A Little Worried....

[IndigoBlue]

... In 25 years as an engineer, one thing I've learned is that if it can fail, it will...

That is exactly right. There are several ways to deal with this.

Keep your gear serviced, at least annually.

Practice OOA drills with your buddy, before you go into the water.

Stick close to your buddy throughout your dive.

Make sure you are always neutrally buoyant while underwater, so that if you do have an equipment failure, and your buddy has disappeared, you can perform a successful ESA simply by kicking up, creating positive buoyancy after a few feet of rising.

Dont dive deeper than 50 ft, until you have become really proficient at scuba. From 50 ft depth, you can normally always see the surface, and easily ESA to it.

 

[beir]

I know how you feel. Being new to scuba and having very few dives under my belt, I find myself getting more aware, thus more concerned about my safety, as I learn more.

While I'm glad I'm becoming more aware of the risks I am taking, it is a bit scary to think I could leave my wife and unborn child high and dry if something went wrong. Sometimes diving seems a bit selfish of me I guess, but I really enjoy it. It's an outlet for me.

I'm actually signed up to take my Nitrox class this Friday, which I'm looking forward to.

 

[saintsfan]

I own a pony bottle and rarely use it,I actually find it causes other problems,different weight distribution,extra hose/reg to deal with not to mention extra setup and take down,not to mention setting up for multi dives taking on and off then you can actually forget to turn it on,last but not least I find I kind of use it as a crutch to come up with less air.I now use it only on deep dives.wait until you have at least a dozen or so dives then see if you feel more comfortable with diving.you live close enough to me I will even let you try it out.

That is exactly right. There are several ways to deal with this.

Keep your gear serviced, at least annually.

Practice OOA drills with your buddy, before you go into the water.

Stick close to your buddy throughout your dive.

Make sure you are always neutrally buoyant while underwater, so that if you do have an equipment failure, and your buddy has disappeared, you can perform a successful ESA simply by kicking up, creating positive buoyancy after a few feet of rising.

Dont dive deeper than 50 ft, until you have become really proficient at scuba. From 50 ft depth, you can normally always see the surface, and easily ESA to it.

 

[jbd]

Diving is considerably safer than at least one activity that we all do almost everyday---getting out on the road in traffic. Tens of thousands of people are killed or seriously injured every year and yet we all hop in a car and go without giving it much thought.

When reading accident reports keep in mind that in many cases we never find out what really caused the death or injury. Like most other "accidents" its a chain of events that starts small and snowballs to the point of being out of control. Trying to figure out what the first small event was in the chain and all the other little things that happened before going out of control is very hard to do.

IMHO the key to safe diving is to think about what you are going to and know why you are going to do it. The single most important piece of life support equipment is not your regulator, rather, it is that mass of gray matter between ones ears.

 

[squicker]

Unfortunatly the best way to keep yourself safe while diving is training, lots of it, and training to cope in emergency, which requires that you have someone to put you in an emergeny situation.

Catch 99 isnt it. Basically as an OW or AOW diver you dont have the training to do more than blow bubbles and look at the fish and to be honest you could include most people up to instructors in that.

Im going to get flamed here but its true. Every dive company I have come across is more interested in getting you qualified and getting your money than giving you enough dive time to get some exp.

Best advice I can give you is to practice your emergency procedures until its instinctual, plan your dives, stay away from wrecks and wreck dives, dont take chances and dont get over confident. Do that and you'll enjoy your diving.

 

[oceancrest67]

It is a good thing to look at the grim reality of accidents and mistakes...it keeps up a healthy perspective and a healthy sense of caution...but to constantly worry about it would only be a detriment.

I have been diving for about ten years in all kinds of environments...I find that experience and continued training help round out one's skills, knowledge and concerns. I believe it comes down to the individual. I tend to be a naturally cautious person...and so, I look at diving and my dive training from this stand point...the more training, the more experience, well maintained equipment...all help to reduce the potential of something happening.

Often, mistakes and accidents occur due to impatience, bloated egos, lack of foresight, poor set up, poorly maintained equipment, peer pressure, lack of training, lack of experience, and bad dive buddies. If you ever take a class in cavern / cave diving...most cave accidents over the years happened due to lack of training and preparation...lack of buddy discipline...lack of redundancy...letting egos stray from diving protocol.

Lastly, I strongly recommend becoming a member of DAN and purchasing diving insurance.

Just my 02.

 

[Web Monkey]

Actually my reasoning for the pony is not really reasoning, more of a "hell, why not, it will make me feel better" type of thing, and an inherent mistrust of mechanical stuff. In 25 years as an engineer, one thing I've learned is that if it can fail, it will. I really don't have any trust issues with buddies (I was joking about that...) though I was buddied up with some folks in OW class who I wouldn't trust as far as I could kick them. But that is manageable.

Anyway, I think that after I do some more diving my aprehension will subside and the pony thing will go to the back burner.

Equipment does fail, although not often. Sometimes, it's human error of one sort or another, sometimes it's poor maintenance or a tank full of crud. Sometimes it's an actual mechanical failure.

In any case, a redundant air supply isn't a crutch, it's just insurance. While you can do an emergency ascent from 50 ft if you're out of air, it's nicer (and I suspect safer) if you can just grab the regulator from your pony and do a normal ascent.

I plan on keeping my body for a long time, and if a couple of hundred dollars and a little extra work will get me permanent insurance against rapid depressurization, I'm doing it.

Pony bottles seem to be a hot topic around here, but I've never seen a valid reason how an extra 19 or 30 Cu Ft of air and completely redundant regulator could be bad. Maybe it's just a macho thing.

The rest of the arguments against using it are mostly equipment configuration issues. For example, if you sling it in front instead of behind you (several companies make clips to hold it), turning it on or off or giving it to another diver becomes trivial. Also, although it does throw your weighting off, it only does this for a few minutes until you figure out how much you're off by and shift your weights around as needed.

Terry

 

[mccabejc]

The comparison between diving and driving on the freeway is well taken. But think about this:

Make believe that instead of driving cars for the last 50 years, everyone had been spending the same amount of time diving. Would there have been more or less fatalities (percentage-wise)? Of course, in this analogy you'd have to ignore the fact that a large portion of the driving public would be mentally or physically incapable of scuba diving. But I think you get the point.

I don't know the answer, but my hunch is that the diving number would be significantly higher.

In no way am I saying that's bad. It's probably significantly higher risk, but if divers accept that, like I do, then that's fine. I think we all agree that we should manage that additional risk by keeping our skills current and never get complacent.

 

[jdelprete]

I have been diving since 1995 and my coworker and fince just got certified. He and he classmatesd are finding comfort diving with someone like msyelf with years of diving, I also know the area very well. Find a group of peopel or just a few and remember your own rules of engagement for diving.

New guy, recently got my OW in May, have only dived once after that, only because I haven't had the opportunity. That should change this weekend if my sinuses clear up. Damn Santa Ana winds....

Anyway, one thing I shouldn't have done is to look thru the Scuba Diving Magazine's "Lessons for Life" part of their training section, where they recount numerous dive accidents and fatalities. Same goes for the Accidents section of this board, especially where so many people talk about friends who have died while diving. Wow. Good way to scare the crap out of a new guy. Of course, I realize that by going thru the lessons learned from all of these I become a better diver. As a matter of fact, I'm developing a Dive Buddy Checklist from all of these incidents which I'm going to laminate and carry with me whenever I dive. And there ain't NO buddy of mine who isn't going to go thru each and every one of the items !!!! DROP AND GIVE ME 20 !!!!

And I'll probably buy a pony bottle setup pretty soon, too.

But when people say things like "diving is the safest of the 'risk' sports", isn't that like saying "flying a purple polka dotted dirigible on the third Sunday of the month is the safest way to fly"? There's just not that large a population of divers, I would suspect. Maybe I'll join DAN and see what they've got. I just wonder how safe diving is from the standpoint of number of accidents relative to total person-hours underwater, or something like that.

Anyway, I guess I have a healthy fear that will keep me extra cautious, and probably a pretty good buddy, since I'll take it VERY seriously. But how many buddies will I find who will want to stay at less than 10 feet on our dives?

 

[ScubaGoddess1]

I agree that you should continue in your scuba training and do the advanced course. The more training and diving you do, the more you learn. It's truly all knowledge and experience. I continually learn from other divers and learn from my own mistakes. Thankfully, I haven't made any big ones. But as they say, knowledge is power...and so is diving experience.

ScubaGoddess