Recently I was diving in a warm destination doing some pretty deep dives. These dives require we carry 3 al80 bailouts with trimix and deco gas.
I have been dealing with the same shop for a while and the service has been great. As with all my deep diving I work up from shallower to deeper over the course of a few days. The manager of the shop who is excellent BTW, takes my gas requirements for the following day and the next morning they are always waiting for us ready to analyse.
After a day of diving I gave my gas line up requirement to the manager (not the owner) for the following day,
Then the owner of the shop comes up and says "mind if I join you guys tomorrow" I say sure, he is RB certified for the type of diving we were doing (so I thought). I go get showered and changed and plan to meet my dive buddy back at the shop then go for supper. Back at the shop the manager tells me the owner has changed the gas line up significantly. (I might have said some expletives at this point), I questioned him about it and he said that when I dive with him, he is liable and he chose the gases he would use. I said I was quite upset about his arbitrary substitution and I would rather he didn't dive with us and revert back to my original choices.
It was after my buddy and I completed a very enjoyable deep dive and I ran some numbers on multideco did I begin to realise the impact if we had not challenged his gas substitution. He had substituted an intermediate deco mix of 32% nitrox with a trimix 12/55!!! (On what planet is that a sane choice?) This would have resulted in an additional 55 minutes on bailout and required 136 cuft of intermediate bailout gas vs 64cuft on my plan. We we carrying 80s so I would have needed an extra tank to make it home on bailout!
I have not spoken to the owner since I came to this realisation since that was my last day there and he was away from the shop the next day.
I want to talk to him about this as I consider him a friend but I am so puzzled and angry I don't even know where to begin. One of my first thoughts is that although he is an OC trimix instructor he may not actually have the CCR knowledge to understand what the consequences of his actions could have been. Can anyone experienced in CCR trimix suggest a plausible reason for making such a switch?
I have been dealing with the same shop for a while and the service has been great. As with all my deep diving I work up from shallower to deeper over the course of a few days. The manager of the shop who is excellent BTW, takes my gas requirements for the following day and the next morning they are always waiting for us ready to analyse.
After a day of diving I gave my gas line up requirement to the manager (not the owner) for the following day,
Then the owner of the shop comes up and says "mind if I join you guys tomorrow" I say sure, he is RB certified for the type of diving we were doing (so I thought). I go get showered and changed and plan to meet my dive buddy back at the shop then go for supper. Back at the shop the manager tells me the owner has changed the gas line up significantly. (I might have said some expletives at this point), I questioned him about it and he said that when I dive with him, he is liable and he chose the gases he would use. I said I was quite upset about his arbitrary substitution and I would rather he didn't dive with us and revert back to my original choices.
It was after my buddy and I completed a very enjoyable deep dive and I ran some numbers on multideco did I begin to realise the impact if we had not challenged his gas substitution. He had substituted an intermediate deco mix of 32% nitrox with a trimix 12/55!!! (On what planet is that a sane choice?) This would have resulted in an additional 55 minutes on bailout and required 136 cuft of intermediate bailout gas vs 64cuft on my plan. We we carrying 80s so I would have needed an extra tank to make it home on bailout!
I have not spoken to the owner since I came to this realisation since that was my last day there and he was away from the shop the next day.
I want to talk to him about this as I consider him a friend but I am so puzzled and angry I don't even know where to begin. One of my first thoughts is that although he is an OC trimix instructor he may not actually have the CCR knowledge to understand what the consequences of his actions could have been. Can anyone experienced in CCR trimix suggest a plausible reason for making such a switch?