In Reply to: There are none posted by Elaine on June 22, 2006 at 16:11:26:

Elaine,

I notice a recurring theme in your posts. You seem to keep emphasizing that this is a "recreational" dive. I disagree. Also, I offer an excerpt from Ross O's trip report:

"My dive plan was 25 mins @ 140 on air with about a half-hour of deco on 50% O2. My max depth was 148' and I probably spent most of my time in the 130's. Deco was tough with so many people on the line."

That doesn't sound like a recreational dive to me.

Moreover, you are getting lost in the minutia of my point(s). Whether one stays above a mythical depth range, ie; your point about a 129' dive is well beyond the scope of the point. The bulk of the diving is in ranges well exceeding otherwise established "recreational" limits. Whether those limits are depth and/or time. For example, even if you stayed at 129', what is your NDL? Most tables provide for 5 minutes or less, so what then is the purpose of doing, in essence, a bounce "touch me" dive?

You also state that you need "the ability to not loose the location of the anchor line to make a safe ascent". I agree, but you also need the ability to control a free open ocean ascent should you loose line. You should be proficient is shooting a lift bag and/or running line since as you note making it back to the up line is critical. Items such as gas planning, gas management, deco gas planning and management all become part of the dive plan. These concepts are well beyond the scope of "advanced recreational divers".

Moreover, while I'm citing the Sea Divers as an example, it isn't meant to single them out. This is a much more widespread issue in our local community, it just seemed to make sense to use the latest dive as a jumping off point to spur the discussion. Especially, since as you note, no one got hurt. Why not use this as spring board?

You cited a few things that are needed for this dive. I would offer that there are significantly more things above and beyond well-maintained equipment, up line awareness and lack of drama to successfully pull off a dive at this site. Things like contingency planning, things like lost diver protocols, things like drifting diver protocols, things like loss of decompression gas protocols. I appreciate that you want to keep this dive in the "recreational" world, but I believe it's disingenuous to minimize the magnitude of this site and what should be considered when approaching such a dive. That trivialization is one of the problems associated with planning dives of this nature.

Regards,

• Read Mike Elaine 16:40:13 06/22/06 (3)
  • Why not pick on recreationals who dive the green bouy? Elaine 16:44:22 06/22/06 (2)
    • Re: Why not pick on recreationals who dive the green bouy? Bertie 13:22:27 07/31/06 (0)
    • Are you even reading my posts? MHK 16:49:23 06/22/06 (0)