Drinking & Diving

[MXGratefulDiver]

Please, that's Pete's game ... I try to avoid it when possible, it is not always possible.

So let me explain why I posted that comment ... and why I think you have a tendency to take things to an extreme.

Just a few posts earlier you had this to say, with respect to my comments ...

Then you are naught but two divers who are accidentally in the same body of water at that same time. If that's how you like to dive, that's your business, but I'd not have any part of it.

First off, we've never dived together. So you haven't a bloody CLUE how I dive or how I intereact with my dive buddies ... but I do have a long posting history on ScubaBoard that would indicate my training and approach to buddy diving is in direct contradiction to the comment you posted.

What you MEANT to say is that you don't approach buddy diving in the same manner I do ... but you couldn't help saying it in as insulting and condescending manner as you could muster.

The FACT is that when I get in the water with another diver, it is no accident. There is a plan and a level of communication that goes on between us that allows us to know EXACTLY what each other are doing. I have no need to nanny my dive buddy, nor to check his air supply, nor to even ASK about his air supply ... because we have an agreed-upon turn pressure, and I fully expect him or her to let me know when they reach it. I ALSO have a pretty good idea how fast my buddy will use his air, and which one of us should be expected to "control" the dive by reaching their turn pressure first ... so by looking at my own gauge, I have a pretty good idea what my buddy's pressure level is expected to be. So with my more experienced buddies, there's no need to ask or check, and with my less experienced buddies, I can tell within a pretty close proximity simply by observing how they're diving and watching my own gauge.

Now ... if you want to do things differently, that's your choice. And if you want to say you won't dive with me because of it, that's also your choice ... and I'm completely comfortable with those choices. But to suggest that my skills are somehow deficient because I don't dive as you do is PRESUMPTUOUS AS ALL HELL!

So yes, Thal ... you DO play that game, and it's entirely avoidable.

As another example ... in your last post you wrote ...

I submit that quite the reverse is the case, the danger comes from those who thinking drinking has no effect on your hydration and that you have no more obligation to your teammate than possibly, if convenient and fun, providing yet another redundant air source."

I submit that if that's what you took away from what I've been posting you're either an idiot or a troll. Either way, I'm not impressed with your interpretation of what's been posted in this thread.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[boulderjohn]

I had a beer at lunch today, I don't think I would want to dive 3 hours after. Overnight, 8-10 hours would be a different story. So- I would dive with Thal, Bob, Net Doc or Paladin as long as we agreed on the ground rules, like any other dive choice.

But would each of them dive with you?

 

[Splitlip]

I'm still thinking "8 hrs bottle to throttle" is a good adage (for flying, diving, working and dating). And as a youth, I was a big offender all around.

 

[Thalassamania]

So let me explain why I posted that comment ... and why I think you have a tendency to take things to an extreme.

Just a few posts earlier you had this to say, with respect to my comments ...

Then you are naught but two divers who are accidentally in the same body of water at that same time. If that's how you like to dive, that's your business, but I'd not have any part of it.

First off, we've never dived together. So you haven't a bloody CLUE how I dive or how I intereact with my dive buddies ... but I do have a long posting history on ScubaBoard that would indicate my training and approach to buddy diving is in direct contradiction to the comment you posted.

What you MEANT to say is that you don't approach buddy diving in the same manner I do ... but you couldn't help saying it in as insulting and condescending manner as you could muster.

The FACT is that when I get in the water with another diver, it is no accident. There is a plan and a level of communication that goes on between us that allows us to know EXACTLY what each other are doing. I have no need to nanny my dive buddy, nor to check his air supply, nor to even ASK about his air supply ... because we have an agreed-upon turn pressure, and I fully expect him or her to let me know when they reach it. I ALSO have a pretty good idea how fast my buddy will use his air, and which one of us should be expected to "control" the dive by reaching their turn pressure first ... so by looking at my own gauge, I have a pretty good idea what my buddy's pressure level is expected to be. So with my more experienced buddies, there's no need to ask or check, and with my less experienced buddies, I can tell within a pretty close proximity simply by observing how they're diving and watching my own gauge.

Now ... if you want to do things differently, that's your choice. And if you want to say you won't dive with me because of it, that's also your choice ... and I'm completely comfortable with those choices. But to suggest that my skills are somehow deficient because I don't dive as you do is PRESUMPTUOUS AS ALL HELL!

So yes, Thal ... you DO play that game, and it's entirely avoidable.

As another example ... in your last post you wrote ...

I submit that quite the reverse is the case, the danger comes from those who thinking drinking has no effect on your hydration and that you have no more obligation to your teammate than possibly, if convenient and fun, providing yet another redundant air source."

I submit that if that's what you took away from what I've been posting you're either an idiot or a troll. Either way, I'm not impressed with your interpretation of what's been posted in this thread.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob. I'll agree that you have, in the past, advocated a team arrangement that is much more like the one I use, and I took what you wrote to its logical extreme, because that's where the rubber really meets the road.

But look back on what you said in this thread ... I really don't think I was misquoting you. Now if you'd like to get down off your high horse and amend some of what you've written in this thread, that's fine, I'll be happy to dismount too.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I don't think I'll waste any more time with you, Thal ... you've walked beyond the boundaries of credibility.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[The Chairman]

Hey Pete, that's your standard game so don't complain when it is reasonably used right back.

More smears on my character to justify your actions. An apology and an edit would have been far more honorable. You keep saying that this is "my game", but we only see you playing it.

Lest anyone believe Thal in that I encourage others to drink and dive or that I teach that buddies have no reciprocal duties: I DON'T. Diving is a fun, recreational activity that requires personal responsibility and good situational awareness to be safe and enjoy. In addition, I don't believe that you have to take months upon months of classes in order to be safe and I sincerely believe that universal acceptance of Thal's teaching methodology would be the end of our sport as well as the dive industry as we know it.

But to re-answer the OP: having an incidental drink 3 hours before you splash should have a negligible on your safety and enjoyment of the dive. However, you and you alone are responsible for your safety, so please exercise due diligence when you make these personal decisions.

I don't think I'll waste any more time with you, Thal ... you've walked beyond the boundaries of credibility.

I feel your pain, Bob.

 

[Tortuga68]

Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know that I have now decided to abstain from drinking for 33.33 hours before a dive, because that's a nice neat number that also happens to coincide with the RPM of my LP record collection. So to all of you that only abstain for 33.32 hours or less I say FOR SHAME!! and I will no longer dive with you because you are clearly wilfilly unsafe and irresonsible. And before you say you didn't want to dive with me in the first place, I said it first so nyeeeh nyeeeh

I have also decided that Coca Cola is bad for your health as it contains too much sugar, and look at all those morbidly obese people out there who are overloading the already overburden health care systems of our respective nations. Sure, your BMI might be <20 but if you enjoy one carbonated beverage, clearly you're incapable of stopping at one and are only an irregular heartbeat away from being overweight and having a heart attack underwater just when I want you to hold my camera so I can take a pee

As for you coffee drinkers, don't even get me started... for one, it's made with water, and do you know what fish do in that?? You sick puppies

 

[Doc]

just when I want you to hold my camera so I can take a pee...

Check back with us when you have mastered that multitasking skill. :cool2:

 

[EastTNDiver]

Dang! After cruising this thread, I feel like having a beer.

 

[FritzCat66]

Just made it through this whole thread. :demented:

One thing additionally worth mentioning, even if it's a bit tangential to the OP, is that the "first drink = last dive" rule on the liveaboards is ultimately a matter of their boat, their rule, whether it's rational or not.

A buddy of mine was diving off a charter here in Florida some years back, and during the surface interval pulled a nice ripe banana out of his pack, at which point the captain and crew started freaking out, literally yelling at him, then grabbing the banana and throwing it off the boat.

Why? Because of some old superstition about bananas on a boat. Utterly irrational, especially given that the superstition's origin is well-known, something about the gasses given off by ripening bananas in a cargo ship's hold hastening the decay process for any other fruit carried in the hold - thus making bananas a bad idea for cargo. Yet of course that got grossly oversimplified to "bananas are bad luck", apparently even on a dive boat (while in contrast, the Dive House boat I went with last time in Cozumel handed out fresh bananas to all the divers during the SI - they're actually great for divers, helping to replenish potassium and all).

Regardless, "their boat, their rule", rationality be damned. My buddy never used that op again; I suppose that same option is available for liveaboards, although it sounds like the "first drink = last dive" rule is pretty hard to escape.

For the record, I basically don't drink much at all. A margarita or two at my favorite Mexican restaurant once or twice a month, a good Stout or Porter microbrew when I'm visiting my buddy in Seattle (where there are apparently almost as many microbreweries as there are espresso cafe's), but that's about it. I don't drink at all on a dive vacation, but I would not object to a dive buddy having a brew several hours before a dive - although I would certainly suggest that they follow up with plenty of water before jumping back in!