Fat AND smoking cigarettes???

[MikeFerrara]

This summer I was doing my first few boat dives wearing doubles, and the guy I was buddied up with had a hole in his drysuit, so the dives in 46 degree water were over for him. I got instabuddied with a fellow in his early 60's who had been diving forever (lots of Mediterranean diving) and was overweight. He had a 7 ml wetsuit. I was told he didn't breathe under water. We did two dives that afternoon, first wreck 23 minutes max 107 ft, second wreck 36 minutes max 86 ft.
His buoyancy skills and in-water skills were impeccable for the dives we did.

He used less air than I did, and at the end of the dives, he lit up a cigarette, out of the way of the other divers. He also claimed not to be excessively cold, nor did he seem chilled.

Boggled my mind.

Like so many other things it just depends. My grandfather smoked all his life and did die of smoking related illness but he was almost 90 years old. A friend of my mothers just died from cancer. She was only middle-aged and was a thin, non-smoking, excersizing health nut. She had a pain in her side and decided to have a doctor look at it. It turned out that she had cancer EVERYPLACE and they gave her 6 months but she was dead in about 2 months.

None of us will get out of life alive. As I see it, the problem with smoking isn't that it might shorten your life. None of us is guaranteed a long life. The problem I see is the likelyhood that you will get sick but take a very long time in dying. To me, it's more about the quality of life than the length of life.

My mother is in her late 60's and is suffering from emphysema and has been for a long time. She has trouble just walking across the kitchen. She doesn't go anywhere or do anything. She may live quite a while yet but I don't think that she is having much fun.

 

[shoredivr]

None of us will get out of life alive. As I see it, the problem with smoking isn't that it might shorten your life. None of us is guaranteed a long life. The problem I see is the likelyhood that you will get sick but take a very long time in dying. To me, it's more about the quality of life than the length of life.

Agreed!

Sorry about your mom.

 

[Teamcasa]

...THis post was a prejudice post.....what would peoples reaction be if it said "Do I/should I dive with the gay diver".....

I agree. It never ceases to amaze me how arrogant and pretentious people can become over a person’s choice to smoke and or being overweight. I guess it make them feel somehow superior. To me, and it is my opinion, that if a person chooses to smoke, drink, skydive, scuba dive, hang glide or climb Mount Everest, (all dangerous activities) so be it. It’s their choice. (When and where they smoke is a different issue.)

Deciding on the character or ability of a person based only on your seeing that they are overweight, without even talking to them, is at best, juvenile and immature.

If you are in either group, I doubt you would make a selfless, caring, quality dive buddy.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I was a little unclear in my previous posts. Let me just say that on a dive boat you’re right the risk of anything at all happening is very small, but why take the chance? Is it such a big deal for the smoker to move away from the oxygen?

Probably not. I just thought it was worth discussing the real issues with handling O2.

I guess I don't get all this freaking out over others smoking. I'm old enough to remember when smoking was allowed everyplace. People smoked in hospitol rooms, offices, grocery stores, department stores, airplanes and I was in the workforce for quite a while before I ever saw an employer disallow smoking in the building let alone on the property.

Now, the only public places that I know of where smoking is permitted is some bars and restaurants and it's been that way for many years. I'll bet some of the people complaining here aren't even old enough to remember when you could smoke in public. As I pointed out earlier, I don't even remember the last time I was on a dive boat that permitted smoking. I don't know where all these people are going that they manage to be bothered so much by smoking. Are they spending a lot of time in bars, or what?

I don't see the issue. I don't care what they do in bars or restaurants. For many reasons, I prefer to do my drinking someplace other than a bar and I've done enough traveling and eating in restaurants that I could happily go the rest of my life without eating in another one. My only issue here is that as a business owner, I want to decide.

I can see where it can be hard to find a good dive buddy but that's because so many divers are rototillers and not because they smoke.

 

[amitsi]

For the third or fourth time, I'll point out that this discussion isn't about dive safety.

Correction!, you made it not about dive safety...by giving example of 1 or 2 smokers you know who still are very healthy... FOR NOW... and then you agree smoking is bad for health..

 

[MikeFerrara]

Correction!, you made it not about dive safety...by giving example of 1 or 2 smokers you know who still are very healthy... FOR NOW... and then you agree smoking is bad for health..

LOL, what I meant, of course, was that I don't believe that the complaints about smokers in this thread are driven by concerns about dive safety.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Part of my diving courses is a presentation on the impact of smoking's physiological effects w/r/t diving, none of which are good.
On the boat, part of my brief is "If you need to smoke or puke, realize that the smell of either can make others sick, so please proceed to the lee gunwhale to do so."
If someone wants to smoke and accept the physiological risks, and is willing to be considerate of others by keeping downwind while smoking I have no problem with it.
Why, some of my best friends are smokers
Rick (last cigarette 31 October, 1987)

 

[daniel f aleman]

Amazing. The deflection that smokers will make when rationalizing their smoking...

 

[jupitermermaid]

I agree, Rick. I remember the days when after I quit smoking (it was easy....it only took me three dozen tries before I was successful ) I started to get sick when I smelled smoke. I'd get a headache, feel nauseous, and my sinuses would fill up (be careful what you pray for.....I prayed that God would take away the desire to smoke, and boy, did He do it bigtime!!!) My mother had emphysema and lung cancer due to smoking. As she lived (actually survived.....I'd hardly call her last few years "living") she had to walk around with an oxygen tank hooked up to her nose. She'd struggle to get a breath of air, yet she'd pull the oxygen tube out of her nose and place it on her forehead like some people place their glasses, and have a cigarette, then replace the hose. I never lectured her, since the damage was done and she was going to die no matter what. That was the only thing she had left that she enjoyed.

But for those who are still active and the damage hasn't (or may never, as some don't) shown up yet, it does bother me to breathe the second hand smoke and end up with a headache and stuffy sinuses for days afterwards. I don't have a problem with people who want to smoke; I just think they should be considerate of non-smokers and make sure they are upwind from others.

 

[Nick_W]

I am one of the worst spellers around!!!!!

I think divers posting on this thread that say its basically ok for divers to be smokers really need to do some serious research into the effects of smoking and diving ....it is a very compromising act to your health and diving safety in so many ways!

Smoking is a rude/dirty habit that will cut your life short and when combined with scuba diving is a dangerous mix...just like being very over weight and out of good physical condition!!

PS--I 'never' have smoked thank god!....and well to weight, probably are carrying 5lbs. extra around to get me through the cold winter months of winter diving.

Being a condescending ******* is a rude/dirty habit, but I don't see you jumping on some of the posters around here.