Rachel, I agree, recent experience is important.
PADI open water max depth
- Thread starter skinerd
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
PaulChristenson:
Paul, you're absolutely right - Walter hit it on the head. It's experience, not the rating on the card, that should dictate your maximum depth.
I'm pretty conservative as a diver and don't believe in trying to prove myself by pushing depth limits. I like the idea of getting lots of experience well within my comfort zone, then gradually pushing those limits as my training and dive conditions permit.
In addition to the references that I've suggested that Gary read, I think every diver should read the DAN accident and injury reports. They're available on the DAN website if you have DAN membership. They really make you appreciate training standards...
Safe ascents to all,
Grier
FatRob
Contributor
Ok spanner back in the works here...
So we have all of these different training bodies... who set arbitrary limits on diving based on years of dive experience, accident analysis and scientific research... let's face it they have to accommodate the lowest common denominator.... so they are going to err on the side of caution aren't they?
I think my point is that a diver who continuosly strives to increase their competence, through recognised training, or simply self imposed drilling and training, whatever organisation or none they use... and who is competent and understands the principles involved in diving, does not really need to worry about these so called limits. The simple fact of the matter is that such a diver as I have just described will always impose limits based upon their confidence and experience, because they are on the road to becoming an expert diver....
Unfortunately(IMHO) not all divers strive to become experts... in fact they are happy just to dive once a year in warm water and look at the fishes! Well cool that they can! But these are the people whom the limits should probably apply to! Not even as absolutes, but as conservative reminders that "hey! if you go way beyond 60 feet, you'll be out of your depth if something goes wrong" (Pardon the pun... I couldn't resist)
And I agree, just because you once bounced to 200feet does not make you an expert... you might just have been lucky... and not had any problems...
Finally, I know that this is about rec diving... but there are these technical divers that routinely go way the heck down there.... yes they are experts trained in the use of complex techniques and equipment... but doesn't that just emphasise my point above?
and that of the apparent majority here?
So we have all of these different training bodies... who set arbitrary limits on diving based on years of dive experience, accident analysis and scientific research... let's face it they have to accommodate the lowest common denominator.... so they are going to err on the side of caution aren't they?
I think my point is that a diver who continuosly strives to increase their competence, through recognised training, or simply self imposed drilling and training, whatever organisation or none they use... and who is competent and understands the principles involved in diving, does not really need to worry about these so called limits. The simple fact of the matter is that such a diver as I have just described will always impose limits based upon their confidence and experience, because they are on the road to becoming an expert diver....
Unfortunately(IMHO) not all divers strive to become experts... in fact they are happy just to dive once a year in warm water and look at the fishes! Well cool that they can! But these are the people whom the limits should probably apply to! Not even as absolutes, but as conservative reminders that "hey! if you go way beyond 60 feet, you'll be out of your depth if something goes wrong" (Pardon the pun... I couldn't resist)
And I agree, just because you once bounced to 200feet does not make you an expert... you might just have been lucky... and not had any problems...
Finally, I know that this is about rec diving... but there are these technical divers that routinely go way the heck down there.... yes they are experts trained in the use of complex techniques and equipment... but doesn't that just emphasise my point above?
and that of the apparent majority here?
garyfotodiver
Contributor
- Messages
- 1,308
- Reaction score
- 4
- # of dives
- 200 - 499
Grier,
I'm not going to reprint your entire discourse. Do I hang the instructor because he took my daughter 2 ft beyond the "limit"? Now that she is 15 and not a "Jr", do all the rules change? Does she not take a PADI "Deep" speciality?
No. This is all about skill, this is all about judgement, this is all about risk assessment. There is risk involved in diving, just as there is risk associated with everything that we do. As I have written before, our job is to evaluate the risk involved and make a judgement on what is acceptable and what is not.
Show me a peer reviewed, statistically valid study on pressure damage to casual adolescent divers using a sufficient number of subjects. I have not seen one.
Four experienced PADI instructors have judged my daughter's skill and do not think the risk excessive. I, the father, who would gladly put my life on the line for her (and do) am quietly confident in both her skill level and mine. I consider the risk to be well acceptable. We dive in open water on reefs and wrecks in the 45 to 72 fsw range. We do not penetrate the wrecks yet, but eventually, after we have more experience together, we will.
Does this mean that every father should take his daughter on these dives? Of course not! Neither have I ever written that diving is without risk. It is simply because I have a diving teenager (and another on the way in three years) that I have spent the effort to take additional training in both the recent changes in philosophy, technique, and equipment. I am fully aware that if the dive goes sour, I have two divers to rescue.
Perhaps, since we all know that these depth recommendations are routinely exceeded, we should be pushing the concept of diver parents making certain that their own skills are adequate for the extra responsibility of diving with offspring. The concern written about by another poster of the diver with the tattered card and ancient equipment (and I have both) is valid.
Let's start a new campaign. Parents, watch the training videos with your children. Take the chapter quizzes with them. Discuss the issues with them. Speak to the instructors and monitor progress. Ask questions. Get involved, but, if you go on the check-out dives, stay out of the way!
We all will achieve a better dive experience and promote a positive message to our children and to the diving community.
I'm not going to reprint your entire discourse. Do I hang the instructor because he took my daughter 2 ft beyond the "limit"? Now that she is 15 and not a "Jr", do all the rules change? Does she not take a PADI "Deep" speciality?
No. This is all about skill, this is all about judgement, this is all about risk assessment. There is risk involved in diving, just as there is risk associated with everything that we do. As I have written before, our job is to evaluate the risk involved and make a judgement on what is acceptable and what is not.
Show me a peer reviewed, statistically valid study on pressure damage to casual adolescent divers using a sufficient number of subjects. I have not seen one.
Four experienced PADI instructors have judged my daughter's skill and do not think the risk excessive. I, the father, who would gladly put my life on the line for her (and do) am quietly confident in both her skill level and mine. I consider the risk to be well acceptable. We dive in open water on reefs and wrecks in the 45 to 72 fsw range. We do not penetrate the wrecks yet, but eventually, after we have more experience together, we will.
Does this mean that every father should take his daughter on these dives? Of course not! Neither have I ever written that diving is without risk. It is simply because I have a diving teenager (and another on the way in three years) that I have spent the effort to take additional training in both the recent changes in philosophy, technique, and equipment. I am fully aware that if the dive goes sour, I have two divers to rescue.
Perhaps, since we all know that these depth recommendations are routinely exceeded, we should be pushing the concept of diver parents making certain that their own skills are adequate for the extra responsibility of diving with offspring. The concern written about by another poster of the diver with the tattered card and ancient equipment (and I have both) is valid.
Let's start a new campaign. Parents, watch the training videos with your children. Take the chapter quizzes with them. Discuss the issues with them. Speak to the instructors and monitor progress. Ask questions. Get involved, but, if you go on the check-out dives, stay out of the way!
We all will achieve a better dive experience and promote a positive message to our children and to the diving community.
garyfotodiver
Contributor
- Messages
- 1,308
- Reaction score
- 4
- # of dives
- 200 - 499
BTW Grier, I have read the references you mentioned.
The reason there are no "peer reviewed, statistically valid study on pressure damage to casual adolescent divers using a sufficient number of subjects" is because it is the type of research that is deemed to be ethically unsound. Look at the research on diving and pregnancy, same scenario.
Rachel
Rachel
- Messages
- 681
- Reaction score
- 3
- # of dives
- 200 - 499
biscuit7:
Rachel,
Why have a limit then? If 60 is the "limit", then 60 is the "limit". If 61 is safe, how about 62, 63? 65? 70? Is 70 your definate cut off? I think this is what the thread is asking.
Experience and ability should dictate your depth. My wife has at least 3 100 foot dives and she only holds a basic OW cert. She probably has 10 night dives without AOW or a night diving specialty. How about the 20-30 boat dives she has without a boat card?She also has 10 drift dives without a card.
I am just saying that the card thing gets WAY out of hand. If have a deck of them myself. They do not make me a better diver. According to my cards I can jump off a boat at night and go to 100 feet on EAN32 while demonstrating bouyancy control. Why would I do that?
Plan your dive. If it makes sense and is safe, go ahead and dive your plan. Keep in mind that some divers are not safe at ANY depth!
Darnold9999
Contributor
Rachel
As one of those old farts with 100 + dives since 1978 I think I resemble that remark
However, the training WAS in fact a whole lot better back then - a healthy respect on the miriad ways the ocean could kill you was hammered into your head. A lot of time was spent practicing reacting to emergencies and developing skills and the confidence to get you out of a bad situation. Frankly I haven't lost that confidence, and experience has taught me (quite directly) that it is your ability to not panic that is the most important skill you can have when something goes wrong. It does help to have the skills, but weeks of practice and drills can't be replaced by just going out and diving on your OW cert, or even your AOW cert.
I see way too many OW divers who don't have a clue. Who have just enough skill to get in the water and as long as nothing goes wrong they will be fine. They can clear a mask and breathe from an octo but that just about covers their emergency responses. Somehow they are supposed to pick up the other stuff along the way.
I also agree that perhaps the most important thing that you can do is to not exceed your competence level. After a hiatus of about 10 years I restricted myself to easier dives - and dove only occassionly in warm water. After a hiatus of almost 20 years in cold water I have spent the last almost 20 dives relearning how to use my new gear and restricting myself to easier dives. Not necessarily shallower dives, but easier.
I am a bit puzzled by the fear of going "DEEP". I may be missing something, but I only really worry about two things when I go beyond 80 feet or so. The first is gas management. I want LOTS of gas in the tank when I get down beyond 100' and not very much less when I start back up. You go through gas really, really fast at that depth so my rule of thumb is unless you get there in the first ten minutes of the dive don't do it, and if you do end up beyond 100 feet keep the visit short, as every breath you take at that depth is four or so less that you get to take on the way up and you have a limited number of breaths in every tank. The other thing is narcosis, and it seams that so far I am not subject to it, but there is always a first time for everything.
You can kill yourself just as quickly at 60 feet as you can at 100 feet and in my opinion there really isn't alot of difference between them. You need to be just as prepared to go to 60 feet as you are to go to 100 feet and the idea that you don't need as much skill to dive to 60 feet is very puzzling to me.
The whole two levels thing is being sold as "two courses are somehow better than one", but again frankly it isn't. The courses are dead easy and designed so that anyone can pass them and the avanced dives don't, as far as I could see, really add to your safety in the water except that you get to do four more dives with an instructor and talk a little bit about planning to go deeper than 60 feet for your "deep" dive.
As one of those old farts with 100 + dives since 1978 I think I resemble that remark
However, the training WAS in fact a whole lot better back then - a healthy respect on the miriad ways the ocean could kill you was hammered into your head. A lot of time was spent practicing reacting to emergencies and developing skills and the confidence to get you out of a bad situation. Frankly I haven't lost that confidence, and experience has taught me (quite directly) that it is your ability to not panic that is the most important skill you can have when something goes wrong. It does help to have the skills, but weeks of practice and drills can't be replaced by just going out and diving on your OW cert, or even your AOW cert.
I see way too many OW divers who don't have a clue. Who have just enough skill to get in the water and as long as nothing goes wrong they will be fine. They can clear a mask and breathe from an octo but that just about covers their emergency responses. Somehow they are supposed to pick up the other stuff along the way.
I also agree that perhaps the most important thing that you can do is to not exceed your competence level. After a hiatus of about 10 years I restricted myself to easier dives - and dove only occassionly in warm water. After a hiatus of almost 20 years in cold water I have spent the last almost 20 dives relearning how to use my new gear and restricting myself to easier dives. Not necessarily shallower dives, but easier.
I am a bit puzzled by the fear of going "DEEP". I may be missing something, but I only really worry about two things when I go beyond 80 feet or so. The first is gas management. I want LOTS of gas in the tank when I get down beyond 100' and not very much less when I start back up. You go through gas really, really fast at that depth so my rule of thumb is unless you get there in the first ten minutes of the dive don't do it, and if you do end up beyond 100 feet keep the visit short, as every breath you take at that depth is four or so less that you get to take on the way up and you have a limited number of breaths in every tank. The other thing is narcosis, and it seams that so far I am not subject to it, but there is always a first time for everything.
You can kill yourself just as quickly at 60 feet as you can at 100 feet and in my opinion there really isn't alot of difference between them. You need to be just as prepared to go to 60 feet as you are to go to 100 feet and the idea that you don't need as much skill to dive to 60 feet is very puzzling to me.
The whole two levels thing is being sold as "two courses are somehow better than one", but again frankly it isn't. The courses are dead easy and designed so that anyone can pass them and the avanced dives don't, as far as I could see, really add to your safety in the water except that you get to do four more dives with an instructor and talk a little bit about planning to go deeper than 60 feet for your "deep" dive.
Ok, here's your scenario.... you're a brand spankin' new diver, the ink has not even dried on your OW card from Agency WhoCares. You're on vacation and the divemaster says you're gonna go to 145' and cruise around for about 5 minutes then come up and sit in the sand for 20 minutes.
Without any recommendations as to appropriate depth for NEW open water divers, I would think that most would go right for it. In fact, I'll wager my next 10 paychecks that even with the current recommendations new divers go for it. That is what the "recommendations" are trying to avoid. Get new divers to THINK about limits and how and when is a good time to push them back a little and expand their experience past those limits.
What I'm trying to say is that the initial recommendations make sense but make less so the more experience the diver has. We can all agree that there are some serious limitations to what an AOW card means and the education it provides the student, but it does give a diver who hasn't pushed the limits at all some exposure to a deeper dive. Deep specialties are even more involved as to how to plan and conduct dives past 100'. Again, you won't hear me say that the cert itself doesn't have some limitations, but it's exposure under supervision which is way better than our poor fresh OW diver had in the above scenario.
Rachel
P.S. The new OW diver was me at the Blue Hole in Belize. Go there on any given day and see what they're letting BOW divers do.
Without any recommendations as to appropriate depth for NEW open water divers, I would think that most would go right for it. In fact, I'll wager my next 10 paychecks that even with the current recommendations new divers go for it. That is what the "recommendations" are trying to avoid. Get new divers to THINK about limits and how and when is a good time to push them back a little and expand their experience past those limits.
What I'm trying to say is that the initial recommendations make sense but make less so the more experience the diver has. We can all agree that there are some serious limitations to what an AOW card means and the education it provides the student, but it does give a diver who hasn't pushed the limits at all some exposure to a deeper dive. Deep specialties are even more involved as to how to plan and conduct dives past 100'. Again, you won't hear me say that the cert itself doesn't have some limitations, but it's exposure under supervision which is way better than our poor fresh OW diver had in the above scenario.
Rachel
P.S. The new OW diver was me at the Blue Hole in Belize. Go there on any given day and see what they're letting BOW divers do.
Similar threads
