Mustard Dave
Contributor
There's a lad I've known for about 18 years. I used to work with him in the estates department at a university, both of us were electricians. We'd been talking about learning to dive for a few years but never got around to it. We were going to do the OW course in the red sea but a broken leg meant I had to put it on hold. In the end, he did the course but I didn't. A couple of years later, I got around to doing it and I have dived a few times with him since then.
At work, he had a reputation for being rough with his work and working in a dangerous manner. The first time I dived after doing my AOW (which I did straight after the OW) was with him. He was great! He did everything by the book and I felt safe with him. I found out later from his stories that he pushes the limits when out with others. There is a quarry in north Wales called Dorothea. it is a bastard to get into without a 4X4 and when you get there, you have to walk down a very steep slope. It is not an organised site unlike other quarries, where they have car parking, shop, food and more importantly rescue boats. It gets a lot of bad press (Google it and you'll see the number of news stories) because quite a lot of people have died in there. At the end of the day it is a freshwater lake with fairly good visibility. However, it is 110 metres deep at one point. This makes it popular with technical divers. There are shelves at shallower depths that are well within recreational limits so it is easy to stay safe. Unfortunately, people push the limits of their training and equipment and become statistics. This is their fault - not the quarry's.
A popular feature of Dorothea is the tunnels. There is one at 22 metres that has plenty of room and is quite short. There is one at the bottom I know little about ad one at 58 metres. Some people visit this tunnel on air, which is beyond the recommended safe limit for oxygen toxicity and well into narcosis territory. My mate has done it with a single 15 litre cylinder and a 15 litre pony.
I have told him he is a ****ing idiot and explained why. At that depth, he will be racking up the deco pretty quick. If he has problems with his back-gas, the pony will not get him through his deco stops and up to the surface. He argues that his buddy is his redundancy, to which I pointed out two divers breathing like rapists at 58 metres in 4 degrees C off the same first stage is not a good idea. After telling me the pony would get him to the surface, but he'll be needing a trip to the hyperbaric chamber, I added, "...or dead, or paralysed, or...".
Last year, I went to Germany with him and some other mates. He drove to the airport and as we were unloading, I spotted his cylinders in the boot. His pony had a crummy reg attached to it. I looked at it and asked what it was. He told me he didn't know. He'd bought the whole set-up second hand off fleabay. I said, "So this kit that's going to get you to the surface from 58 metres, you don't know it's history, you don't know if it's ever been serviced, you don't know if it's cold water rated and you don't even know who made it?'.
What amazes me is he is absolutely loaded. He has thousands in the bank and won't invest in training or equipment. He won't take a twinset to Dorrothea because of the big hill. I will never change his attitude and that's why I don't join him on his suicidal dives.
At work, he had a reputation for being rough with his work and working in a dangerous manner. The first time I dived after doing my AOW (which I did straight after the OW) was with him. He was great! He did everything by the book and I felt safe with him. I found out later from his stories that he pushes the limits when out with others. There is a quarry in north Wales called Dorothea. it is a bastard to get into without a 4X4 and when you get there, you have to walk down a very steep slope. It is not an organised site unlike other quarries, where they have car parking, shop, food and more importantly rescue boats. It gets a lot of bad press (Google it and you'll see the number of news stories) because quite a lot of people have died in there. At the end of the day it is a freshwater lake with fairly good visibility. However, it is 110 metres deep at one point. This makes it popular with technical divers. There are shelves at shallower depths that are well within recreational limits so it is easy to stay safe. Unfortunately, people push the limits of their training and equipment and become statistics. This is their fault - not the quarry's.
A popular feature of Dorothea is the tunnels. There is one at 22 metres that has plenty of room and is quite short. There is one at the bottom I know little about ad one at 58 metres. Some people visit this tunnel on air, which is beyond the recommended safe limit for oxygen toxicity and well into narcosis territory. My mate has done it with a single 15 litre cylinder and a 15 litre pony.
I have told him he is a ****ing idiot and explained why. At that depth, he will be racking up the deco pretty quick. If he has problems with his back-gas, the pony will not get him through his deco stops and up to the surface. He argues that his buddy is his redundancy, to which I pointed out two divers breathing like rapists at 58 metres in 4 degrees C off the same first stage is not a good idea. After telling me the pony would get him to the surface, but he'll be needing a trip to the hyperbaric chamber, I added, "...or dead, or paralysed, or...".
Last year, I went to Germany with him and some other mates. He drove to the airport and as we were unloading, I spotted his cylinders in the boot. His pony had a crummy reg attached to it. I looked at it and asked what it was. He told me he didn't know. He'd bought the whole set-up second hand off fleabay. I said, "So this kit that's going to get you to the surface from 58 metres, you don't know it's history, you don't know if it's ever been serviced, you don't know if it's cold water rated and you don't even know who made it?'.
What amazes me is he is absolutely loaded. He has thousands in the bank and won't invest in training or equipment. He won't take a twinset to Dorrothea because of the big hill. I will never change his attitude and that's why I don't join him on his suicidal dives.