Two German divers drown at Gran Cenote Kalimba at Tulum

[CptTightPants21]

I ask my buddies "how much gas you got?" fairly regularly actually (once or twice a dive at critical junctures mostly). Its no different than asking "wanna take this jump?" or something like that. Hard to be on the same page on a dive if you dont share information both - hard info like gas and soft info like "stick to the mainline here?" or "this is smaller than I want"

I don't think asking "ok on gas still?" has anything to do with trust at all - at least for the people I dive with.

Oh No, don't misunderstand me. That is perfectly fine and I do the same. He's talking about demanding to see a buddies pressure gauge every dive after he turns it.

 

[Hiszpan]

Oh No, don't misunderstand me. That is perfectly fine and I do the same. He's talking about demanding to see a buddies pressure gauge every dive after he turns it.

That's only your interpretation.

 

[oceancurrent]

Three of us took a 10 day zero to hero course in September 2000. Steve Gerrard was our instructor. We started the course with 1000's of dives and open water instructor certs in our backgrounds. Of course we learned quickly that none of that experience amounted to diddly squat in the cave environment. The point I'm making is that we were very comfortable in the water and Steve said he sensed that early on. He pushed us harder than he would most students and we ate everything he threw at us up. We were going from 7 am to 11 pm every day with book work even during mealtimes. It was very intense. He started adding a single stage on our dives on day 6 and by the last two days we double staged. I started the course thinking I knew everything and graduated knowing I still only knew a fraction of what I could know. We got full cave cert cards from NACD, IANTD and NSS-CDS. One of the best 10 days in my life!

Ahh... Fine memories. Thank you for sharing. [My full cave class was a remarkably similar experience to yours.]

 

[CptTightPants21]

That's only your interpretation.

What are you talking about?

Whether it happened or not, it makes me want to change the way I dive by actually checking the air of my buddy at the turn as opposed to just accepting his "turn" sign. Prevention is better than a cure.
Whether my usual cave diving buddy (20 times more experienced in caves than me) accepts that or not, remains an open question...

Your last sentence even indicates you did not think your very experienced buddy would be open to this practice.

 

[MrBigfins]

What are you talking about?



Your last sentence even indicates you did not think your very experienced buddy would be open to this practice.

He didn't say he would demand to see the guage, just that he would want actual air pressure instead of just a turn signal. This could be as simple as a wetnote or hand signal that I have xxx psi and partner responds with I have xxx psi.

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

When I’m getting close to turning a dive in a cave - and we have come upon a navigation decision or small cave - I can choose to respond with gas remaining to continue forward. That gives us a clear idea how much gas we each have to continue or turn the dive.

 

[Hiszpan]

When I’m getting close to turning a dive in a cave - and we have come upon a navigation decision or small cave - I can choose to respond with gas remaining to continue forward. That gives us a clear idea how much gas we each have to continue or turn the dive.

That's how I was taught too.

 

[rjack321]

When I’m getting close to turning a dive in a cave - and we have come upon a navigation decision or small cave - I can choose to respond with gas remaining to continue forward. That gives us a clear idea how much gas we each have to continue or turn the dive.

exactly, it makes very little sense to put in a jump if you'll hit turn pressure halfway through installing it.

for these two divers something as simple as inquiring each other about how much gas they had when they swapped the camera back and forth would likely have avoided this outcome

 

[Norwegian Cave Diver]

Here is what I struggle with... they are both diving stages and using/sharing a camera and they drop and clip off their respective stages at less than 1/3rds. And I’m ok with that if you analyze that from the perspective of knowing that they are using a camera and know they are travailing slower than normal. That would leave them with plenty of gas to exit on their return. Now they switch to their Sidemount gas. Yes they have twice as much gas to dive compared to the single stage gas. Why doesn’t one of them realize their gas supply in time to turn the dive and return to their stage tanks? Keep in mind that the difference between 1/3 gas consumed and half is really not that much gas. Add to that they are diving down stream and suddenly half + is not enough to return. How do two stage cave certified divers both let their gas deplete to that level? I just can’t get past that issue.

 

[Jiminy]

From the evidence we have it would appear that filming became the number one priority instead of diving