degree of reason, you will be OK the vast majority of the times you do them. That is because usually nothing goes wrong during a scuba dive, so the fact that you have allowed no margin for error brings no harm. Divers who do this sort of thing routinely brag about it and make it sound exciting. There was one such poster on one of the threads related to this incident (maybe this one--I can't remember), talking about the fact that he does it because he feels so thrilled to be alive every time he reaches the surface. There is another such diver very active on ScubaBoard right now, doing everything he can to get people to follow along with this practice. he started threads and made posts that have been deleted because of their clear advocacy of dangerous practices, which is a violation of ScubaBoard rules.

So, no, diving like this is not at all 100% fatal, and those who survive glamorize the practice and suck others in. Eventually, though, something does go wrong, and with no safety margin, people die.

 

[scubafanatic]

I think the point was there was not a customer on the DIVE. At least this one. No one has come foward to name dive ops who take customers out on the 150' plus dives on a routine basis.

In terms of who does this and how often I am reminded of the adage " there are old divers and bold divers but no old, bold divers...."

honestly, the 130' recreational limit is pretty much a prehistoric legacy figure that was pretty much pulled out of someone's azz long ago, an arbitrary number that some of us don't treat with religious fevor. The key word is 'routine'. Fortunately, there are dive ops that are capable of making reasonable judgement calls about risks/observed diver competency. I was on a liveaboard to the Bahamas a few years ago where a DM took a guy who was celebrating his 68th birthday by honoring his request to do an AL80 air 'bounce' dive to 168' ft deep...'cause he was turning 68 that day......last August in Cozumel, I did some deep/solo dives once the dive op was OK with my skills...the DM would cruise the shallow tops of walls hunting lionfish, and I'd be down deep, doin' my slow cruisin...and we'd check on each other periodically. I was actually encouraged to go to 150' on one wall dive to view a preserved fragment of 'old growth forest' that had survived the devastation of Wilma in 2005. DM stayed well above, I went to 150', as we both blew along in a modest current, paralleling each other. I'm comfortable I have a handle on what I can handle, and appreciate it when the DM isn't a nanny hanging like a leech off my leg. So if you demonstrate you actually do have a clue, sometimes you can be cut a fair amount of slack and not treated like a pod person who's installed his reg backwards on his tank!

 

[scubafanatic]

Okay am I retarded or what?

We just spent 200 hundred pages with people saying "how could they have dived this way? Why would they have dived this way? Who dives this way? I can't understand people would dive this way? What were they thinking, nobody dives this way... etc..."

And now somebody posts that Scubamau and supposedly other dive shops on Cozumel routinely dive beyond rec limits on air on a "wink wink... nudge nudge"... as long as you know the secret knock or handshake.

So nobody could understand the accident and nobody could believe dives like that even were going on, and now 490 posts later everybody is on the other side of this and says this is common?

well, here's another eye opener for ya......dive shops don't advertise all their trips to the general public......many operate 'by invitation only', meaning they will have 2 sets of trips...the ones on their WWW site/dry boards in the shop.......and those reserved for favored customers......and you will go through their screening process to see if you are 'invite-worthy'. They want clear evidence you are a quality diver and not anti-social or otherwise disruptive/high-maintainance/special ed. If you are not hearing about such trips, or are not taken on advanced dives, it may mean you have been found wanting in certain areas, at least for the time being.

 

[Crush]

honestly, the 130' recreational limit is pretty much a prehistoric legacy figure that was pretty much pulled out of someone's azz long ago, an arbitrary number that some of us don't treat with religious fevor. The key word is 'routine'... I was actually encouraged to go to 150' on one wall dive...

Yes, a limit of 130 feet is arbitrary in the sense that you can't say that it is that much safer than 140 feet. However, the danger in assuming that there is no "hard limit" at exactly 130 feet is that many divers then assume that an absence of a hard limit means that there is no limit at all - there is simply a boundary to be pushed. Their logic seems to be, as you put it, "the key word is 'routine'" and their conclusion is that, if you practice it regularly you will be OK. The incident in this thread exemplifies what happens to divers with that kind of mentality. First, dive down to 200 feet for bragging rights. Next, since you didn't die, work your way quickly to 250 feet. If you are still alive and not bent, shoot for 300 feet. I am sure that the narc feels good and that you think that you can handle it... Enjoy - that is not my cup of tea. If I want to dive to 300 feet (or 400 feet) I will do it the right way, not the amateur way.

 

[boulderjohn]

The 130 foot limit came about because of two factors. One is that research indicated that dives below that depth increased the likelihood of DCS to the point that decompression stops (and the attendant training) should be required. It was also determined that beyond those depths nitrogen narcosis would almost certainly have an effect on the diver and lead to the possibility of bad decision making, such as continuing downward past the planned depth. (Of course, that never happens, does it?)

 

[Mike]

If you're a 5 star PADI dive shop and you want to both keep your PADI affiliation and take customers below 130 ft how would you have to do it?