Posted by MHK on August 13, 2001 at 11:09:34:
I've been thinking about this list a bunch lately, and in my view, this list does represent a fairly diverse sample that "probably" is indicative of the local dive community mindset taken as a whole..
One of the things that I have been going back and forth with is about the cherry picking of what seems to be acceptable *rules* to follow and what seems to be acceptable *rules* to ignore..
For example, I made a statement a few weeks ago that is suggestive of the fact that the 24 hour dive and fly isn't based on sound principle. BTW, I did 4 dives Saturday and 4 dives yesterday and got out of the water at 5:00 and was on the at 7:00, yet again.. When I rendered this line of thinking I was accused of giving potentially fatal advise, despite the fact that no one could tell me why, other than to quote DAN, and it's recomendations..
That being said, the dive *rules*, such as they are suggest the following:
1) No solo diving;
2) No diving deeper than 130';
3) The recomended use of a bouyancy compensation device;
4) No penetration of over head environments without training;
Just to name a few..
All of these * rules* are regularly ignored, debated and defended ad nausem on this list, even to the point of posting pictorial galleries of these *violations*..
I've advanced a few theories recently on this list that go against the grain of the standard dive industry mind set, but yet are based on sound principle and in some cases common sense. For example, the use of the silly Nitrox advertising banner on the tanks.. Several agencies even go so far as to mandate 3" letter and specific coloring.. These lables are stupid, they provide no USEFUL information, but yet are quickly becoming dive law, such as the term is.. You now have the overwhelming majority of shops requiring stupid stickers that mean absolutely nothing or they don't fill your tank.. They ignore the salient information, but blindly cling to useless stickers.. The diving and flying thing, while certainly conservative [ and I have NO problem if you want to use that as a guideline], but by no means is based on sound principle...
So my question to the regulars that usually oppose our methodology is to explain the inconsistency.. It ususally seems that we spend our time defending/explaining our positions, whereas most of you guys throw out red-herrings and virtually never explain yourselves..