How do so many folks have so many dives

[bowlofpetunias]

You aren't the first person to "accuse" folks with a lot of dives of somehow cooking the books... I don't quite understand the attitude, and I certainly can't speak for anyone but myself, and the group of people I tend to dive with, but that simply isn't the case. Most of our dives up here in the Great Lakes are serious dives. (Last Sunday, I did two dives. The water was 39° F at depth, and 46° at the surface. Dive 1 was 155' deep, with a bottom time of about 24 minutes, and a total time of 55 minutes. My first deco stop was at 50'. My second dive was to 110' also for about 25 minutes. Total time on that one was about 48 minutes.... I was wearing twin steel 85s, with a stage of 100% 02. These were entirely typical of most of my weekends. I only did one dive on Saturday... it was 180' and I was in the water for 58 minutes.)

When Mrs. Stoo and I travel, virtually all of our dives are more than an hour long, and we leave the water out of courtesy to other guests, since we both get good "mileage". If we are on a liveaboard, where time isn't an issue, we do five dives daily, including every night. Some dives are 70 to 90 minutes long. On my trip to BC last October, the average depth of the four dives I did each day was 98', and the average duration was 62 minutes (according to Shearwater).

I agree that the numbers of dives doesn't mean squat and I certainly don't look down at someone who logs 10 or 20 dives a year. I like being underwater and I spend as much time there as I can.

This is a selfie I snapped on Sunday at 155' on the Forest City in Tobermory. I neglected to mention that all three dives were solos.

Sorry Stoo I guess I didn't express myself well there. I am not Accusing anyone of anything. I am stating a fact known to me about some people I know inflating dives.

What I was trying to get across is that dive numbers mean nothing to me as in I don't care enough to question if someone's dive numbers are inflated or not.

I don't care what type of diving people prefer. IMHO divers should make their own decisions about their diving and quit judging others. The only thing that matters is that people make sure they can safely conduct the planned dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

Sorry Stoo I guess I didn't express myself well there. I am not Accusing anyone of anything. I am stating a fact known to me about some people I know inflating dives.

What I was trying to get across is that dive numbers mean nothing to me as in I don't care enough to question if someone's dive numbers are inflated or not.

I don't care what type of diving people prefer. IMHO divers should make their own decisions about their diving and quit judging others. The only thing that matters is that people make sure they can safely conduct the planned dive.

I agree with Sheila on each of these points. Some people really do inflate their numbers, and it is often unintentional. I believe that if you do not actually log your dives and then make the best estimate you can, you will probably overestimate by maybe 30%. I log all my dives for some insane reason or another, and I cannot believe how few I really have. If I were not logging and made my best guess, I would add hundreds to my actual total.

In the long run, what difference does it make? David Shaw sadly died on his last dive. When he did that dive, he was the only diver in the world with the credentials even to try it, and the next closest diver was his safety diver, unable to get within 200 feet of him. Shaw was a far better skilled and capable diver than I am, but he had less than a third of the total dives I do. IIRC, his fatal dive was only #336.

 

[KevinNM]

Shaw died because he was overconfident. He was totally self-confident and fundamentally didn't understand what he didn't know, what could really go wrong and how to deal with it. He achieved some remarkable things that more experienced divers would have simply not done because they were too damn dangerous. What he had was drive, luck and lots of money, and eventually he ran out of luck.

In Diving, What is Best is Not Always Good John Clarke Online

Edit: Also see the full text from here: Fatal Respiratory Failure During a “Technical” Rebreather Dive at Extreme Pressure
This discuses some of the modifications he made to the rebreather that increased the work of breathing, without apparently understanding what this would do or how close the ragged edge of the limit of breathing resistance he already was.

Highly experienced rebreather divers have also suggested that he used an excessive amount of nitrogen in his rebreather, which also creates a denser breathing gas and hence also an increased work of breathing in addition to possibly inducing narcosis.

When you want to play at the very outer edge of the limits of what is feasible to do and survive you really have to understand the kind of factors that were found in the postmortem examinations, but BEFORE you do it.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Complacency Kills could unfortunately be the epitaph for too many

That is why dive count, bottom hours and certificate on the wall don't impress me. I have come to believe that the wrong attitude can cancel any positives those items may imply...

 

[blatter]

Regarding Dave Shaw, it is worth reading this analysis: Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site

It appears that he had relatively little experience.

 

[Doppler]

Having just received an award for 1000 logged cave dives, which took me more than 20 years of cave diving to accomplish, I feel pretty confident in my opinion that the number of dives one has means squat. What is far more telling is the number of "experiences" one has dealt with... and we tend not to ask that question.


Also, for the OP, don't forget that the Mid-West includes several locations situated on those great big lakes.

 

[RJP]

Having just received an award for 1000 logged cave dives, which took me more than 20 years of cave diving to accomplish, I feel pretty confident in my opinion that the number of dives one has means squat. What is far more telling is the number of "experiences" one has dealt with... and we tend not to ask that question.

Yup. There's a big difference between doing "500 dives" and doing "one dive... 500 times"

 

[boulderjohn]

Regarding Dave Shaw, it is worth reading this analysis: Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site

It appears that he had relatively little experience.

Um, depending upon what you mean, I believe that was my point in bringing his name up. I think I mentioned that he only had 336 dives when he died. In those 336 dives, though, he had accumulated a wealth of experience, enough to be the only one in the world qualified to do the dive on which he died. The true reason for his death was pretty much unknown until he died from it. The point of this thread is that you cannot tell much from a person's dive count.

If you read the full length book about his death, Raising the Dead, you will get a better sense of what happened to him than in the article you cited.

 

[Yobubba]

I've certified more than 2000 divers over a period of 20 years and did 8,000 dives in the process.
Some days where 5 dives in a day and weeks where 7 days of diving for months.
I try to be conservative with the numbers because yes, they do seem unbelievable.
I look like hell by the way but wow what and adventure it has been.

 

[Frosty]

One point raised early in this thread-(9 months ago) Has me scratching my head.
One poster says they log each daily trip as a dive rather than the individual dive.
I genuinely don't understand that point. I always though every dry-wet- dry cycle counted as a dive. allowing you get to the required depth and are under long enough.