500 psi for two divers?

[TatianaSilva]

Feel free to trust the "professionals" with your life. But realize that the "fix" should they screw up (and boy do they screw up at a rate that would either amuse or terrify you)…might just be a claim by your estate.

There's an excellent chance that if things go sufficiently wrong, you won't be around to yell at them for dropping the ball. The dead don't get to post mean Yelp reviews about how the resort's DM letting them die because they're a newbie and had every reason to trust him/her merits ONE STAR!

well , if i cant trust the DM imagine how much i can trust myself with just 4 dives !

 

[Errol Kalayci]

Tatiana, it seems clear that you are a thinking diver which is great! Unfortunately, many diver's education is lacking. The smart ones like you realize that you are not comfortable and that their is a lot more to learn and skills to improve. Sadly, there are many divers even instructors that are unaware of what they lack or have to large an ego to be open to improvement. I applaud you for asking questions and seeking knowledge, social media is not always the best choice as you have seen by many that hide behind a keyboard and pretend to be more experiences or informed then they are. I would suggest looking for a local GUE community and find some of them to start working with you and introduce you to how and why they do things. There are several great instructors on your side of the pond that can help you. If you lived near me I would offer you a free afternoon of pool time and to walk you through the how and why of how we approach recreational diving to add to your knowledge and hopefully increase your comfort and better equip you on your journey into the undersea world. Having only 4 dives and realizing that you are missing some information and skills that would be beneficial is a credit to you so shame on the ones that have been negative. I have yet to hear anything of benefit come from certain forum posters, some even discourage your from trusting a "professional" but suggest you should listen to them? Keep asking questions, check out gue, keep diving, have fun, take on-line posters opinions with a bottle not just a grain of salt..... and I wish you a lifetime of fun in the underwater world!

 

[Dr. Lecter]

I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Errol's conclusion, in that the OP's statements thus far make me think she'd be an ideal candidate for GUE. As usual, though, the rest of his post gives me a good chuckle.

 

[TN-Steve]

The more I watch and learn, the more I'm becoming convinced that the major rec. training agencies are producing "Underwater Tourists", not "Divers". (There are some instructors who are making divers, but lets face it, it's the exception overall) I know that my knowledge has grown exponentially since I've joined the board. I went through my AOW book again last night, along with my OW book. No real content at all on gas planning, figuring consumption, things like that. There were some guidelines, but not real explanation of HOW to do it for yourself. I've learned that you also have to, in many (most) cases, account for the fact that you ARE your buddies air, and he's got your in case things go sideways.

For me, the book "Diver Down..." by Agne is what really opened my eyes and made me re-evaluate how I though about my dive and dive planning. It didn't sugar coat things, it made it very real to me. It wasn't until I started running numbers that I realized that 2 people on a 80cf tank at 75 feet isn't a good thing. I am seriously looking at a pony bottle, not to dive longer on a given dive, but so that I can keep diving for the rest of my life.

So thanks guys, you're making at least one diver safer on this board. (and I suspect many others as well)

Steve

 

[EFX]

John, the course material isn't the problem, it is the lack of quality instructors in most places. Planning a dive to 30 feet where you kick around for 15 minutes and turn around at 700 psi isn't enough of a dive plan, that would be "how to survive a scuba dive". I just skimmed through the instructor manual real quick and didn't see anything on how to plan contingency air based on divers SAC rates, compensating for your max depth, any of that. That should all be in the dive planning process and unfortunately it almost never is.

Doing a dive to 30 feet and ascending at 700 psi is not enough of a plan? Really?!! But, you're right. We do need to know our SAC rate, i.e. our "Standard Alcohol Comsumption" because after we finish our safe dive with such minimal planning, we can all celebrate and talk about all the bad instructors who got us where we are. Especially, those instructors who can't seem to find the information, if it's there at all, on planning contigency air dives using SAC rates!

 

[tbone1004]

PADI OW Diver has an official max depth of 18m/60ft yeah, DM's taking you below that depth can have their DM revoked IIRC. The turn at 700psi rule works fine for that with an AL80. That gives each diver a SAC of 0.8, with time to ascent, have a 3 minute safety stop, and come up with 200psi. If you aren't explaining why that is recommended and how to calculate that, you are creating something to memorize without understanding why and that is dangerous. Give that same diver an AL63 which is another very common tank, and that number now becomes 900 psi, if they don't know how to calculate that, that doesn't make that a safe dive plan. Will you survive, probably, but that is why it is surviving a dive instead of executing a safe proper dive plan.

This policy was likely put in place for PADI to sell more classes by splitting up basic OW into two different classes and if you look at other agencies you see that their requirements for basic OW are a lot greater than PADI, the acronyms for PADI stand true and good for them for being able to make money at it, but it doesn't mean it's right.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

PADI OW Diver has an official max depth of 18m/60ft yeah, DM's taking you below that depth can have their DM revoked IIRC.

Not even remotely correct, unless you mean during the OW course itself. How do people keep screwing this up so badly?

 

[fire_diver]

Not even remotely correct, unless you mean during the OW course itself. How do people keep screwing this up so badly?

Because people keep confusing "recommended" with "mandatory" and then it gets spread around as gospel.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Because people keep confusing "recommended" with "mandatory" and then it gets spread around as gospel.

Yeah, that's a fair summary of most of the world's problems.

 

[tbone1004]

http://elearning.padi.com/company0/tools/RDP InsforUseMet.pdf

Because PADI says so themselves? Page 7, #10 in the Recreational Dive Planner
Limit your maximum depth to your training and
experience level. As an Open Water Diver, limit
your dives to a maximum depth of 18 metres.


Translates to, if you're a boat captain or DM and someone with a PADI Open Water Diver comes on that charter and the bottom is 21m, if something happens, you bet your ass lawyers are coming back to you asking why an unqualified diver was allowed on that dive and good luck getting PADI's lawyers to back you up because they say 18m is the limit for OW Diver