Who here has done a real life CESA and what was your experience?

[boulderjohn]

AFAIK, the CESA is still an OW requirement. Who doesn't teach it?

I'm not a big fan of people using it in place of dive-planning and gas management, but as a last-ditch alternative it's better than nothing.

BSAC does not teach it.

There is a SB member I will not name but who should be familiar to most who must be on vacation or something. I would normally expect him to be all over this thread about how CESA is evil and should not be taught at all.

After one of his anyone-who does-this-will-surely-panic-and-die posts, I personally contacted BSAC for an explanation. I was told that BSAC does not teach CESA because it focuses instead on checking gauges and having redundant air sources available. I followed that with a statement just like Web Monkey's above--OK, so what if the unthinkable happens and you do find yourself in an OOA situation with no other air source around?

The reply was that you would do a CESA.

The implied attitude in that response was that a CESA is so easy (just blow and go) that there is no need to practice it.

 

[Scubagolf]

I learned a big lesson, which was that that much distance is the absolute MAXIMUM I want to be from my reserve gas.

This is the way to think of your buddy. Not your wife/friend/whatever, but as your "reserve gas" supply. Don't leave home (close proximity to him/her) without it.

 

[Ardy]

I believe that what I take out of all this is that what I was taught in the 70's was good advice. My instructor said 'All this training is good but the most important thing is to be able to take responsibility for your own safety, whatever the situation.' I have followed his advice in all my dives since then.

Terry you seem to have a good and reliable dive buddy and the same goes for others here. I do about 4 dive trips a year and end up diving with any 22 year old drop kick who is prepared to die. I look out for them, but I won't die for them.

The buddy system is wonderful with a great buddy, unfortunately mine retired 15 years ago. I have become very buddy wary and rely much more on myself. As a photographer the buddy system is doomed unless one of you is prepared to watch my arse for 10 mins while I photograph a ghost pipe fish under a coral ledge.

Solo diving is, in my opinion an essential skill that should be taught to all divers. I have had too many situations where some young guy (never seems to be girls) who I gave a clear instruction to let me know when his gauge hits 1000 swims up to me out of air 20 mins into a dive to 25 metres. Also have had the situation where they see a mate in another group and decide to join that group (without letting me know) as they are bored following me around.

It's a horror story diving with some of these buddies. A lot of what Terry is talking about is fine in a well planned and controlled environment. Unfortunately I dont dive in that world anymore.

CESA is an essential skill for a solo diver and although I dont practice them anymore I used to do them regularly to keep this skill up to date. Still feel comfortable about doing one from 25m not sure about more than that but still want the option.

The young guy from Brighton (wayne was it) is absolutely right, plan for anything and everything to go wrong and you have a good chance of being OK. I used to rock climb as well as a youngster and it brings the reality of dying much closer than just swimming around under the ocean in a leisurely way. My experience has shown me that dying underwater is a real possibility and will generally come as a result of 2 maybe 3 failures compounding. I nearly killed myself in an open cave when I turned around and hit my temple on a rock sticking out and lost conciousness briefly, no buddy could have saved me if I had breathed in water whilst unconcious and my buddies didnt even notice anything wrong.

Look after yourselves.

 

[goodive]

Good post Ardy. That is why so many photographers are solo divers.

I posted a suggestion earlier in this thread, how to practice CESA. I would like to add to it. I said "maintain a proper ascend speed". PADI still teaches 60 feet a minute max. IMHO, that is too fast from the shallow depths. 30 feet a minute is a safer, but obviously slower and in the emergency if you start deep, let say 120 feet, you may have a tendency to speed it up at the end to get to the free air. I recommend to start 60 feet a minute MAX from depths over 80 feet and gradually slow it down to 30 feet a minute by the time you get to 30 feet and slow it down even more for last 20 feet.
Even in a non-emergency situation, after a safety stop, I see people to cork up all the time.:shocked2: I guess the thinking is: We did our safety stop, so we're done and lets just pop to the surface. At 15 feet you are almost at 150% of ambient pressure on the surface. I tell divers: That last 15 feet to the surface should take you 40 seconds.
Agree, disagree?

 

[davezwife]

::avezwife shakes her head::::
You are all nucking futz. You know that, right???

;-)

 

[MagicChicken]

That last 15 feet to the surface should take you 40 seconds.
Agree, disagree?

Agree... I often take a minute or so to surface. Never had a reason to hurry.

 

[InTheDrink]

But you don't plan for TWO major failures, and buddy separation and loss of gas is two major failures.

This is one of the reasons I get confused about the rules

On the one hand people frequently refer to cascading failures/issues/problems.

Then the same people suggest that two concurrent failures/issues/problems isn't planned for.

Is this not clearly a contradiction or am I missing something?

IMO, when things go wrong, they happen in threes as my mother always told me. So getting separated and having some other serious failure isn't necessarily unreasonable. I agree training as much as possible to deal with the two or more situations is advisable, but in reality planning for all eventualities may not be realistic and knowing that you can get to the surface at a fairly safe rate of ascent IS important.

PADI teach CESA in the OW course, but in the course they say that if you're deeper than 9m (30ft) to ditch your weights. From the posts here this now seems like BAD and unnecessary advice as you could risk DCS. That's my big lesson learned.

 

[Kevrumbo]

This is one of the reasons I get confused about the rules

On the one hand people frequently refer to cascading failures/issues/problems.

Then the same people suggest that two concurrent failures/issues/problems isn't planned for.

Is this not clearly a contradiction or am I missing something?

IMO, when things go wrong, they happen in threes as my mother always told me. So getting separated and having some other serious failure isn't necessarily unreasonable. I agree training as much as possible to deal with the two or more situations is advisable, but in reality planning for all eventualities may not be realistic and knowing that you can get to the surface at a fairly safe rate of ascent IS important.

PADI teach CESA in the OW course, but in the course they say that if you're deeper than 9m (30ft) to ditch your weights. From the posts here this now seems like BAD and unnecessary advice as you could risk DCS. That's my big lesson learned.

Wrote this a while back in another Board:

There's a Military cliché that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Well the same is true IMO/IME with Dive Plans in which you encounter a problem, contingency or cascading adversity. There is no such thing as the perfect pre-plan, impossible to be omniscient and account for events that will or may happen during the dive. We can only be sure in our training, and prepare as best we can for those scenarios we're aware of, and hope we have enough safety margin reserved to get us out of unforseen "cluster-foul-ups".

Take the best of what you think has merit here as well as your training and apply it to your own style/schema/paradigm of diving --either solo or team based-- and let us know how it works (or doesn't) afterwards. (And don't mind the lot who derisively say that such an approach is "just Internet Diving"). . .

 

[boulderjohn]

PADI teach CESA in the OW course, but in the course they say that if you're deeper than 9m (30ft) to ditch your weights. From the posts here this now seems like BAD and unnecessary advice as you could risk DCS. That's my big lesson learned.

I don't see this in the PADI instruction materials, and I don't know a single PADI instructor who teaches this. I certainly do not. PADI lists 5 options for an out of air situation, and the bouyant ascent (ditching weights) is the last choice. I strongly emphasize that it has to be a pretty darn big problem for ditching your weights on ascent to be a part of the solution.

 

[InTheDrink]

Well, it's in my OW manual from '04.

It specifically discuss a swimming ascent as opposed to a buoyant ascent. The criterion they use is depth, the former being advised between 0 and 9m and the latter after 9m.

And yes, they discuss 5 different options, the buoyant ascent being the last one, when other options are no longer available (buddy, surface within easy reach etc.).

I'll dig out the book in the next couple of days and quote it. I've currently loaned it to a maybe diver.

J