Instructors doing "trust me" dives.

[Scott L]

Last week I did a solo,sidemount dive wearing a drysuit.

Don't have training in any of those things.

Who was I trusting?

Jax to show up?

 

[Jax]

Jax to show up?

 

[TSandM]

I think there is a fine line between stretching your limits, or a mentoring dive, and a trust-me dive.

Going to California, doing one's first surf entry and diving in kelp for the first time is diving in a very new environment. If you just get in the water and go, that could well be a trust-me dive. If you have talked to the person who is leading you to get information about how to disentangle yourself, about surf entry strategies, about not trying to surface swim in the kelp canopy, etc., and you have assessed the dive and decided it sounds like something for which you have the appropriate resources (whether that's gas or the ability to stay calm), then it's just a mentoring or new experience dive.

On some of these dives people are writing about (especially the very deep ones) they didn't even know the right questions to ask, or perhaps that they SHOULD be asking questions. That's the essence of a trust-me dive.

 

[Tortuga68]

you just hit the flaming trifecta!

Nah he wasn't even wearing bungess, using a redundant wing or exceeding recommended PP02

(It took 8 posts for me to get 'YOUR GUNNA DIE' btw)

 

[Cave Diver]

Hi, Dr Bill!

You made me think of an interesting question - suppose I were to go out to CA and dive with some SBers there? Never dove CA, kelp forests, that cold-@$$ water, etc.

Is it a "trust me" dive?

I think Lynne pretty much nailed it.

I think there is a fine line between stretching your limits, or a mentoring dive, and a trust-me dive.

Going to California, doing one's first surf entry and diving in kelp for the first time is diving in a very new environment. If you just get in the water and go, that could well be a trust-me dive. If you have talked to the person who is leading you to get information about how to disentangle yourself, about surf entry strategies, about not trying to surface swim in the kelp canopy, etc., and you have assessed the dive and decided it sounds like something for which you have the appropriate resources (whether that's gas or the ability to stay calm), then it's just a mentoring or new experience dive.

On some of these dives people are writing about (especially the very deep ones) they didn't even know the right questions to ask, or perhaps that they SHOULD be asking questions. That's the essence of a trust-me dive.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

I've given this a bit or thought, what is the difference between a "trust-me" dive and a mentoring dive. I've made lots of dives over the years that I was not qualified to do with people whom I sought out, as THE EXPERT in what I wanted learn, Rich Pyle, Parker Turner, Greg Stanton, Peter Gimbel, Walt Hendricks Sr., Jeff Bozanic, Lloyd Austin, and lots of others. So I've made lots and lots of "trust-me" dives ... but they were planed from the get-go, they just weren't "formal" classes.

You guys are way to hung up on cards. I don't need a card, I don't want a card, all I ever needed was a vote of my Diving Control Board.

Thanks for posting that, Thal.

I checked "NO" to ever having done "trust me" dives...... but I've done deep air and deco dives, and if you look at my profile, I have NO FORMAL TRAINING that would come close to allowing me to do those dives....

But I did have mentors, we worked up to depth over time, and the dives were done without any drama.

Best wishes.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Confining "trust me dives" to one set of definitions is tough. In this post I will just talk about ~100' deep tourist "wreck" dives.

Consider an Oahu dive shop instructor/guide in the winter; the 4 typical first dives of nearly all morning charters are the Mahi wreck, the Sea Tiger wreck, the YO-257 wreck and the Corsair wreck. The two shallowest are where I have had three of my scariest guiding moments, each time guiding divers with less than 10 dives.

The couple I took to the Mahi on a stormy day told my boss they were experienced California abalone divers; my boss told them that free dive experience was the only reason she was letting them go on that dive, that day. The wife overinflated her rental BC just before reaching the 85' deep deck, and then kept depressing the Oceanic's inflate button while trying to deflate. I bolted 10' up and 15' over to grab her, then struggled for 15' of uncontrolled ascent trying to hold her, the mooring line, my full strobe camera, deflate my BC, pry her frozen hand off her inflate button, purge my flooded mask, and pretty much pray she could purge her mask without losing her reg. The husband was watching the spotted eagle rays and couldn't understand why she stayed at 70' for the rest of the dive and ran low on air in less than 15 minutes.

Twice on the YO-257 dive the current was so strong my mask was flooding if I looked to the side during mooring line descent; once with a 6 dives lifetime 20 something girl who ran the Honolulu Marathon the day before and the other time with a 9 dives lifetime big guy in a group of 4. I held the girls hand her entire dive and her eyes were the size of half dollars the entire time; good thing it was a private dive. The big guy was at ascent pressure before we had gone half way around the deck, over 100' down current from the mooring line; had to take him below deck and penetrate the big open hull passages to get him back to the mooring line, where we did alternate ascent. Good thing the other 3 decided to follow us.

Now as a Lahaina instructor/guide, we do the Carthaginian wreck one day a week; deck 85', sand 98', crows nests 60'. Nearly every trip there is at least one diver with less than 10 dives. Luckily my Captains do not "make" us do that dive in heavy current.

 

[Thalassamania]

...

Tell me Thal, if they were planned from the get go, then you weren't blindly following your buddy and you were aware of the potential risks and had a pretty good idea how to get yourself out safely if your buddy had a heart attack, no? If so, then not quite the same thing in my book.

Then I guess some of my dives were "trust-me."

 

[Jax]

I think there is a fine line between stretching your limits, or a mentoring dive, and a trust-me dive.

Going to California, doing one's first surf entry and diving in kelp for the first time is diving in a very new environment. If you just get in the water and go, that could well be a trust-me dive. If you have talked to the person who is leading you to get information about how to disentangle yourself, about surf entry strategies, about not trying to surface swim in the kelp canopy, etc., and you have assessed the dive and decided it sounds like something for which you have the appropriate resources (whether that's gas or the ability to stay calm), then it's just a mentoring or new experience dive.

On some of these dives people are writing about (especially the very deep ones) they didn't even know the right questions to ask, or perhaps that they SHOULD be asking questions. That's the essence of a trust-me dive.

I wish more people had your reasonable outlook on life!

 

[Cave Diver]

Then I guess some of my dives were "trust-me."

I find that a bit surprising. Care to elaborate on one as an example?