National Geographic-Mysteries of the Deep

[GeekDiver]

Has anyone watched this program? Every week they air a program about different wrecks and the mystery over how they sank. and they show a lot of diving, underwater archeology stuff. The other night they showed a new site on an ancient Greek ship that was found. The team consisted of all certified divers. They were so bad. One guy made a comment that this was his first saltwater dive. The leader of the team was medically unfit to dive, they made a point of that and how long it had been since he had been diving. He then decided he just had to start diving again to see the wreck. Gearing up you could see he wasn’t sure how to even hook up his reg to his tank but then they made a comment about it was like riding a bike and you never forget. I heard at one point that they were making 140 ft dives and talking about 8 min deco obligations. Remember that a lot of these people had just learned to dive but were making deep dives and staying long enough to have to have to make deco stops. I never saw any PB/Wings but a bunch of doubles, no isolation valve, no independent second regs. I even saw one diver that had his tank configured upside down. My question is why these shows always have the worst divers? Is it because they have to rely on volunteer help or that the general non-diving public doesn’t know how bad they are.

Any thoughts or comments

Geek

 

[O-ring]

Sounds like a total CF...probably a combination of the two factors you suggest... from what I have seen the public equates "walking dive shop" with "accomplished technical diver".

 

[Lead_carrier]

I didn't see the show you are talking about but I have seen the show before. I can't comment about the gear configurations except the unside down tank. I have actually seen this configuration used outside of the US. (notice that firefighters and emergency personnel wear their airpacks upside down.) The theory, from what I have been able to learn is that the valve is easier to reach if it is needed. It actually does work. You do have to put on a couple of long hoses to make up for it but they are comfortable.

 

[GearHead]

I saw the show. In my opinion, you just need to think of these people as archaeologists who happen to have an OW card. They're not trained technical divers from what the show displayed, and I definitely wouldn't want any of the ones I saw as my dive buddy.

It was an entertaining show, though. I have my Tivo programmed to record that and just about any other diving-related show on TV.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I have a hard time watching diving on tv because it's always bad. Of, course I realize thet they aren't interested in perfect diving technique.

The other night, while sitting in a motel wiating for our car to get fixed, I cought part of a tv show about Navy Seal training. I didn't catch the chanel or the name of the show but it was the worst diving I have ever seen. Even after completing training and being abused to no end while kneeling on the bottom they were awfull. I geuss they get the job done but if one of these guys enrolled in an Advanced Nitrox class I would have to start them over from the beginning.

 

[jbd]

has been shown several times in the past couple of years. Its located in the Aegean Sea I think at a place called "where the goats can't jump" or something similar to that.

The dives are working dives and are different from reef touring. Much of what they were doing requires them to be planted to the bottom. Many of them had removed their fins to reduce disturbing the site from un-necessary finning. The director of the operation had been "forbidden" to dive by his doctor but decides to dive anyways. I have no problem with that as he was well aware of the risk and accepted that. I would have done the same thing in that specific situation.

There was a siren that sounds a warning when the divers have 2 minutes until beginning their ascent. In some cases, if I recall they might have faced an 8 minute deco obligation wehn trying to finish a specific task. I had the impression that they understood this and were not blindly barging into this deco obligation.

Certainly this is not what we want from recreational divers in the way of performance but this wasn't a recreational dive.

 

[scuberd]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
I have a hard time watching diving on tv because it's always bad. Of, course I realize thet they aren't interested in perfect diving technique.

The other night, while sitting in a motel wiating for our car to get fixed, I cought part of a tv show about Navy Seal training. I didn't catch the chanel or the name of the show but it was the worst diving I have ever seen. Even after completing training and being abused to no end while kneeling on the bottom they were awfull. I geuss they get the job done but if one of these guys enrolled in an Advanced Nitrox class I would have to start them over from the beginning.

I think that was 'BUDs' on the discovery channel. I saw only one episode, but it happened to be the first week on scuba. What I saw, any resonably experienced diver could endure, except maybe the push-ups with twin 80's. Without the abuse, it is what any student in an OW class should do, reg recovery, mask-clear, OOA situations. I saw absolutly no training on scuba techniques only bare minimum to survive. Maybe thats why there are so many bad divers out there who claim to be ex-navy seals. :crest: :gotcha: