Deep Diving on Air

[VooDooGasMan]

Well another diver in training died looks like instructors for new divers need some training, or is that all you can do is whine your way on post.

If a Deep Air thread can go without NWG or BJ arguing over how much they are against and there way is the best. But they wont let it go long enough to let it happen.

Well I know one thing I have enough experience in deep air diving, I do it almost every day I can and in the last 6 months I have been doing a bounce dive like I did today. Done several deep air dives in a day, and I clean my gear, fill tanks, and come on SB and constantly am reading how BJ puts me down on other threads and post. To be honest from reading his post he does not know how to dive all that well.

It does not bother me in the least bit, I do Deep Air dives cause they are very easy for me and the most fun I get out of diving besides Spearing and collecting seafood.

 

[Akimbo]

Let's look at the terms you used.

1. "Experimental" refers to innovative methods and suggests some kind of review of the experimental methods being tested with an eye toward seeking refinement and improvement. I have seen nothing like that here. You are talking about old methods taht used to be done decades ago. All we hear now about it is "go deep and have fun." …

And going deep and have fun isn’t what tech divers do?

I was proposing the “Experimental” moniker to broaden the discussions since similar discipline and discourse is appropriate. Advanced certainly, but not necessarily widely accepted or even tried.

Say some inventive new diver comes up with the idea to use a cryogenic source for diver gas storage. As near as I can tell the concept hasn’t gotten any attention in over 40 years. That does not mean the concept isn’t valid, just not ready for prime time. Auguste Denayrouze (20,000 Leagues fame) invented the demand regulator for divers in 1865, not Émile Gagnan or Jacques Cousteau. It was not a successful product because a lot of other pieces of the puzzle weren’t available. With practical guidance, perhaps now is the time. Of course a diver could carry enough gas to go into saturation so does that mean we should ban it?

For all I know there is somebody out there that can turn an iPod into a gas chromatograph and wants to adapt it to some water wings. Experimental, yes. Off the mark, sure. A breakthrough if done well… heck yes sign me up!

…There was a lot of experimenting done with technical diving over the past few decades, and the results are in. That's why the tech diving protocols are so close to being uniform across all agencies. For example, in the 1970s Sheck Exley examined the data on cave deaths as well as the practices and gear with which he and his friends were experimenting and came up with protocols that are still pretty much intact today. One of those protocols is the rejection of diving to depths beyond the diver's level of training……

Results are in… your joking right? What we have is a long list of things that can be executed with poor results and a few that work better. That is like saying we have an integrated circuit with three transistors, job done. Come on man, recreational diving is in the Stone Age and will stay there with thinking like this. There is always a better way.

…Can you describe the kind of experimental processes being used with regard to deep bounce dives on air? …

More like techniques in that limited arena. Improved decompression algorithms to support repeated short duration no-D dives would be one, improvements to operational technique would be another. It won’t be long before ROVs will be as affordable as Sat Nav was when it was introduced. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of dozens of ways they could make bounce dives safer and more productive… and fun.

… 2. "Controversial" in this case seems to mean the methods that were rejected by research over the last decades, including the rejection of diving to depths beyond the diver's level of training. …

That is one interpretation, but wrong. Short duration no-decompression dives (sometimes repetitive) with minimal equipment burden is an appropriate solution for some spearfishing environments, search and salvage, and dive site surveys to name a few. Like all diving, there are a number of techniques that have proven successful and minimize the risk factors. Pretending that dives like this won’t happen if the training gods condemn it will only cause dangerous lessons to be re-learned the a hard way.

… 3. "Well-regarded" was my term, which you quoted. In using that term I really meant anything any sane person would agree is an agency. I wanted to exclude a bogus agency any idiot can form in the next two minutes by stringing some words together. For example, there is an agency called Scuba Divers of America. It consists of one person, and he formed the agency so he could continue to instruct after NAUI kicked him out. It is a total scam designed to fleece unsuspecting students out of their money and give them a worthless certification. I am talking about anything other than that sort of thing. …

I quoted it because the diving training agencies are not held in very high esteem in most circles I travel in — recreational, commercial, or military. Citing them as authorities isn’t a very convincing argument.

See part two:

 

[Akimbo]

Continued

… A legitimate agency has to have insurance. It can't just get scuba insurance by sending in a check. The insurance company will check to make sure the agency has legitimacy, and in doing so it will check its standards. I know that when UTD was formed, it had trouble convincing its insurer that its OW course was insurable because it did not include CESA.

I appreciate that. However that can be just as much a hindrance to good training and safe diving as an advantage. It is certainly an impediment to progress. Insurance is about actuaries and financial risk analysis, not underwater operations risk analysis. The same problem exists in the commercial offshore diving environment supplemented by a healthy dose of eye-watering operating costs. That results in a huge incentive to do things the same way they were the last time instead of finding a safer and/or more efficient way.

I also appreciate that some types of diving are too unusual to justify a course or make money at teaching. Most of all, modern training agencies tend to adopt the lower common denominators. They are the last to teach innovation, methods to extend limits, or develop them. That isn’t their business model.

That does not mean that divers will not have a reason to perform dives outside of sanctioned conventions. It does not matter if the reason is fun, profit, or an adrenalin rush. What matters is these dives have, are, and will continue to be performed around the world. There are plenty of old limits from decades ago that we have blown past and are consider normal today. There are plenty that are outside my personal acceptable risk level.

It would be foolish for me to tell technical training agencies that they are murdering people by encouraging them to make mixed gas dives without a diving bell below 50 Meters, which is illegal for commercial divers in the North Sea. It is also foolish for them to tell divers that it is suicide to perform some types of dives even though it has been done for 60 years and is common in many parts of the world.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

So is it possible to not to have NWG or BJ close this thread from derailing it like all the rest. Also can they refrain from the next Deep Air or Bounce Dive thread.

As gordon put it, this is in the right section, and I am for a section by itself for DaleC reasons and Akimbo and hale and lowviz and hank and all the rest that can evolve in knowledge of this type of diving.

A rebreather diver died a student died must I go on, If I have not said this once I said it a million times

DIVINGS DANEROUS

Every one dies in diving for every reason and they know what that is on there last breath.

 

[Akimbo]

... I can understand that exceptionally trained, experienced and qualified divers such as yourself and Brett Gilliam have no difficulty with this style of diving. Folks like the ones we've been reading about in the A&I forum recently, however, do ... as evidenced by the recent deaths and injuries they inflicted on themselves attempting to dive that way…

Gee thanks. I never thought of myself in such lofty terms. But it is also obvious that it is not a very exclusive club. There are tons of people here with experience and skill that I constantly learn from.

The vast majority of reports in the Accidents and Incidents forum are in shallow water diving in pretty normal circumstances. The accidents that occur in more demanding environments (deep, cold, nasty seas, various overheads) will always be higher risk and deserve more discussion as a learning exercise for all. Don’t confuse the size of the thread with frequency. I read them in anticipation of learning something as I believe most do.

I think it is fair to say that this discourse in not nearly as productive as the effort justifies. The question is not who sucks, is an egomaniac, incompetent, or god’s gift but how can the conversation be made more productive.

 

[Gilldiver]

30-40 minutes at 60ft on an al80 is not what I call an average diver..

OK, I should have said 20-25 minutes to give a SAC of around 1, a 30-35 min dive at 60 on an 80 would be .6 to .7 which would be respectable for any diver.

But the fact is that unless you have a larger tank, NITROX buys you little if you are a resort 2 dive a day type, especially if it is one dive in the morning and one in the afternoon, as it is tank volume not a NDL that will call your dive. When the resorts and boats figured that out and that many/most divers didn't understand how it all worked, the resistance to NITROX went away and they made money selling NITROX.

 

[Tigerman]

well, 60ft is ow limits though. Venture below that and your NDL will start to decrease faster than your consumption. Providing your sac isn't quite as high as 1' from the boat deck that is

Edit: Quick check of my log says mines .5ish on tropical dives btw and thats pretty average to the divers on my latest dive trips (to resorts, oh the horror). That said, it seems my op of choice tend to attract a bit more "serious" divers than many others. I do see boats with people drinking vodka shots in the SI in the same area :shocked2:

But yeah, in the <60ft range youre more likely to be limited by volume than NDL. Youll need to be diving a VERY square profile to 60ft to push NDL on an al80.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I think it is fair to say that this discourse in not nearly as productive as the effort justifies. The question is not who sucks, is an egomaniac, incompetent, or god&#8217;s gift but how can the conversation be made more productive.

Well, when you start referring to sport diving instructors as "merit badge" peddlars ... I'm not sure anything can make the conversation more productive. Once it devolves to terms like that, I have a hard time thinking you're interested in productive.

You claim you're interested in identifying problems and analyzing solutions ... and yet, Boulderjohn in post #4 identified the most significant problems facing the deep air diver ... and you made no attempt to engage him in a conversation about them. So I'm having a hard time seeing what you mean by "productive" ... unless, like VooDooGasMan you're just trying to dictate who can and can't have an opinion on a public forum.

Reasonable people don't belittle those who offer differing opinions ... or tell them to go away. So to answer your question about how the conversation can be more productive, perhaps it starts with how you choose to converse with them.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DaleC]

I'm going to try an experiment, let's see what happens...

 

[FL-Jack]

During a recent dive trip I had the opportunity to dive to a depth below the recreational limit. The person who took me has had experience diving to 225 ft and below on air. The dive itself was uneventful and nothing special except for the thrill of going deep. Narcosis was not that much more intense than at 135 ft. While I don't advocate diving to below 180 ft on air(I would not have done it without someone experienced) I am curious how many people push the limits of diving with air on a regular basis. I saw several people diving below the rec dive limit on this trip, something I have not seem much of in the past.

The only thing that came as a surprise to me 200 ft below Kosrae a few weeks ago was how very bright it was and how much coral was still below me. It would be very easy to reach 400 ft and 0 PSI there...! The water was so clear I could see the boat and a guy leaning over the side looking down.

That said, my thoughts are that if someone wants to go down to extreme depths with only a PADI OW certification and two dives under the belt on regular air, more power to them. It is not my job to care for them and someones own personal choices do not affect me.

I am here to point and laugh....just as I would expect everyone to do to me if I ever meet Poseidon doing something stupid as hell underwater.