[HN Gopher] The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive s...
___________________________________________________________________
The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the
world
Author : pmcpinto
Score : 288 points
Date : 2021-04-27 08:42 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.spiegel.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.spiegel.de)
| lbrindze wrote:
| It turns out almost all the organizations follow the same
| training standards set out by the WRSTC (World Recreational Scuba
| Training Council). The big exception is CMAS which past level 2
| no longer is comparable to the WRSTC program tracks since it
| allows for decompression diving on air down to 40m (level 2) and
| 56m (level 3).
|
| This means even with an advanced or master diver certificate from
| PADI, (NAUI, SDI, SSI, etc...) the tables you learn to use do not
| go beyond decompression limits (requiring mandated decompression
| stops on your ascent) since they stop at 30m. It used to be 40m
| but I believe the standard has become more conservative since I
| was last teaching. NAUI does have supplemental training that goes
| beyond WRSTC standards but a lot of that has to do with the
| science and ecology of the underwater world more generally.
|
| All open water level certs (usually the most basic level cert)
| expects students to be fully autonomous (with their buddies) by
| the end of the course. If you sign up for an open water dive in
| southern. California for example, it is rarely a guided
| experience and most people form groups of 2-3 on the boat and go
| and enjoy the water, coming back within an 1-1.5 hours. Almost
| everywhere else I have worked, it is expected (by the guests...)
| that all dives in open water are lead by a certified dive master
| and not self lead in small groups. I personally think this is a
| result of the way the standards and incentives work for dive
| operators to encourage that dependency on their outfit and keep
| the money flowing in.
|
| Generally recreational diving is very safe but even working as an
| instructor for a few years at a few different outfits, there is
| always a handful of fatalities. I really like the comparison to
| Skydiving someone else made, except its a much more subtle danger
| since you dont actually need to be in top physical shape to do
| this activity (even though it is required by the certification
| agencies).
|
| The only other thing I find interesting is all the certification
| agencies are for the INSTRUCTORS (hence the I in PADI, NAUI,
| SSI...). These orgs are outfits that enable recreational scuba
| operators to have a standardized set of empirically derived
| safety limits to protect the instructor and shop liability (not
| the student's). More often than not, especially in far flung,
| remote diving destinations, caution is thrown to the wind and
| people do not always follow the prescribed standards.
|
| Source: OWSI (Open water scuba instructor) with multiple agencies
| as well as CMAS level 3 diver
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| "A notable death was that of Yuri Lipski, a 22-year-old Russian-
| Israeli diving instructor on 28 April 2000 at a depth of 115
| metres after an uncontrolled descent.
|
| Lipski's body was recovered the following day by Tarek Omar, one
| of the world's foremost deep-water divers, at the request of
| Lipski's mother.
|
| Omar says: Two days after we recovered his remains and gave [his
| mother] his belongings and equipment, she came to me asking that
| I help her disassemble them so she can pack them. The camera
| should have been damaged or even broken altogether because I had
| found it at a depth of 115 metres, and it is only designed to
| sustain 75 metres; but, to my surprise, the camera was still
| working. We played it and his mother was there. I regret that his
| mother will have this forever... If I had known the footage
| existed I'd have flooded it. I think the thing that really upset
| and saddened me about it was that his mom has it now - she has
| the footage of her own son drowning."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hole_(Red_Sea)
| roland35 wrote:
| Summary: The Blue hole is a natural sinkhole off the coast of
| Egypt. It is very accessible, there are many beginners, and there
| are many unscrupulous dive guides which lead to diver depths.
|
| Some basic diving rules which when broken lead to deaths:
|
| - Not diving with a partner
|
| - Diving below the depth you should be
|
| - Diving after partying the night before
|
| - Rising back up too quickly
| danparsonson wrote:
| Yeah exactly - any diving is dangerous if a diver behaves in
| the ways described in this article, it's not the site that's
| the problem per se. Just the depth that makes it easy for
| things to get worse when they go wrong I guess.
| shellfishgene wrote:
| I think one big part of it is that tunnnel that leads out of
| the hole to the open ocean. Tunnels and arches to dive through
| magically attract divers, also for taking picures. The tunnel's
| ceiling is at 52-56 meters, which is exactly the depth that
| compressed air divers think they can risk diving to. The bottom
| of the tunnel however is at around 100 m, and nitrogen narcosis
| sometimes causes inexperienced divers to reach it...
| Syzygies wrote:
| > nitrogen narcosis sometimes causes inexperienced divers to
| reach it
|
| For those of us who (don't) remember the 60's, experience can
| take many forms. I remember reaching a depth of 100' in scuba
| training, and being asked to do arithmetic at a whiteboard.
|
| "Um, ask me how I wrote my thesis..."
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| Perhaps worth adding (2012) to the title. It is evergreen, still
| relevant, but worth noting that it is almost 10 years old.
| ChrisBland wrote:
| I'm an avid diver; got certified as soon as I turned 12 years old
| and have had some great adventures and life lessons diving and
| continuing my training and education. After many many
| conversations and encounters on dive boats with others (some
| seasoned, most tourist / rec divers) - I believe that 90% of the
| industry sees diving akin to a roller coaster ride instead of
| Skydiving. The risks with scuba are there for you to see and the
| situation can get deadly very quickly, but most people don't see
| the inherit risk or shrug it off. I've watched countless divers
| who are renting their bc/reg/tank/computer not even go through
| the most basic safety checks prior to diving. They simply trust
| the operator and jump in. This is not a "batteries included"
| sport. It is that lack of preparedness that leads to fatal
| accidents, people who don't respect the sport for what it is and
| the dangers that come with it. If you don't plan your dives,
| understand the dive profile, then you are going to panic of make
| a stupid decision when you shouldn't. When I was younger,
| technical dives; cave and deep, where my two favorite things to
| do, the amount of planning it took to pull off the dives was
| enjoyable and I enjoyed pushing myself in to those situations and
| the focus it required. Now that I have kids, I won't do those
| dives anymore b/c I understand that when you plan them, there is
| a greater than 0 chance that you don't come back and its not
| worth it to me to take that chance.
| samdixon wrote:
| I have a similar theory about motorcycles. It's not batteries
| included, and some people ride like absolute madmen increasing
| the fatality rate.
| jdeibele wrote:
| I dropped my motorcycle endorsement when I had kids. There
| were too many death notices in the newspaper where a guy
| about my age was killed because a car "didn't see them" and
| turned right in front of them.
|
| In most cases there wasn't an indication that they were
| speeding or drunk or on drugs, just that other people weren't
| paying attention. And maybe that the rider didn't allow for
| that.
| Syonyk wrote:
| It's not actually the people riding like lunatics that manage
| to kill themselves on motorcycles at high rates. It's the old
| guys, riding back from "biker nights" at the bar, in full
| branded gear to include the do-rag and t-shirt. Lots of
| single rider, single bike accident with substantial alcohol
| in the blood.
|
| I've ridden for many years, and I also fly small planes, so
| I'm quite aware of my higher-than-average risk profile, and
| have gone through a lot of studies and reading to determine
| how I can, as much as possible, mitigate the risks while
| still enjoying the activities.
|
| For motorcycles, riding regularly, in full gear, while sober,
| gains you an awful lot. Riding infrequently is hard because
| you don't maintain the muscle memory, full gear turns most
| crashes into a "Invent new cusswords to remove the paint from
| your helmet, get up, and walk away" event (not all,
| obviously, but if you crash without gear, it's going to
| either suck a lot or end your life, and if you crash in gear
| it's a lot less likely to suck or kill you), and "bike nights
| at the bar" are just dumb.
|
| Knowing the limits of your bike is also helpful. I did a few
| track days, decided I didn't want to go down this route, but
| very much appreciated the chance to learn (in a safe
| environment) how much further than my normal limits I could
| ride on the bike. I couldn't ride anywhere near the limits of
| my bike, and knew it, but I expanded the envelope of "I know
| I can make this bike do that," and it was occasionally
| useful. The guys riding wheelies down the highway, against
| what most people believe, actually don't kill themselves
| terribly often. They know the limits of their bike, they know
| what they can make it do, and if there's something that
| requires a rapid response, they can make the bike do it on
| demand. One of those guys has a car pull out in front of
| them, they're either able to stop competently, or aim for the
| new gap, lean the bike over, cut through the gap, and flip
| off the car. The guy who rides a big cruiser 300 miles a year
| to the bar is more likely to mentally lock up, lock the
| brakes (before antilocks were standard), and slam into the
| side of said vehicle. Often while sliding on the ground
| first, having locked the rear tire.
|
| You also, if you're riding regularly, learn in a hurry how to
| identify the cars to watch out for. Maybe the slammed Honda
| with a fart can, park bench, and body damage is being driven
| by someone's mom, who is the most respectful person on the
| road. Don't care, I'm going to assume it's likely to do
| something very abrupt and stupid. And, often enough, they do.
|
| But if you wear gear, ride a lot, and understand the limits
| of your bike, you can manage a lot of riding miles, very
| safely. As much as people make fun of the old couples on
| Goldwings in the glow-stick yellow riding gear, a lot of
| those people ride 30k+ miles/yr, for many, many years,
| entirely safely.
|
| This is getting long, but general aviation accident records
| contain a lot of the same sort of thing - "Here's a short
| list of quick ways to die in an airplane. Don't do these and
| your life expectancy will increase dramatically."
|
| And nothing here means that you can control all the risk.
| Sometimes, shit happens and there's nothing you can do about
| it, despite all your preparations (Gann's Fate is the Hunter
| is a great read on the subject). But you can radically
| balance the scales in your direction with the right planning.
| owenversteeg wrote:
| Interesting. I'd be curious to read your thoughts on
| mitigating risk with general aviation. Is there a checklist
| somewhere of "always do these 20 things" or do you have to
| comb the NTSB accident records yourself?
| bsder wrote:
| > I'd be curious to read your thoughts on mitigating risk
| with general aviation.
|
| It seems like one of the big ones is simply: "Don't go up
| in shitty weather."
|
| Too many people are dead because they just _had_ to fly
| in crap weather.
| Syonyk wrote:
| You don't have to comb the NTSB records - they're
| aggregated by various groups.
|
| A lot of them involve loss of control of some form or
| another - typically in instrument flight conditions,
| often enough by someone who either doesn't have an
| instrument rating or is badly out of practice. A VFR only
| pilot in the clouds has a lifespan measured in minutes.
|
| Running out of fuel for some reason is depressingly
| common - and while an off-airport landing isn't
| automatically fatal, "pilot failed to monitor fuel in
| flight" is a pretty stupid reason to crash.
|
| And avoid light twins. They're a lot more demanding when
| an engine fails, and typically don't handle off airport
| landings very well. There don't tend to be many injuries
| with twins - either you handle everything properly and
| land safely, or the aircraft leaves a small smoking
| crater in the ground.
|
| A lot of it is simply looking at the sky, forecast, and
| deciding "You know, this just isn't a good day to put a
| small airplane in the sky." I consider night VFR to be
| fairly risky too. Clouds are invisible, visual illusions
| in sparsely populated areas are common, and it's hard to
| find a nice flat area to land if your engine quits at
| night.
| Natsu wrote:
| Sometimes this just makes me think that every pilot needs
| some IRF experience and a fuel gauge that has an alarm
| that says 'land now, you moron' or such.
| hbrav wrote:
| Small airfcraft fuel gauges are notoriously unreliable.
| If it's reading low, yes, be alarmed. But sometimes the
| float gets stuck, so if your estimate for how much fuel
| you should have burned puts your fuel lower, trust that.
|
| At least in the UK, getting a private pilot's licence did
| involve a couple of hours of simulated IFR. Not enough to
| do anything complex. But enough to turn 180, and be able
| to follow detailed controller instructions.
| Syonyk wrote:
| In the US, you need a couple hours of simulated
| instrument time as well. One difference in the US is that
| you can legally fly VFR at night - even if it may be
| unwise in a lot of areas. A lot of countries (I believe
| the UK is one of them?) require an instrument ticket for
| flying at night.
|
| If you're up over, say, Iowa at night? Tons of farms,
| flat, lights everywhere? It's fine. Pretty, you can still
| see stuff, and short of an invisible power line for an
| off airport landing, it's almost like flying during the
| day.
|
| Out in Idaho, in the mountains? You're pretty dumb to fly
| VFR at night. There's no light anywhere, lots of hard
| rock, and plenty of clouds that like to appear with no
| warning.
|
| But, yes, fuel gauges suck. The problem is that even if
| you put something like a fuel totalizer in, you still
| only know how much has gone into the engine, not how much
| is left in the wings. I understand a loose or missing
| fuel cap will drain a Cessna's wing tank in about 10-15
| minutes.
| salawat wrote:
| Huh. Wait, aircraft use float based fuel gauges still? I
| thought everything had gone electro-resistive since
| you'll get the same measurement regardless of orientation
| of the tank if you place your sensors right.
|
| I remember coming across that as a specific design
| challenge to overcome. Floats don't read the same when
| flying upside-down.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Most of the US General Aviation fleet is from the 1950s
| to 1980s. They still use floats.
|
| Those who fly upside down on purpose tend to either not
| care about the fuel readings when upside down, or fly
| something modern enough. But I can't imagine an airshow
| performer is paying any attention to the fuel gauges. "I
| have a 15 minute routine, I have an hour of fuel onboard,
| and I'm surrounded by an airport, which is a good place
| for an emergency landing."
| watwut wrote:
| Are they? Cause motocycle incidents I knew of were all
| young overconfident guys. No alcohol was involved and it
| was during the day. The traffic rules were broken tho
| (speed and aggressive riding).
|
| Anecdotal, but still.
| ska wrote:
| > It's not actually the people riding like lunatics that
| manage to kill themselves on motorcycles at high rates.
|
| There are a couple of high risk groups. One is young guys
| with a combination of inexperience and a desire to go
| fast(er than conditions/skills allow). Another is older
| guys, often who haven't ridden for years if ever, who get
| into trouble. Again inexperience is a big factor in both.
| codeduck wrote:
| Last time I looked at the numbers, the peaks were at 6
| months to a year of experience riding, and the second at
| 3 to 4 years. The first peak being generally due to
| inexperience, the second to overconfidence.
|
| Lack of regular experience is definitely a contributing
| factor. Muscle memory has a half life.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _Muscle memory has a half life._
|
| Indeed. This is part of why I sold one of my motorcycles
| - a powerful, fairly aggressive sport touring bike. It
| was my daily driver for about 2.5 years, and I rode it
| typically 7 days a week, around 1300-1500 miles a month.
| I knew the bike, and I had the "edge" - there was no
| question about what the bike was going to do. I knew it,
| I knew how it responded, I knew what I could ask of it.
| If I didn't ride for a few days, I could feel that the
| edge was dull when I got back on - there was just a
| little something missing, corners were a smidge sloppier,
| etc.
|
| And I was no longer riding enough miles on that bike to
| keep that. I knew I was ham fisted when riding it
| compared to what I used to be, and I just don't put
| enough miles on anymore that I was able to keep it up.
|
| I now ride the motorcycle version of a Russian tractor
| (one of a few Urals - sidecar rigs), and they're both
| entirely different from two wheels and demanding in
| different ways. But they don't have the sort of instant
| response of a sportbike either. A good sportbike does
| what you asked, _right now._ Capable of it or not, it
| does what you told it to do, and if that includes an
| unintentional wheelie, well, you _did_ ask for it with
| your throttle inputs. The Urals have their own nasty
| handling corner cases, but are a lot more forgiving in
| many ways, and you really have to muscle them around at
| times. A subtle input gets entirely ignored.
| codeduck wrote:
| For broadly similar reasons I have a 650cc twin sports
| tourer. It is docile, mild mannered, and has enough
| reserve power at the speed limit should I need it.
|
| I don't want or need anything more.
| whymauri wrote:
| The older guys scare me more, especially on scenic drives
| like Blue Ridge. They can outright bully normal drivers
| (surrounding them to force them to go faster). Of course,
| these are the vast minority of motorcyclists, but it's
| still a recurrent issue.
| ska wrote:
| One thing about places like the Blue Ridge is they are
| popular enough for tourism that they draw people from all
| over the country - including those who have never or
| rarely driven similar roads. That plus being crowded can
| be a perfect storm for stupid accidents.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| In the United States, cops pull over most bikes, especially
| after 10 pm. It's almost like they just hate bikers?
|
| The bikers I know are not getting buzzed at the local
| watering hole, and aiming the bike home. It's not the 70's.
|
| In my county, the fatal bike crashes are usually new high
| end high performance bikes, on country roads. They are
| experienced, but pushing it. They are cold sober.
|
| The days of having a few beers, and driving home on the
| bike, or even an old car, must be down across the county?
|
| Cops realized a while ago that most Americans have no
| qualms over arresting a guy over a DUI, and they are
| villigant.
|
| To vigilant in my opinion. (I heard in Texas if a dui
| defendant can prove they were not physically, or mentally
| impaired, while doing a computer simulation, they might get
| out of a dui? This might be just a rumor? I feel it's more
| fair, especially when a marginal dui can significantly
| impair your economic viability for years, especially for
| the poor.)
|
| In upper class neighborhoods, it's usually the only crime
| they can solve, after pulling over 50 sober drivers?
|
| My brother got a DUI over .04 BAC. He also had weed in his
| system from the day before, and clumsily told the cop the
| truth when asked. Bored officer, "Did you take any drugs?".
| My naieve brother, "well yesterday I smoked some weed.".
| Arrested, and lost the case.
|
| My point is the DUI scare is real among everyone, but the
| naieve.
|
| When I had my motorcycle, I was pulled over so many times
| for no reason it was maddening. It's the main reason I
| don't ride anymore.
|
| Getting pulled over for no reason other than a cop hoping
| to nab a marginal dui is really irritating.
|
| I've gotten to the point where I have two dash cameras
| always activated, and I try to not go out past 10 pm in an
| old car.
|
| (I can offer this, if you are ever in Marin County CA,
| expect to be pulled over if driving a motorcycle at night.
| Also expect to be pulled over if you look ethnic, or drive
| an older vechicle. We have a bunch of bored cops, and they
| look for anything they can to fill up that duty sheet. Oh
| yea, they peer into bars, and follow patrons home.)
| hwillis wrote:
| The median age of riders is ~50 while the average age of
| fatalities is 42. People over 50 make up significantly less
| than half of fatalities.
|
| However, you are still kind of correct- the number of
| fatalities picks up strongly at 50+. People 35-45 tend to
| be the safest. People 50+ are still on average
| significantly safer than <30, even those who are first
| riding late in life.
|
| Motorcycle fatalities are heavily associated with risk-
| taking more than anything else. There are more people like
| that <30, but there are plenty of Boomers riding recklessly
| as well. 27% of motorcycle riders in fatal accidents are
| alcohol-impaired, by far the highest of any vehicle
| category. Passenger cars and light trucks are 21% and 20%.
|
| Data from NHTSA summaries
| robocat wrote:
| > The median age of riders is ~50 while the average age
| of fatalities is 42. People over 50 make up significantly
| less than half of fatalities.
|
| I'm not sure if you were trying to imply there was some
| connection between those sentences? You could easily have
| more than 50% of fatalities over 50, and still get an
| average of 42 (for example, deaths clustered mostly in
| either twenties or fifties).
| ska wrote:
| > motorcycle riders in fatal accidents are alcohol-
| impaired,by far the highest of any vehicle category.
|
| I think this is attributable mostly to the fact that
| fatality rate on any motorcycle accident is higher (for
| obvious reasons) and that alcohol is especially a
| contributing factor to single vehicle accidents.
|
| If you are tipsy and go into a corner a bit fast in a car
| you can usually react in a way that will save it; many
| "gut" level reactions on a motorcycle will cause bad
| things to happen (e.g. most braking while already in a
| corner). Touching a soft shoulder is much, much easier to
| recover, etc.
| neonological wrote:
| One part of being human is the ability to rationalize
| situations rather then be rational about the situation. Two
| very different things.
|
| Our biases prevent us from recognizing this in ourselves
| ever.
|
| Not saying you're rationalizing your behavior, but I'm
| saying it's a possibility. The only way to know for sure is
| to provide data to back up what you're saying.
|
| What is your statistical risk profile based off of the
| conditions your provided?
| Syonyk wrote:
| It's certainly a possibility, and I've not sat down with
| a spreadsheet to optimize my risk profiles.
|
| I like riding motorcycles, so I try to do it in as safe a
| way as reasonably possible. Right now, given that I'm
| typically on ill-handling sidecar rigs, that involves
| gear and no longer riding two wheels frequently.
|
| I like small planes. Again, I try to find safer ways to
| do it.
|
| But I recognize that these are still riskier activities,
| and I do them because I enjoy them, entirely aware of the
| risks involved.
|
| "Trying to do the research to be able to quantify my
| risks and mitigations in a spreadsheet" doesn't sound
| terribly enjoyable to me, so I've no intensions of doing
| it.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| First class of dive course at CWRU:
|
| _Older Navy diver instructor walks in_ "So I know each of you
| is coming into this class with different levels of experience.
| What we're going to do first is a short test on your
| proficiency for 20 minutes.
|
| It will be graded on completeness, not correctness. You are not
| expected to know all the answers. I'm just interested in
| gauging what you know.
|
| Be aware, there are a lot of questions for the time, so I
| suggest you work quickly to get through all of them. Make sure
| you read and follow all instructions.
|
| Do not turn your paper over and start until I've handed all of
| them out and said go.
|
| _hands out tests_
|
| Go."
|
| _12 /14 people in the class start furiously scribbling_
|
| The first sentence on the test?
|
| "If you read this sentence, please continue to hold your
| pencil, but do not write on this test. Wait until time has
| expired."
|
| It always stuck with me as one of the best lessons about
| diving. Both in what you should do, and what our natural
| inclinations to actually do are.
| Nursie wrote:
| We had a Chemistry teacher who tried a similar sort of thing
| on us when I was about 17.
|
| "OK class, today's lesson is going to be a dictation, get
| your books out and start taking this down"
|
| I can't remember the exact content but effectively he started
| off with some familiar organic chemistry and then veered off
| to stuff that was pretty obviously wrong.
|
| I'm proud to say that I'm the one that said "Eh ... that
| doesn't seem like a valid equation ... ?"
|
| "Good! Never just copy this stuff down without engaging your
| brain!"
|
| (Or at least that's the way it goes in my memory, 17 was a
| long old time ago!)
| nkassis wrote:
| I was not a great student but at one point in college I
| realized that I wasn't listening while taking notes. I was
| just mindlessly copying everything exactly as was written
| on the white board missing out on what my teachers said.
|
| I stopped taking notes at this point and started paying
| attention instead. My grades improved. This might not work
| for everyone but something to try if you struggle retaining
| lecture content even as you take a bunch of notes.
| andrekandre wrote:
| yes, ive had similar experiences, and thinking back on
| it, why take notes when you can just record the lecture
| and play it back later.... better to engage in the
| lecture, since thats why we are there in the first place!
| sigg3 wrote:
| Funny, for me it's the opposite. Can't remember it if I
| don't write it down. I don't have to read it afterwards,
| I just remember what it was by remembering writing it.
| watwut wrote:
| Those who followed first sentence instruction did correctly
| one question. _And ignored all the others in test that was
| supposed to be graded on completeness._
|
| He also claimed the goal was to gauge their knowledge. Again,
| that was lie. And those who scribbled were literally trying
| to fulfill stated goal of test.
|
| > It will be graded on completeness, not correctness. You are
| not expected to know all the answers. I'm just interested in
| gauging what you know.
|
| In overwhelming majority of situations, of you sabotage goal
| of event due to following likely faulty mutually conflicting
| instructions, you will be blamed for it.
| s_dev wrote:
| Other versions of this test include the last question being
| "Don't answer any questions". The habit the teacher was
| trying to impart was "read the whole paper" first before
| answering any questions -- particularly if there are multiple
| choice questions.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| This is an irrational party(professor) trick that wastes
| everyone's time.
|
| An argument could be made for "read the (short)
| instructions at the start". An argument cannot be made for
| this. There is often very little value to skimming the
| entire question set before the exam.
| watwut wrote:
| I agree. More over, half of these have genuinly mutually
| exclusive instructions.
|
| And from those mutually exclusive requirements you are
| supposed to pick the "least likely one" else you are
| wrong. It is good example how manipulation works however.
| You put people into unsolvable situation and then blame
| them.
| pengaru wrote:
| It's been a very long time since I had to do any tests,
| but back in my school days, with multiple-choice tests, I
| evolved a method of quickly answering everything I was
| confident to know 100% throughout the entire test in a
| first pass, reserving the rest for subsequent
| increasingly slower passes.
|
| What tended to occur was the earlier fast passes at the
| very least warmed up the cache upstairs, and some
| previously unclear questions became obvious. Then for the
| remaining questions, they often had dependencies with
| other questions and their answers, which I could use to
| deduce probably correct answers.
|
| This was obscenely effective. To the extent that I would
| ace tests in classes I barely attended and never turned
| in homework for, in some cases culminating in teachers
| publicly accusing me of cheating on the exams. Though
| some of that was also due to switching from private to
| public school where I had already learned the material in
| the previous years.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I once used this method and spent the last ten minutes of
| a test just guess-and-checking the solutions to a
| question I didn't remember the formula for. Of course, it
| was the last one I checked. (I wasn't confident enough to
| early return).
| henshao wrote:
| I don't know about you, but for my tests on a curve where
| I might not be able to answer all the questions, doing
| the quick skim to answer the low hanging fruit before
| getting to the harder problems is a good way to make sure
| you don't run out of time and lose out.
| kemitche wrote:
| I did the same, but if I'm doing that skimming and I know
| the answer to question 12 is (c), I fill in (c) and keep
| going. I don't read all the questions, then go back and
| try and remember which of the questions I knew the
| answers to off-hand. Instead, I'd do the test in 3
| passes.
|
| 1. Answer all questions that I know the answer instantly
| or (for math type tests) can solve within a few seconds.
| Skip anything not quick. 2. Go back and answer questions
| that I know I can solve. These usually take a minute or
| two (since the easy ones should already be done). If
| there happens to be a question I know I can solve but
| also know will take "too much time," skip it. 3. If
| there's time left, work through any remaining questions
| (hopefully there aren't that many), making a best effort
| to prioritize the ones I'm more confident that I can
| solve in the time remaining.
| watwut wrote:
| Why would you not answer questions you know straight
| away? That wastes time.
| dllthomas wrote:
| Also, content of later questions can be useful earlier,
| and getting some background brain cells working on the
| hard stuff while you churn through the easy stuff could
| be worthwhile.
|
| It's a good lesson, but it's a lesson about taking tests
| not about the material. I can see arguments for and
| against including that in any given class.
| Nadya wrote:
| >content of later questions can be useful earlier
|
| In some tests I have seen future questions answer
| previous ones. For a contrived example:
|
| "Q1: What color was the bookshelf? A. Red B. Green C.
| Blue"
|
| "Q2: What sentimental item did John take from the red
| bookshelf?"
|
| I was never sure if it was on purpose to reinforce
| reading all questions before answering or if it was
| merely poor test design. Usually it was more subtle than
| my contrived example but it did bump my scores on some
| tests up a bit.
| mjevans wrote:
| One of my middle school teachers gave that sheet out to the
| class. I was that one kid that took it seriously, but had
| no prior-example knowledge to even bother reading ahead.
|
| The test with the bail-out at the start sounds logically
| fine. The test I was given was just a cruel trick from a
| trusted source of tests / knowledge provision.
| [deleted]
| grawprog wrote:
| We had a similar one of those in school. The first question
| of the test was 'read all questions before you start.' Then
| it had stuff like poke holes in the paper, draw things,
| random stuff, the very last question though was,
|
| 'Now that you've read all the questions, just write your name
| in the top corner and turn your paper over.'
|
| Yeah...a lot of my classmates ended up with holes and
| scribbles on their tests...
| ant6n wrote:
| It's pretty ambiguous, though. In tests you usually
| complete all questions. Why should you in this instance
| only complete the first and the last task?
| grawprog wrote:
| The teacher also told us specifically to read everything
| before also doing anything.
| watwut wrote:
| 1.) The complete set of instructions was inconsistent and
| mutually exclusive. The two questions required mutually
| exclusive actions. Why pick last?
|
| 2.) That is standard boilerplate typically said due to
| people not reading whole questions. And it is not useful
| advice in general.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I had one of those in fourth or fifth grade. It had items
| like "squawk like a chicken", making it obvious to everyone
| whether or not you read the directions.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "not even go through the most basic safety checks prior to
| diving"
|
| From my experience the dive operators in tourist spots often
| don't want you to touch anything. Kind of makes sense because
| most tourists like myself only have a very vague recollection
| of the procedure.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| It's a vicious cycle though: tourists don't know how to dive
| safely so instead of making sure they know, we'll just set up
| their gear and throw them in the water. Tourists learn that
| this is normal, and become even less likely to know how their
| gear should be configured, which makes the next operator more
| confident in their decision to not let the tourist set up
| their own gear.
|
| The crew on a dive boat in a tropical destination could very
| well be a 20 year old newly certified divemaster who's been
| up all night partying - there's no way I'm letting that
| person be responsible for making sure my air supply is
| connected and turned on before throwing me in the water, or
| any of the other standard pre-dive (BWRAF) safety checks that
| all certified divers are taught to do.
| watwut wrote:
| Isn't that exact same thing that is happening in anything
| touristy? And I fail to see why it is wrong? (Except drunk
| sleeep deprived guide).
| random5634 wrote:
| The problem dive locations have is a lot of people a)
| overstate experience or what they remember, b) are
| unfamiliar or have not tested equip they will be diving
| with and c) equip is not familiar to operator if they bring
| their stuff.
|
| People don't dive enough. So they buy all sorts of new
| stuff for their big new drift dive vacation. In some cases
| they've literally not been underwater with it for even 20
| minutes. Also makes it harder to do an at a glance x-check
| for folks if you don't know their gear. And some gear
| harder to deal with (ie, adding weights underwater) if
| someone turns out underweighted.
|
| My own feeling - unless someone is current with their equip
| or has current diving - start with a hard bottom dive at
| 40'.
| pge wrote:
| You touch on what I think is an important consideration.
| A lot of people want to get into diving but just don't
| have the time to do it consistently enough to be fully on
| top of it. They have a few days vacation and go do a nice
| destination and expect to jump right back in at the same
| level they have done before, or even worse they buy some
| new gear as if gear makes up for practice. Like with a
| lot of things, there is no substitute for time in the
| water as a diver. Good decision making and technique come
| from lots of consistent practice, that most people don't
| have the time to do.
| Starwatcher2001 wrote:
| If you really have only a vague recollection of basic safety
| checks you shouldn't be diving - seriously.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| or using Tesla cars in autopilot mode as an equivalent to a
| self-driving car.
| ddls wrote:
| You should, according to PADI norms, be offered a refresher
| dive. It costs $10 more and you spend 15 minutes with a
| dive master reviewing basic skills before a normal dive.
| The dive master also then knows to keep you close during
| the dive.
| mohaine wrote:
| This is exactly what the resorts I've been to do. Dives
| are free (All inclusive, Couples Jamaica) but if don't
| have a dive book with a signed off dive in the last year
| it is 50$ for a refresher/skills test.
|
| I've normally felt really safe on these but once there
| was way to many people for them all to be babysat and the
| group actually got split up due to 'issues' that the
| following guide had to help with.
| topynate wrote:
| In Israel a short refresher course is mandatory if you
| haven't dived for six months. IMO any reputable company
| should require the same.
| whymauri wrote:
| This should be mandatory for a lot of sports, honestly.
| Assisted climbing (lead, top-roping) comes to mind. Kinda
| crazy that in many gyms you can get on a wall with no
| verification that your belay knows what they're doing.
| izacus wrote:
| As far as I know they're mandatory everywhere, but pretty
| much noone checks this. If you don't sign up yourself,
| it's not happening.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Doesn't sound like the evidence backs this assertion,
| irrespective of your experience.
| bonzini wrote:
| What evidence? Evidence that lots of diving places take
| safety shortcuts?
|
| I myself got my first certifications with two amazing
| divers, they taught me very well and I had a lot of fun.
| However they also allowed people to take dives that they
| weren't certified for, because it was a small diving
| center they could only do two dives a day and they had to
| satisfy a wide range of divers.
|
| They did that with people that they had taught and knew
| well, and never had issues (certainly not a 60m
| compressed air dive as in the article!) but it did indeed
| make diving somewhat less safe.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, presumably if OP statement were true, recreational
| diving would involve large numbers of casualties.
| Casualties in recreational diving are somewhat rare,
| however, at 2 per million dives.
|
| Tourist dives are even safer since they do not perform
| advanced dives. Overall, the evidence does not support
| the view "If you really have only a vague recollection of
| basic safety checks you shouldn't be diving - seriously."
|
| Most tourists diving have only that and they're not dying
| in droves.
| bonzini wrote:
| Of course, because things very rarely go south,
| especially to the point of someone dying. But still,
| spending half an hour reviewing some basic course
| material is not a huge thing to ask.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yes, it is certainly acceptable to ask for that. Not
| arguing that.
|
| Merely pointing out that there is no evidence for the
| assertion as stated.
| bonzini wrote:
| Absolutely, I am a somewhat experienced diver looking at
| certifications, but it's all too easy to forget things even
| if you have more than a vague recollection. Whenever I
| haven't dived for a couple years, I always ask an
| instructor to check on me while I prepare for the first
| dive, because I just don't trust myself.
|
| A dive or two later I am okay with helping newly certified
| divers both on shore and on the boat, but on the first dive
| after some time you should never overestimate your memory.
|
| Diving is safe if you know how to keep it safe.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > it's all too easy to forget things even if you have
| more than a vague recollection. Whenever I haven't dived
| for a couple years, I always ask an instructor to check
| on me while I prepare for the first dive, because I just
| don't trust myself.
|
| Do you have a checklist?
| bonzini wrote:
| If you mean something to go through physically (e.g. on
| paper) no, at least not for non-technical dives. There is
| a standard list of things to do, which I agree with the
| parent comment you should remember more than vaguely
| before diving.
| nradov wrote:
| Here is the recommended pre-dive checklist.
|
| https://gue.com/blog/the-gue-pre-dive-sequence/
| random5634 wrote:
| Plenty of resorts and other destinations offer resort and
| discovery diving. You do need be 10 years old, but no prior
| experience needed, after some basics some places let you do
| 1-2 open water dives in the same day! All equip is
| provided. You really DO NOT configure any of your stuff on
| these dives (you do get comfortable breathing underwater).
| It's a scuba dive "experience".
|
| Unless you are a diver please don't comment with this type
| of snark - seriously.
|
| " Discover Scuba Diving is a quick and easy introduction to
| what it takes to explore the underwater world. To sign up
| for a PADI Discover Scuba Diving experience, you must be at
| least 10 years old. No prior experience with scuba diving
| is necessary, but you need to be in reasonable physical
| health. Are you ready to try it out? "
| ddls wrote:
| What instructors and dive-masters actually do (or should
| / are trained to do) for those dives is hold onto the
| first stage regulator at the top of the tank for the
| entire duration of the dive and never pass 12 meters. The
| diver never even needs to worry about buoyancy. We use to
| call them Lipton (tea) dives, because it was just dipping
| tourists into the water ;) They are absolutely 100% safe
| when done according to the requirements.
| random5634 wrote:
| 12 meters would have been "deep" where I was :)
|
| I called them "disco" dives. Dive down a bit, show them
| some lights and some fish turn around a few times and
| back up. A play on the discovery label.
|
| But yeah, the grumpy "master" divers will be yelling at
| you from shore about the whole thing!
|
| Def want 100% contact from start to finish, and if you
| keep dive to 8-10 meters or less (hard bottom) helps.
| Just throw some statues / structures down there to look
| at.
|
| Things to watch for. Folks who can't equalize - just come
| up or do a super shallow route if you can. And def need
| to make sure folks can breathe comfortably underwater
| (shallow water / cow pen). Also doesn't need to be long,
| it's about the experience. Some idiots take advantage of
| the depth to extend time which is silly.
|
| Another labor was resort dive, but wasn't sure what
| differences / similarities were between all these
| experiences.
| Starwatcher2001 wrote:
| "Unless you are a diver please don't comment with this
| type of snark - seriously."
|
| PADI Advanced, deep, nitrox, 100+ dives mostly in the
| cold waters of the North Sea.
|
| Edited: added context
| ChrisBland wrote:
| Resort Diving is mostly safe, the dive profile helps keep
| you safe. At 30ft, a lot less can go wrong. You can
| easily survive a rapid ascent from 30ft, heck you likely
| don't need to actively blow bubbles unless you took a
| huge breath or are ascending super fast. OP who hasn't
| dove in a while shouldn't make their first dive on
| vacation a 120ft bottom. They will likely not remember
| how to breath, how to swim and will consume too much air
| and blow the dive for everyone. I refuse to dive with
| strangers on dive boats, I have never once had a dive
| buddy physically verify my secondary and some of them get
| weird when I ask them to verify their primary and
| secondary with me. The 'I know' eye rolls when i show
| them where my weight release is, where things are on my
| BC. Honestly thats what pushed me in to technical diving,
| everyone takes it serious. If we do our math wrong and
| the drop tanks aren't sufficient or if the trimix was off
| we were all dead. When we did cave dives, knowing each
| exit, knowing the routes we were going to navigate.
| Rehearsing the transitions between lines. Even with the
| best planning, things go wrong. Read up on the Diepolder
| II and III caves - scary stuff
| mxcrossb wrote:
| How many of those tourists will die as a result of this? The
| data seems to suggest it's vanishingly small.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I don't know the stats but from what I read a lot of
| accidents are not tourists but more serious divers who go
| below 20-30 meters. I haven't heard about people getting
| injured while on regular tourist dives.
|
| Same with motorcycle riding or paragliding: it gets
| dangerous once you are beyond the beginner stage.
|
| I really don't know what could go wrong on the typical
| tourist dive if the dive master keeps an eye on people and
| you don't panic.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| That tracks with what I've heard, anecdotally. Accidents
| happen when people plan their own dives, go alone, push
| too far out of their comfort zone, or dive in conditions
| they aren't prepared for. These things are risk and
| consequence multipliers.
| dhimes wrote:
| Exactly. Yes, cave diving is extremely dangerous. Deep
| diving also is dangerous. But there are dives, amazingly
| beautiful dives, that, while not devoid of risk, are very
| safe. Simple, shallow dives in the Caribbean, for example,
| where the benefit of the tank over snorkeling is just that
| you can stay down longer.
|
| Diving is wonderful. Get certified (but you don't have to
| be for some dives).
|
| I also sail. Also wonderful. Can be dangerous if you push
| the edge, but more likely embarrassing if you stay within
| your limits.
| margalabargala wrote:
| > I believe that 90% of the industry sees diving akin to a
| roller coaster ride instead of Skydiving
|
| As a licensed skydiver who got out of the sport partially
| because I didn't like the culture, I assure you that a huge
| amount of the skydiving industry also views it like a roller
| coaster ride.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| I tell people that diving is a bit like flying. You preflight
| your equipment, use checklists, and monitor your condition at
| all times. It's equipment-centric, and one of the best things
| you can do is read accident reports.
|
| In flying, people die when they accidentally fly into
| instrument conditions. In diving, people die when they jump in
| without turning on their air.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Which is to say diving is a sport that _can_ be safe, but only
| assuming you are actively and honestly engaged in making it
| safe.
|
| I am not diving but I am sailing and for the most part sailing
| is a safe sport _assuming_ you are prepped including mental
| preparation. If you are not, things can get downhill pretty
| fast.
|
| I consider diving one of the sports where you place yourself in
| a situation where you are _dead_ by default unless you have
| paved the way for you to escape. Same is flying, skydiving but
| so is going into a corner in a car or motorcycle at the max
| speed you can handle.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Tangential, but driving never quite feels safe if you are
| pushing the car. At least not without inspecting the entire
| suspension every month or two. And that's ignoring anything
| internal, like your clutch fork giving out, or bending a rod,
| or your inner tie-rods disconnecting, or your brake cable
| tearing, or...
| lmilcin wrote:
| If you are pushing the car on a public road it means you
| have already failed at driving safely.
|
| Driving safely != not cause an accident
|
| Driving safely == not be in an accident
|
| You can be the best driver in the world driving the best
| car in the world and it doesn't matter, because some idiot
| will not look in their mirror when changing lanes and
| suddenly you are in an accident.
|
| To drive safely on a public road means to take care for
| your abilities and your car but most, most importantly, too
| give wide berth to other road users and to drive in a way
| that will minimize the accident if it happens.
|
| Understand everybody makes mistakes. If you aim to drive
| safely you need to make it _your_ responsibility to drive
| in a way that will allow yourself and others make mistakes
| and still not cause an accident. In other words, give
| margin for error.
|
| Some examples:
|
| -- try to minimize your time in somebody's blind spot.
|
| -- observe traffic behind you, not just in front of you. I
| have on multiple occasions avoided a car hitting me from
| behind, twice at a difference of speed that looked like at
| least 100km/h. Being aware where the cars are gives you
| ability to act instinctively without hitting somebody.
|
| -- try to maintain slow relative speeds with regards to
| other road users. For example, never drive fast around cars
| stuck in traffic.
|
| -- always have a backup plan for every maneuver. For
| example, do not have fast closing speed to the car in front
| of you with a plan to change the lane just before you hit
| it. You need to maintain the ability to break in case the
| car in front of you suddenly slows down or in case you
| can't change the lane for whatever reason,
|
| etc.
| [deleted]
| edwardsdl wrote:
| Narcosis is nothing to trifle with. After a particularly bad
| experience at 150ft on air, I understand why some agencies
| advocate for a maximum equivalent narcotic depth* of 100ft.
|
| *For the non-divers out there, it's possible substitute a less
| narcotic gas - typically helium but not always - for a portion of
| the narcotic gas in a mixture. Equivalent narcotic depth (END) is
| a way to equate a mixture's narcotic effect to that of air at a
| given depth.
| rob74 wrote:
| ** 150 ft ~= 45 m; 100 ft ~= 30 m (for the other non-Imperials
| out here ;) )
| nradov wrote:
| Military and commercial divers have done some experiments with
| hydrogen to reduce narcosis without using helium. But the fire
| risk makes it way too dangerous for civilian sport diving.
|
| Neon might also reduce narcosis but it's more expensive and the
| work of breathing is higher.
| diveanon wrote:
| Once you start getting to technical depths you operate under
| the assumption that you are alone, even when diving with a
| buddy.
|
| I know some french federation divers who will tape their hands
| to their hand power inflator to avoid confusion when experience
| narcosis at depth.
|
| At first I thought it was a goofy idea, but after experiencing
| debilitating narcosis at 60m I had second thoughts about it.
| nradov wrote:
| No you really don't. I do a lot of technical diving and
| depend on my buddies for safety. The key is to select
| reliable buddies who have been properly trained.
|
| And taping your hand to your power inflator is just too
| stupid for words. Put some helium in the mix.
| ddls wrote:
| I'm an experienced diver (PADI dive-master, ACUC instructor,
| IANTD gas-blender and normoxic trimix diver, TDI hypoxic trimix
| diver and dive-master) with several thousands of dives of which
| many at 100m+ (330 feet) depths. I lived in Dahab where for 16
| months I assisted training technical diving instructors in the
| blue hole and at other less touristy dive sites around there. The
| blue hole is in not a particularly dangerous dive site, but its
| popularity attracts the most cocksure types trying to prove
| something. The main attraction at the blue hole is the arch. It's
| a 40 meter archway who's apex is at 56 meters and leads from the
| cylindrical blue hole out into "the blue", where depths are
| insane and theres nothing but water anywhere you look. It's very
| beautiful, especially while the sun is rising, as it faces East.
| 56 meters is not particularly deep, but it's deep enough for any
| beginner and even most advanced divers to get seriously narced
| (drunk on nitrogen). It's also _just about_ deep enough for the
| partial pressure of oxygen to reach a critical point where oxygen
| becomes toxic. When it does, your muscles try to burn off the
| excess oxygen and you temporarily lose control of them, they
| shake, so your chin and cheeks start to twitch and you can easily
| drop your regulator. When the twitching is over, you
| involuntarily take a deep breath...
|
| If you're an experienced diver, know your narcosis limits, know
| your oxygen toxicity limits, know your air consumption, havn't
| had a drink the night before, and are physically fit, maybe you
| can pull it off without trimix. Otherwise, it's an absolute
| beginner's dive with the right gas blend.
| [deleted]
| Apofis wrote:
| Question: Why are divers injecting this trimix?
| detaro wrote:
| Trimix is a different breathing gas mixture with added
| helium, to avoid the mentioned problems with too much
| nitrogen and too much oxygen.
| [deleted]
| ghostpepper wrote:
| There's a short documentary about it on youtube where (IIRC)
| they claim most of the fatalities are people who try to swim
| through the arch on a single standard aluminum 80 tank.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| Site blocks Brave.
| diveanon wrote:
| This site is notorious in the professional diving community.
|
| There is nothing particularly dangerous about it except the huge
| numbers of greedy dive centers who take inexperienced divers
| there.
|
| To all novice divers reading this, dive within your limits and
| you have nothing to worry about. Do not listen to dive
| guides/instructors who encourage you to dive deeper than you are
| certified or in wrecks / caves without the proper training.
|
| Diving is a calculated risk like most extreme "sports", and when
| you ignore those risks you endanger yourself and anyone else
| diving with you.
|
| Don't expect your guide to care more about your life than you do.
| perilunar wrote:
| Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hole_(Red_Sea)
|
| Map:
| https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Blue+Hole/@28.5722712,3...
| brazzy wrote:
| Here's some good diagrams that show the shape of the hole:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20080321024116/http://www.blueho...
| twic wrote:
| Those diagrams are very helpful, thanks. This drawing also
| helped me understand it:
|
| http://maltatechnicaldiving.blogspot.com/2009/07/dive-
| site-o...
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Sigh...the wikipedia article has a picture of various memorials
| family members of deceased divers built at the Blue Hole. The
| most prominent one reads "Don't let fear stand in the way of
| your dreams"...isn't that exactly the wrong message? The guy
| whose quote that is died when he was 23 years old.
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Blue_hol...
| kubanczyk wrote:
| https://archive.is/20210427092706/https://www.spiegel.de/int...
| dmingod666 wrote:
| This documentary investigates specifically why the people are
| dying there. Very well made.
|
| https://youtu.be/hYuMN206Jzo
| the_dripper wrote:
| I found this terrifying, but incredibly captivating!
| dTal wrote:
| Idle speculation, perhaps a diver could answer - could it be that
| the reef forms a kind of natural solar pond, leading to an
| unusual osmotic (and therefore density) gradient? Thus resulting
| in divers suddenly dropping like a stone when they hit a certain
| depth? The Red Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the
| world.
| netflixandkill wrote:
| More likely that the target depth is down near 50m, which is
| well into the narcosis range for surface gas mixes.
| Particularly for inexperienced divers it is very easy to not
| realize what is happening and become too stupid to save
| yourself.
|
| Higher salinity may exacerbate that but not by too much.
| bonzini wrote:
| > become too stupid to save yourself.
|
| You probably weren't too smart to begin with to go to 50m on
| compressed air, and without a seafloor at that.
| netflixandkill wrote:
| I haven't been to the blue hole, but I can easily see
| nonchalant guides leading people to ignore any misgivings
| they had from what little training they may have had years
| ago.
| oggeline wrote:
| All your buoyancy comes from non rigid devices (vest, suit). As
| you go deeper those devices compress and you lose buoyancy
| causing a feedback loop. Compounded with loss of vertical
| references, you can quickly sink to the depth where the air you
| breathe will become toxic. At that point you don't have the
| mental capacity to save yourself.
| manarth wrote:
| As a diver descends, they have to add air to their BCD
| (Buoyancy Control Device) to maintain neutral buoyancy (and
| release air when they ascend).
|
| Without that compensation step, as a diver descends their
| buoyancy becomes increasingly negative.
|
| Add a level of narcosis for descending below 40m, mix in some
| excitement/stress, and some equipment configuration issues
| (e.g. too much weight), and the task-loading can cause some
| people to forget/skip routine techniques such as adding air to
| maintain neutral buoyancy.
| m1keil wrote:
| Here's a good look of the famous arch crossed by a freediver:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrXQbucZUDA
|
| A real shame that this diving site is known for all of these
| avoidable deaths.
| forcer wrote:
| I have been to that site twice , first time about 20 years ago as
| part of the diving course. I remember one of the exercises was to
| go to higher depth and do math exercises to prove that our
| thinking was not impaired due to the depth.
|
| For sure that site was not branded as deadliest in the world, but
| already back then dive masters told us about people who lost
| their lives there.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| We have something like that, off the coast of Long Island. It's
| the wreck of the _San Diego_ ; a WWI battleship that sank at the
| close of the war.
|
| It's upside-down, with a hole in the hull, and rests in about 40
| meters of water (120 feet or so).
|
| What makes it dangerous, is that it's filled with silt, and it
| only takes an errant kick of the flipper to fill a room with
| zero-visibility mud.
|
| People panic, and panic at 120 feet means the oxygen goes fast.
|
| They nickname it "The wreck that eats divers."
|
| https://www.history.navy.mil/research/underwater-archaeology...
| diveanon wrote:
| Entering a wreck at 40m without a guide line is asking to die.
|
| I have over 10k dives and the closest I came to death was when
| I was guiding on the liberty wreck in bali when a small
| earthquake shook the wreck, I was barely 3 meter into the wreck
| that I had dived hundreds of times and couldn't find my way
| out. Fortunately my buddy was outside the wreck at the time and
| used his banger to guide me out.
|
| Point is, shit happens, so you better plan for it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Mad respect. I don't dive, anymore, but I think I only had
| about 30 or so in my log book.
|
| What compounds it, is that we have an environment of "Macho
| Knuckleheads" around here. They will do things like dive the
| SD alone, and skip the decomp.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| > 10k
|
| Gulp... That puts it in perspective. It's exceptional to dive
| a hundred times on a wreck in Bali and write about it on HN -
| and do both in the same live. Respect!
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Have they installed ropes in the wreck or anything like that?
| thathndude wrote:
| What a great story teller! I can't put my finger on it, but the
| cadence and length was just spot on.
| achow wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYuMN206Jzo
|
| Interview with Tarek Omar (the diver rescuer in the article) and
| location shot. Much better than reading the article.
| lobstrosity420 wrote:
| Thanks for the link, but I much prefer the article to those
| American style documentaries, with the scary sound effects and
| endless repetition to build "suspense". Interview is at the
| 8:50 mark for those curious.
| threatripper wrote:
| Go to 30:00 and just look at it. It's literally luring people
| in.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Thanks, very helpful.
| Aromasin wrote:
| The interview section is quite short; much shorter than that in
| the article. The documentary is fascinating regardless however.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| Wow, just watching it gives me anxiety. Makes perfect sense
| what is happening and why divers can easily die there.
|
| Thanks for the link.
| echelon wrote:
| The article was fantastic. It brought everything to life in a
| way video essays can't.
|
| Video crushes your imagination. It's factual, and leaves little
| mystery. Well-written narratives are full sensory waking dreams
| that you populate with sights and sounds, something you can
| inhabit.
| nottorp wrote:
| How did you read it? It asked me for a subscription or an
| account or something. Instaclose.
|
| Subject seemed interesting enough that I came to the comments
| to get alternative links, which have been provided, thank you
| posters.
| ce4 wrote:
| It just asked to choose between adsupported and
| subscription model. You can switch off js if you dont want
| to see it.
| nottorp wrote:
| I don't try to bypass walls. If they don't want my
| eyeballs I won't bother them.
|
| Ofc, I suppose Germans who actually read it for the local
| info could be a lot more interested than me.
| epaga wrote:
| Though I'm sure it's a fascinating interview, I thought the
| article was really well-written and helpful. I really enjoyed
| the pace of it all.
| chha wrote:
| You might also like this story about a dive in Boesmansgat:
| Raising the Dead[0]
|
| [0] - https://www.outsideonline.com/1922711/raising-dead
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, it's a long read but very well written
| and worth the time.
| smnscu wrote:
| Also this -- professional diver discussing the video recorded
| by someone who dove there unprepared and died
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv4aK2O1X_M
| gonzo41 wrote:
| That was a sad read. Essentially the hole in the earth version of
| mount Everest.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Lots of things are dangerous. Motorcyclists I know each have a
| row of busted helmets in a closet. Ski long enough and you'll
| break something. Bicyclists die on the road every day (in
| America) and few give it a second thought.
|
| I wonder how diving compares to other off-track sporting
| activities. Does it have a worse record?
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I don't know stats, but checking out the passings section of
| scuba board does indicate it's a fair number of people. The
| thing that is different about diving from bicycling or skiing
| is you really don't need to be physically fit to dive. It's
| relaxing and easy, people dive into their 70s and 80s so there
| are a lot of heart attacks of older people that get chocked up
| to diving and may just be natural causes.
| dtrain2017 wrote:
| I did my first dives in Dahab, Egypt including at the Blue Hole.
| This location was my first experience with narcosis; but, it was
| planned. Myself, my father, and our instructor dove down to 45m
| and he handed me a whiteboard to write on. He asked me very basic
| questions like how to spell your name and I remember really
| having to think hard to answer.
|
| In general, if you are diving to see fish, it's rare to go past
| 20-30m (the minimum depth to exp. narcosis). The visibility is
| worse the deeper you go and typically if there is a reef at 30m
| there is also one at 15m where your oxygen will last longer, less
| cold, etc...
|
| I don't think diving needs to be dangerous to be enjoyed. It's
| about seeing an entirely new world and the moving in the medium
| of water. The people who've perished at the Blue Hole are taking
| an extraordinary amount of risk - diving solo, descending to 150m
| - for 'achievement' purposes and I understand Omar's frustration.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| I've dived the Sinai's Blue Hole, so it's wild to see this on HN.
|
| It was an intense experience. Our dive instructors warned us of
| how deadly the site was, and the various hazards. But the dive
| itself was unique compared to other deep dives I've done.
|
| I would describe it like parachuting, slow motion, into the
| bluest blue. By the second, the sunlight got dimmer and the blue
| got bluer. It was disorienting if you looked in any direction
| besides the crater wall. At about 25m down, I looked _up_ and
| realized we were too deep to reach the surface quickly.
|
| That triggered my panic reaction. I started hyperventilating into
| my regulator, and had the urge to spit it out. But knowing that
| would be literal suicide, I managed to override it.
|
| I felt like given a few minutes, there was a strong chance of
| getting my panic under control, but I thought, "why take the
| chance?" Also, the dive plan was to continue to go deeper, and if
| part of my panic was due to nitrogen narcosis, it was only going
| to get worse. It wasn't worth it for a recreational dive.
|
| So I gestured the "up" signal to one of the instructors, and she
| immediately worked with me to do a controlled ascent. I spent the
| rest of the time doing a shallow dive along the crater wall,
| which was much more relaxing.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The website has an interesting line of code:
|
| > return console.log("Messaging without detection successfully
| executed.")
| nieve wrote:
| For predictable irony points that's coming from a component
| provided by SourcePoint who claim to be a "privacy compliance
| platform for digital marketing, with the tools to protect
| consumer privacy, manage compliance, and optimize revenue."
| [deleted]
| kubanczyk wrote:
| In truth, diving done right is procedures, procedures,
| procedures. That's why many novices _and_ professionals suck at
| it. It needs boring personalities, or these that can handle
| boredom. I don 't have to remember about the danger, I don't even
| have to respect the danger: if I actually go through all the
| steps and all the procedures, the risk is minimal.
|
| "If there was zero adrenaline, it was a dive done properly."
|
| I've once taken an intro flight on a light aircraft. After I
| observed my instructor doing all his pre-flight procedures, I
| reflected "umm, you know, it's actually much less than I do for a
| simple dive." He thought for a moment, but found an interesting
| reply: "I'm not an expert, but I think, if we take a number of
| dives or flights, we have more diving-related deaths than light-
| aircraft-related." (He was talking about Poland though - i.e.
| cold water dives.)
| akiselev wrote:
| As long as you're not flying an experimental aircraft, general
| aviation is naturally safer than diving. Since GA planes are
| aerodynamically stable and can glide, pilots (usually) have a
| lot more time to calm down and think through their options
| before the situation becomes really dangerous. Most emergencies
| can be resolved by identifying a flat field or calling an
| emergency at the nearest airport (which the FAA is encouraging
| pilots to do _more_ often). Not to mention, getting a pilots
| license is about 10 hours of "how to fly a plane" and 30+
| hours of "how to deal with emergencies" including the
| instructor cutting off engine power mid flight. There's a
| procedure for just about every situation and the most important
| ones are practically muscle memory by the time one receives a
| pilots license.
| Saig6 wrote:
| A dive instructor I meet in Thailand in told me about this
| location. According to him it was common to be too narced
| (nitrogen narcosis) to make rational decisions when going under
| the arch at 52m, leading to fatal mistakes (like going even
| deeper).
| sharadov wrote:
| What a noble soul.. "He brings up the bodies because he wants to
| help, says Omar. "It isn't about money for me. I don't ask for
| anything. I just charge the cost of the gas."
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2012)
|
| argh
| stevespang wrote:
| I dive for a living, servicing pumps on the bottom of the lake
| often in black water, no vis in black water, lights are typically
| useless as the particles in the water reflect back, like a dense
| fog, I always dive alone. Have dived the Blue Hole in Belize,
| which the dive masters only allow descent to 140 feet max. I find
| it interesting that so many Russians are high risk takers who
| meet their end in the article.
| agent008t wrote:
| Diving seems like one of the recreational activities where it is
| easy to end up doing something much riskier than you intended
| (another I'd say is alpine hiking):
|
| 1. Being able to easily sign up for a dive at an all-inclusive
| resort makes it seem more 'fine', you get a false sense of
| security that you will be taken care of.
|
| 2. Dive shops tend to be fairly relaxed with checking if someone
| is properly qualified to go on a particular dive. They barely
| check your papers or equipment, if at all.
|
| 3. You often don't really know what exactly you are getting into
| until you are in the middle of it. And then it can be too late to
| bail. Is it safer to abandon a group and attempt to go back and
| potentially get lost, or go into an environment that looks more
| dangerous than you expected?
|
| I am a PADI open water diver, but only dive a few times a year,
| so not too experienced. One time I signed up for a shipwreck dive
| at an all-inclusive resort. I am usually quite careful, and
| naively thought it would be fine - we just dive down, go around
| the wreck and come back up. I rented all equipment, and had to
| pay extra for a wetsuit - the 'default' was to just go in my
| swimming trunks. Turned out, on the dive we ended up going inside
| the wreck through a very narrow passage under it, going through
| narrow dark corridors surrounded by rusted metal. Touch anything
| and you get scratched (which I did). Your cables or tank can
| easily get caught (which it briefly did for me - and since I was
| the last one in the group it was quite scary seeing the group
| getting away from me as I tried to catch up). The current around
| the wreck was quite strong.
|
| Somehow the dive was planned such that there was very little
| allowance for extra air. I ended up using more air than I suppose
| was normal, and there would not have been enough to make a normal
| ascent. I ended up having to use the dive instructor's alt supply
| for some of the return swim and switch to my own for the safety
| stop, otherwise I would've run out. It is one thing to practice
| it, and another to actually have to do it on what was supposed to
| be a relaxing 'touristy' dive.
|
| On another occasion, a dive instructor took me and my partner
| (who was on an introductory dive - she doesn't have a license)
| into a cave, which is also more dangerous than I would've
| preferred.
|
| These experiences - combined with the general experience of
| wasting the whole day on a rocky boat breathing diesel fumes for
| an hour or so of diving - make me reluctant to dive again, unless
| the sight is particularly picturesque.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| At least at my local NAUI dive shop, PADI is generally
| considered to play too fast and loose with the rules.
| Especially with new and untrained divers. The joke is PADI
| stands for "Put Another Dollar In"
|
| Not that I'll never go with a PADI dive, especially if it's the
| only game in town where I'm visiting. But I generally bias
| towards NAUI, and would highly suggest anyone new go with a
| NAUI cert.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| In Europe it's a very similar story, CMAS vs PADI.
| nix23 wrote:
| >Diving seems like one of the recreational activities where it
| is easy to end up doing something much riskier than you
| intended (another I'd say is alpine hiking)
|
| You are absolutely correct, in mountaineering risk-management
| you have two risks an objective an subjective.
|
| If you do hiking, the objective risk is low (hey i am just
| wandering), but the subjective is often much higher then one
| thinks (falling rocks, rapid weather change, out of water,
| break you angle, no way to call emergency, aggressive mother-
| cows etc.).
|
| If you plan to climb a Wall the objective risk is obvious (you
| can fall down, rocks break out and hit you etc), and because of
| that you are already aware of those risks, the chance that you
| calculated the subjective risks in too, is much bigger.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Am certain if you ask 100 beginner divers, 99 will have their
| own brush with death adventures!
|
| Mine came in the form of a six foot barracuda getting a bit too
| close for comfort. I am sure if I hadn't played it cool. Had
| somehow attacked or acted aggressively to shush it away (when I
| was a guest in it's deep sea domain). It would have enjoyed a
| nice lunch of fresh human flesh.
|
| The second was going below the hard deck at 300 feet whilst
| diving the continental shelf in the Caribbean. It's stunning.
| Floating weightlessly over the void that drops suddenly over a
| mile in depth. Feeling the rush of frigid current rise from the
| abyss. And seeing mysterious shapes as light filters down into
| darkness. But I too ran low on air. And had to come up fast.
|
| I haven't been diving in decades. And would require re-
| certification. But I've always heard legendary tales of the Red
| Sea and Australia's Coral Reef. Definite bucket list items ;)
|
| https://oceana.org/
| nradov wrote:
| Barracudas really aren't dangerous to divers. There are a few
| recorded cases of bites but I don't think anyone has been
| killed.
| mythrwy wrote:
| I've read they sometimes bite because of flashing jewelry
| which they mistake for shiny small fish.
| Cd00d wrote:
| When on a snorkel trip in the Florida Keys I was told not
| to point at the barracuda, because tourist often fed them
| hotdogs to get a close up look, and so they were trained
| to eat anything hotdog shaped... no idea if it was true.
| golemiprague wrote:
| You can see the coral reef in Eilat (Israel) without really
| diving since it is in shallow water, not sure if it is as
| good as in Egypt but at least there is a decent hospital near
| by if something goes wrong.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| I'm very curious what gas blend were you using at 300 ft -
| I'm fairly sure that would be fatal on air or even nitrox.
|
| I'm also shocked that you could come up from that depth with
| any sort of urgency and not be seriously injured / killed by
| some form of DCS.
|
| Maybe I misunderstood and you were not a beginner, because
| otherwise that tour operator has no business running a dive
| op.
| lbrindze wrote:
| Nitrox is 100% fatal at depths beyond prescribed limit. The
| whole point of Nitrox is to increases the oxygen content in
| the gas to minimize nitrogen absorption. A side effect of
| this is that you will get to hyperoxic poisoning thresholds
| earlier on a deeper dive profile. This is why Nitrox
| requires additional certifications, to help understand
| these limitations and learn how to calculate your max
| operating depth. (when using nitrox wihtin these thresholds
| I find I have more energy at the end of my dive).
|
| To go deeper you need to blend in inert gasses and decrease
| o2 and n2 to keep partial pressures below fatal doses. This
| means most commonly mixing in Helium to cut down on over o2
| and n2 in your gas mix. Human tissue I guess doesn't absorb
| helium the same way it does n2.
|
| Source: Open Water Scuba Instructor with multiple
| agencies... I havent taught in about 5 years though so some
| of this information may have changed, especially in light
| that global helium shortages (or US stock piles?) may have
| driven the price of He up to high to be used for mixed gas
| diving.
| nradov wrote:
| We still use helium for mixed gas diving but it is more
| expensive now. Human tissue does absorb helium in much
| the same way as nitrogen (or any other inert gas). The
| rate of diffusion is a little different which can impact
| the decompression profile.
| rdl wrote:
| I've done a few hundred dives (so, intermediate? with some
| additional certifications for deep/nitrox/rescue/divemaster)
| and the biggest problems I've had were 1) dropping a steel
| cylinder on my toe on a boat 2) getting sunburned on my scalp
| before I started wearing a hood even in warm water, due to an
| extended surface interval 3) dodgy food on a liveaboard.
|
| I don't think most recreational divers push things close to
| the line at all.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| If the Great Barrier Reef is on your bucket list then you
| really want to get on that asap. It's getting more and more
| bleached.
| PostThisTooFast wrote:
| Yep. Sadly, I'd say that even now you might want to spend
| your travel dollars elsewhere.
| maratc wrote:
| I'm no marine biologist but you can be certain that humans
| are not a regular diet of barracudas.
|
| Once, a 5-meter tiger shark came to me out of the blue and
| got too close, but as humans aren't a regular diet of tiger
| sharks either, it swam away.
| JPKab wrote:
| I've met literally dozens of people who talk about their
| close brush with a barracuda while diving.
|
| They are a minimal threat but they look kind of scary so
| people always always think that they had a close call with
| one when the barracuda is just doing what they do which is
| checking out a human who might hand them a fish.
|
| It always makes me chuckle because I hear people tell their
| barracudas stories and they always sound the exact same. At
| no point were they in any danger but they really think they
| were.
| dhimes wrote:
| Barracudas can freak you out because they seem to be
| curious. They just hang out and watch you. The only time
| I've heard of someone getting bitten was on a YouTube
| sailing channel where the group was making fun of one of
| the crew for being the only known human to actually be
| bit by a barracuda. IIRC he was messing with it.
|
| Jelly fish, OTOH, suck.
| joering2 wrote:
| Just like masses being overscared with sharks because of
| Jaws, its probably because another but much less popular
| movie "The Depth [1977]" with Nick Noltie where in a
| final scene Noltie wins underwater battle because he
| knows where huge Murena lives and put a villain head in
| there. Then we see that Murena litterally sicking him
| into her hole with a force that break his mask and break
| him in half. Definitely one of the most memorable scenes
| of the movie and definitely what made me start my doving
| adventure (now cerified with CMAS and PAID up to deep
| dive / rescue diver). Definitiely movie worth rewatching.
| Nursie wrote:
| > Dive shops tend to be fairly relaxed with checking if someone
| is properly qualified to go on a particular dive. They barely
| check your papers or equipment, if at all.
|
| I find this is very destination dependent.
|
| I did some Cenotes dives in Mexico that I was seriously
| underqualified for, and some deeper wreck dives in the
| Carribean too.
|
| OTOH in Australia everything was very much by the book. The new
| book, even (when I qualified for PADI Open Water in the early
| 90s we did deep-diving as part of the training, and were
| qualified up to 30m, but sometime in the 00s AFAICT things
| changed and O/W people are these days confined to 18m or less.)
|
| Which reminds me, I must get my 'advanced' at some point soon.
| I did a deep-dive specialty a while back so that I could do
| some more interesting reef dives at the great barrier reef, and
| an enriched air qualification as well, but not the advanced
| O/W.
|
| One day, after many years, I may even have the qualifications
| to do those dives I did many years ago... Thankfully I was
| young and stupid enough to just go with it and enjoy it at the
| time.
| kh_hk wrote:
| If the dive is appropriate for your cert, responsibility falls
| down to yourself and your buddy if he has a higher cert. If the
| dive is not within your cert. level, responsibility goes to the
| instructor (if he went with you) or the sailor that drove you.
| When in doubt, check local law. That's for negligence. Then
| it's up to your insurance to fight / cover for damages.
|
| Always dive within your limits, and if interested find a local
| club. To me, dive turism is something that can only be truly
| enjoyed after reaching a certain dive level. It's no fun to see
| turtles or sharks if your whole focus is still on being neutral
| buoyant or checking your air supply.
|
| As you say, diving is like hiking. I love hiking, but I know my
| limits and will not attempt a K7 or travel with a specific hike
| in mind. I like walking a trail, seeing birds and views and
| nature. Same applies underwater! The red sea is amazing, but so
| can be your nearest dive site.
|
| If truly afraid / curious about things that go awry, "Diver
| down" is a nice intro
| amerkhalid wrote:
| I am risk averse, first time I dived it was exactly because how
| nonchalant way it was advertised. It was an intro to diving
| course, so it didn't require any class work. We went straight
| in the boat, instructor gave basic instructions as we were
| boating to dive site. Because how it was presented I also
| didn't realize how dangerous it is. Only thing they emphasized
| was to not fly for next 24 hours. Had I knew the real dangers
| when diving, I probably would have skipped it.
|
| Not saying that it is the right way but dive shops would have a
| lot fewer customers if they really emphasized the dangers.
|
| Also diving is one of the best the best experiences of my life.
| It really feels like being in another world. It is extremely
| peaceful and meditative. You should try at least once.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| > These experiences - combined with the general experience of
| wasting the whole day on a rocky boat breathing diesel fumes
| for an hour or so of diving - make me reluctant to dive again,
| unless the sight is particularly picturesque.
|
| In my other comment, I recommended that everyone try Scuba
| diving at least once, cannot edit it now but there is another
| option, free diving. Most of the reefs and fishes are around
| 30-40 feet depth. With free diving, you can experience beauty
| of seas without carrying heavy equipment, worrying about
| equipment failure, ascending too fast, etc.
|
| I have also because of similar reasons, moved my focus on free
| diving. There is less overall risk in my opinion, as long as
| you are not pushing your limits.
| 101008 wrote:
| I just got anxiety reading your story. Then diving it's a no
| for me for the rest of my life :D
| agent008t wrote:
| Sorry if it put you off! For balance, diving can also be a
| very magical and surprisingly calm/zen-like experience. The
| best diving experiences I have had were in fairly shallow
| warm water (10-12m?) with great visibility. It is amazing
| seeing see-turtles, schools of fish, corals. It is like
| visiting a completely different world!
|
| Basically, as long as you dive in much better conditions than
| what you trained/qualified for, you will have a great time.
| Well worth doing.
|
| I just wish more dive shops were on the more conservative
| side. And that they had better boats with less fumes and less
| waiting around!
| 101008 wrote:
| I totally believe you, that diving in shallow water must be
| amazing and not that dangerous, but now I am scared that
| some teacher may start there and then "obligate" you to go
| deeper! "Just a few more meters, everything will be fine"
| :)
|
| Thanks anyway for worrying about me, ha!
| bonzini wrote:
| Every dive is briefed on the boat. These days they will
| also have a website explaining the dives, the required
| certifications and maximum depth reached.
|
| "A few meters more" is not dangerous per se unless you go
| below 24 meters (80 ft), but I agree it would be very bad
| to do that without the divemaster telling you before and
| also without him/her being a certified instructor.
| marvin wrote:
| I've found diving to be the least demanding "action sport"
| activities that I've tried, and I've done a fair bit of
| climbing, diving and flying gliders. Careful and well trained
| open water diving leaves you with plenty of safety margins in
| all directions. There's (well, almost) no single thing you
| can really screw up that would be deadly.
|
| But of course, if the whole idea of something going wrong
| will leave you lying awake the night before, it's probably
| not worth it :)
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| I'm on a similar level of experience as you. I've dived a bit
| below the depth I'm officially cleared for, and through short
| tunnels. Both felt fine and responsible. But going into a rusty
| wreck with insufficient air and strong current is insane. I
| hope you wrote a review to warn others.
| belorn wrote:
| Going to the red sea I had a similar experience with the guide
| ending up going inside a wreck with a group where many just had
| the continuation course after open water, through no out-of-gas
| situation.
|
| It is a common discussion topic I hear among divers, and almost
| everyone who been diving for a while has had a similar
| experience. Dive guides get basically all of their income from
| tip, and it creates a strong incentive for them to bring guests
| into areas which the guest might not be qualified to be in.
| Same for instructors at popular resorts.
|
| To me the whole experience was a major incentive to get better
| training and gear so that next time I won't be under qualified
| to do the dive, and the more training and equipment I get the
| more I realize how dangerous diving can be and how little
| redundancy recreational diving have. The basic premise for open
| water dive is that you should be able to rocket to the surface
| at any point, and that there is a second diver next to you at
| all time. Being the last person inside a wreck is neither of
| that.
|
| But I will end this comment by saying that one should not let
| guides ruin ones enjoyment of diving. There is a lot of great
| diving to be done within the limits of recreational diving.
| nspattak wrote:
| Not a diver myself but my best friend is (he is also an
| instructor as well as cave/shipwreck diver and he has also
| worked for a dive center with a lot of tourists). I remember
| him telling me that diving in shipwrecks(or caves) requires
| additional certification, so I assume that those who have only
| the first/second star were not allowed to join (especially in a
| trip by an all-inclusive resort).
|
| What you describe sounds like a _terrible_ and _irresponsible_
| trip to me.
| bluGill wrote:
| > What you describe sounds like a terrible and irresponsible
| trip to me.
|
| That is typical of tours and resorts. These are not in the US
| where the law might investigate. Just some divers who will
| show anyone around. Many will teach you to dive, a two hour
| course is enough for a simple dive (ie.something you could
| snorkel to), then they take you on a first dive that needs
| far more training.
| nradov wrote:
| In the US there typically won't be a legal investigation
| unless someone suffers a serious injury or death. And even
| then it will typically be handled as just a civil issue
| (wrongful death lawsuit and insurance claim).
| bluGill wrote:
| Probably, I'm not into diving so I can just report what
| I've observed from my friends who are. Though insurance
| in the US tends to be stricter about what they allow.
| meowfly wrote:
| Both caves and shipwrecks are allowed with Open Water as long
| as you are within a certain distance from an opening and
| natural light.
| maratc wrote:
| Any place with Hard Ceiling (something between you and the
| surface except water) necessitates specialty training in
| most dive certification organizations.
|
| The issue that many take with PADI is that their values are
| mostly aligned with making profits.
| permo-w wrote:
| my dad always called it Put Another Dollar In
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Absolutely not:
|
| > You need to be PADI Advanced Open Water Diver who is at
| least 18 years old to enroll in the Cavern Diver course.
|
| https://www.padi.com/courses/cavern-diver
| meowfly wrote:
| Edit: I was wrong with the above statement.
|
| After doing some research around this. Cenotes are an
| exception to the rule and even though Open Water Divers
| often do enter inner rooms in wreck dives and caverns
| what matters is maintaining a direct line of ascent.
|
| ---- Original ----
|
| Open Water can do caverns. Dos Ojos is incredibly popular
| and has hard ceiling.
|
| Edit: Also Cavern Diver is just a specialty cert and
| doesn't confer any extra penetration. Those certs are
| mostly designed for skill mastery. IANTD's Cavern cert is
| required to get Full Cave, but I don't know if PADI's
| would count towards it.
|
| https://blog.padi.com/2019/04/29/must-dive-cenotes-for-
| open-...
| maratc wrote:
| Did you read your own link?
|
| > certified Open Water Divers can take a cavern tour
| _guided by professionals qualified by some of the cave
| diver training organizations to lead such tours_. This is
| a _highly controlled, limited_ tour _along a line_ into
| the cavern zone, which is defined as within the natural
| light zone and within 130 to 200 ft (39-60m) (some minor
| variations here) of the surface.
| meowfly wrote:
| Yes, I read my own link. OP was talking about a guided
| tour.
| maratc wrote:
| The case in point is what you said: "Both caves and
| shipwrecks are allowed with Open Water".
|
| As a rule, they absolutely aren't.
|
| In this specific place, PADI allows some of them to make
| a supervised dive at a certain site following a specially
| installed line. This doesn't change the rule, which is
| "Open Water Diver certification does not qualify you to
| dive on shipwrecks, nor caves".
|
| At some other place, there may be an option for a person
| with Open Water certificate to _drive a semi-trailer
| truck_ , while under supervision from a trained
| professional, and over a course specifically crafted to
| minimize any possible collision. This doesn't change the
| rule, which is "Open Water Diver certification does not
| qualify you to drive semi-trailer trucks."
| meowfly wrote:
| After looking into this, I'm wrong and I'm going to edit
| my original comment. My apologies.
|
| Where I'm confused is the difference between a direct
| line of ascent (even when there is an overhead directly
| above) versus penetrating beyond that. This is a
| differentiator that makes swim-throughs OK but most
| caverns not OK.
|
| Edit: Turns out I can't edit a comment that old.
| izacus wrote:
| Yeah, I'm a beginner diver (< 15 dives) too and I've been a bit
| horrified just how easy and loose some of the diving centers
| play with safety and capability checks. Just like you said,
| most of them don't even check if you passed the shipwreck
| advanced diving cert.
|
| You're experience matches mine so I'm now extra careful to vet
| all the diving centers - especially looking for complaints of
| divemasters being too "hardass" on people and demanding good
| equipment / qualifications. A lot of other divers are still
| surprised that my inital diving instructor actually checked if
| I could do the required 200m swim by demanding that I do it in
| the pool before starting training.
|
| I've also bought my own equipment because of that - who knows
| just how well the regulators, dive computers and BCDs are
| maintained in those places. It's scary enough that you need to
| trust them with air and tank quality.
| retSava wrote:
| I took the basic (open water?) license in Australia, and the
| group were sent into a pool to tread water for 20 minutes or
| something. Now, I can barely swim. Really poor buoyancy and
| bad technique I guess, so have never really learned.
|
| If the instructor had looked away from the TV for a second he
| would've seen and flunked me, which would probably have been
| a good thing. I'm stupid. Went through with it and out on a
| couple of dives which I enjoyed greatly, but now ten years
| later still haven't dived again and won't until I can swim.
| Having kids does stuff to your sense of self-preservation.
| permo-w wrote:
| top tip: most humans can float as long as their lungs are
| full
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Being super lean and carrying mass in large muscles will
| ruin this, fwiw.
|
| In my late 20s I was militantly fit and also very into
| rock climbing. I supplemented this with some lifting to
| balance things out; people who ONLY climb end up looking
| a little weird as the lats develop out of proportion with
| the rest of you.
|
| Anyway, even with a lungful of air, my neutral buoyancy
| point was like 8-12" below the surface.
|
| Alas, I am now 51.
| qzw wrote:
| Only if they're not panicking and thrashing about.
| permo-w wrote:
| true. it's definitely easier said than done, but it's a
| useful fact to have in your head
| PapaSpaceDelta wrote:
| I dived the Blue Hole in Belize and was shocked by the slack
| attitude of most of the other divers on the boat. I'd just
| completed my Advanced Open Water (with a deep dive) so was very
| conscious of the regular air checks, however despite a detailed
| dive briefing with emphasis on the pressure cut offs at each
| depth, about half the party ended up having to be given
| supplemental air at the final safety stop. Although I'm sure
| that there are many irresponsible dive operators out there,
| there are clearly also divers (many of whom were at least
| experienced enough to bring their own equipment) who don't take
| responsibility for their own safety. I don't know if that's a
| training issue, or just a human stupidity issue.
| meowfly wrote:
| I'm an avid diver and I completely agree. My Open Water took
| place in a hot spring with extremely low visibility. The goal
| was the cert it wasn't skill mastery. My next dive was the
| Great Barrier reef where boats just drop you off and you can
| get a guide or dive yourself. We irresponsibly dove by
| ourselves, exhausted all our air, and came up (skipping a
| safety stop) realizing we were a considerable distance from the
| boat. It's obviously our fault for not being safe but we
| definitely didn't have the necessary fear in us for our skill
| level.
|
| I think PADI should be emphasizing that your first 20 dives or
| so should be with a guide never exceeding 60ft. IIRC, a lot of
| the course material for Open Water is about shore diving with a
| buddy by yourselves.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| _It 's obviously our fault for not being safe but we
| definitely didn't have the necessary fear in us for our skill
| level._
|
| I think fear is what has kept me safe this long. I've got at
| least 100 dives under my belt but I was quite careful to
| slowly ramp up the difficulty, and even now, I'm very
| cautious of really strong currents.
|
| I must have done over 20 easy shore dives just getting
| navigation experience (and I'm still not super confident with
| it) before jumping on a boat to go deeper. And even then
| there were a couple of potentially close calls. I must have
| had over 40 dives before I even went on a dive holiday, and
| many of the scenic places are not super difficult to dive.
| meowfly wrote:
| > I was quite careful to slowly ramp up the difficulty, and
| even now, I'm very cautious of really strong currents.
|
| This is most definitely how it should go.
|
| It seems like an inevitability you will eventually have
| something go wrong (maybe you lose your group, your mask is
| a problem, you burn through air too quickly, etc). In this
| scenario the most important skill is to not panic and
| control your breathing but I think that mostly comes with
| experience.
|
| While you develop experience, diving conservatively hedges
| against some of the worst case scenarios. Something as
| simple as a mask coming off can lead to panic which leads
| to hyperventilating. Someone hyperventilating will feel
| like they just can't get enough air and the immediate
| reaction will be to exit as quickly as possible.
|
| Guides, as OP points out, should be far more sensitive to
| the experience a person has.
| mordymoop wrote:
| I was sixteen when I first started diving. It was only
| after I first (briefly) lost track of the dive group, _at
| night_ , that I realized I had absolutely no plan for
| what to do if I was disconnected from the guide. ( _At
| night_.) This possibility hadn't been discussed, at all.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| I remember my padi instructor (British, in Malaysia) as being
| completely paranoid, which was a good thing.
|
| He essentially told us that any missteps would have very
| nasty consequences, and spent most of his time badgering us
| with safety precautions. He also encouraged us to dive with a
| guide, do refresher dives, etc.
|
| The only downside is that I don't dive anymore now that I
| have kids, since I believe it's dangerous, and I'm worried I
| will make a mistake...
| jqcoffey wrote:
| > As a PADI Open Water Diver, you'll be trained to a maximum
| depth of 18 metres/60 feet, and are qualified to dive in
| conditions as good as, or better than, those in which you
| trained
|
| ref: https://www.padi.com/courses/open-water-diver
|
| PADI _does_ emphasize that with an open water cert you must
| absolutely _always_ remain above 60ft.
|
| That's what's shocking to me the most about the article and
| some of the conversation here--many folks are talking about
| diving to crazy depths as if that's normal.
|
| I don't know why that is, but I will agree with your general
| point as a result. Folks need to understand this is a
| dangerous sport and one that can easily kill you (though not
| by barracuda).
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| The thing is, it's actually extremely easy to get an
| Advanced Open Water cert. I did it in a few days in Dahab,
| on the Sinai. We actually dove the Blue Hole as our last
| dive.
| meowfly wrote:
| I'm just learning that I don't actually know PADI Open
| Water guidelines despite > 100 dives. I guess that syncs
| with my experience that Open Water cert doesn't necessarily
| actually train you.
|
| I'm like genuinely confused at this point. I've had so many
| guides, even in places like Hawaii, not follow their own
| guidelines. It would be trivial for PADI to see Open Water
| divers are diving the thresher sharks at Malapascua, for
| example, and that would necessitate they go past 60ft.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I had a similar experience at a tourist destination island in
| Australia. We went on a dive with just a couple of meters of
| visibility, with a big group holding on to a anchor chain. I
| couldn't see the dive instructor and I couldn't equalise my
| ears. Everyone kept going and I basically just stopped at about
| 10 meters down. It just wasn't worth it, especially given the
| ear pain I had for weeks afterwards.
|
| As a counterpoint, I did another "introductory" dive at another
| Australian island a few years later, and it was beyond amazing.
| Prettier than any wildlife documentary I had ever seen.
| Incredibly attentive, patient, and professional staff, etc...
| climb_stealth wrote:
| Would you care to share where the good and bad experiences in
| AU were?
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Bad was Great Keppel Island. Basically it was a bunch of
| drunk 20-something-year-olds doing "activities" like
| diving, getting plastered with overpriced drinks, and
| unsuccessfully hitting on each other. The coral was half
| dead from bleaching, and the other half was torn up by boat
| anchors.
|
| Good was Lord Howe Island, which is the _last true paradise
| on Earth_. It 's on the southernmost tip of the Great
| Barrier Reef, so it has coral, but none has bleached. The
| waters are pristine and protected. It's a place more
| civilised than Japan. You can leave a camera bag with $10K
| of gear in it on the beach and go on a hike, because it
| _will_ be there when you get back. There 's a beach with a
| shack next to it where you can stuff a $20 bill into a jar
| to rent snorkelling equipment. The jar had about $500 in
| it. Nobody is going to take that either. This place is what
| most places _should be like_ , but aren't.
|
| The dive at Lord Howe Island was just... unspeakably
| beautiful. To set the scene: the missus had done a dive
| before (supposedly), and this was an introductory dive
| anyway to a depth no greater than about 12m, but she had a
| panic attack. While the instructor was patiently helping
| her relax, I snorkelled around the boat. Above were
| thousands of wheeling seabirds coming in to roost to a
| cliff about 100m high. That view alone was spectacular.
| Below were layers of coral and shoals of fish like
| underwater highways of colour. Had I paid the fee just to
| see _this_ I would have considered it money well spent.
|
| Then the younger instructor leading the team of kids doing
| their PADI certification offered to take me on a one-on-one
| dive since a boy in his group used his air too quick and we
| had spare time now. I got to see shellfish bigger than I
| had ever seen, a huge octopus squirt ink in the
| instructor's face, then we dove through a tunnel under
| coral, there were fish bigger than me, and generally it was
| just awesome.
|
| I highly, _highly_ recommend this place to everyone who 's
| willing to listen and has the budget. My tip is: skimp on
| the accommodation, splurge on the restaurants. Go there to
| turn your phone off and relax.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." -
| Mike Tyson
| nkozyra wrote:
| Not meant as pedantry, because I think it makes the quote
| more urgent, but it's "punched in the mouth."
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Edit: I think I wasn't clear. I wasn't try to claim alpine
| hiking is totally safe. Just that there is less of an issue
| with guides taking inexperienced people beyond their
| competency. Clearly alpine hiking isn't totally safe as many
| people sadly perish doing it.
|
| I'm not sure I agree about alpine hiking. Most of the failure
| states I've seen can be avoided by having at least one
| competent person (out too late, lost, continue in bad weather,
| etc.) There is still the issue of approving people who aren't
| fit enough, but you've got a much slower start than diving and
| you'll probably notice that sort of thing before you're too far
| in to turn back.
|
| Edit: Possibly you meant more mountaineering-y sorts of trips
| instead. If you're talking about the sort of thing where you
| might use protection then I agree with you.
| christophilus wrote:
| One of my (very experienced) alpine hiking instructors died
| after a long day summiting Rainer. His team made a rookie
| mistake, but it's surprisingly easy to do when you're
| exhausted and you feel as if you're nearly done with the
| worst of it.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I was told, most of the climbing accidents happens in easy
| terrain. When also experienced people get careless.
|
| My experience matches that.
| nix23 wrote:
| Another point is you get much more injuries when the wall
| is not steep (you slide along, instead of falling in
| free-air), another are stones if the wall is not steep
| they roll along the wall. That's a perfect example off
| misjudge objective and subjective dangers. An overhanging
| wall is much less dangerous then anything else, but your
| brain tells something else.
| darkerside wrote:
| I'd generally trade more little injuries sliding down a
| shallow wall for one big injury from a free fall.
| nix23 wrote:
| For that you have a rope, that's the objective part...you
| would not climb (i hope) an overhanging wall.
|
| >little injuries sliding down a shallow wall
|
| Those are often not "little" the rocks rip you apart, and
| when you stop you look not human anymore (a bag of
| flesh)...happens often at glaciers too.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Oh, but in the alps there are ways with a metal ladder,
| where you indeed "walk" a overhanging way, without rope.
|
| Not for everyone obviously.
| marcyb5st wrote:
| Not sure if you are still focusing on alpine hiking or
| climbing.
|
| While climbing most deadly accidents (30+% of them [1])
| happen because people rappel through the end of the rope
| (or ropes if using half/twin ropes). Stopper knots are a
| 10s precaution that is often overlooked.
|
| However, it is true that on easier climbing routes it is
| easier to hurt yourself because you might hit a ledge on
| your way down. If that happens it's most likely the
| belayer's fault because he/she should keep "a tight
| leash" on the sections just above said ledges. If you let
| an unexperienced person belay you I assume you evaluated
| the risk and are ok with that.
|
| [1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/skills/8_common_c
| limbing...
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that. I wasn't try to claim alpine hiking
| is totally safe. Just that there is less of an issue with
| guides taking inexperienced people beyond their competency.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Most of the failure states I've seen can be avoided by
| having at least one competent person"
|
| Thats why "guides" exist. And if course it is very safe with
| a competent guide.
|
| But alpine hiking can be indeed very dangerous, without.
|
| Because Alpine hiking has climbing elements in it.
|
| Add to that a storm and wind and fog - and you have tourists
| with sandals on slippery rock about to fall very deep.
| Happens allmost every year.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was debating disagreeing with the equivalence with alpine
| hiking. As I said in another comment, it's mostly about
| judgment when it comes to alpine hiking. Although perhaps
| that's the case with diving as well. Of course, get more into
| mountaineering and there are a ton of factors like avalanches
| you can't fully protect against. (And there's of course some
| overlap with winter hiking in the mountains.)
|
| ADDED: re: fitness. I've definitely had to take people down
| when I've been leading a trip and even had to turn a group
| around. But so long as you don't push on past where it's
| safe, it mostly just means people don't get up the mountain.
| (Of course, it can be a problem with canyons.)
| diveanon wrote:
| For any beginning divers reading this, dive your limits.
|
| I am an instructor and it always makes me sad to hear about
| people questioning the hobby because of shady dive centers.
|
| Do not let a guide or instructor talk you into exceeding your
| certification limits.
|
| Also, if anyone encounters a situation like what is described
| above please report it to PADI asap. PADI takes cases like this
| very seriously and will initiate an investigation immediately.
|
| You might save someones life.
| ghaff wrote:
| The two biggest things with alpine hiking are probably weather
| and not turning around when you should. (I could probably add
| just being grossly ill-prepared like lacking map and compass
| and perhaps depending too much on electronic gizmos.)
|
| Over the holidays I was reading a book about a winter fatality
| on Mount Washington a few years back. The person was actually
| very well-prepared and fit. And even had some big mountain
| experience--but always with guides. And simply went out on a
| day she should never have been out on.
| nieve wrote:
| Landslides & avalanches would be the other big worry and not
| just from them coming down on you from above. It's not
| unusual for trails some places to cross a couple hundred feet
| up scree slopes that are right at the angle of repose. A bad
| slide can start just from standing still too long. I've been
| in groups that had to run across them and afterward we
| questioned whether we'd been stupid to even try.
| leeter wrote:
| As a native of a very well known mountainous state I can say
| it's more than that. If you're summitting on a mountain you
| need to be prepared to bivouac at least one if not two nights
| and survive adverse weather. Even experienced hikers can find
| themselves trapped far from the trailhead by either weather
| or fire. That's not even talking about the usual bears,
| mountain lions (don't hike alone), or ticks (Lyme Disease is
| real).
| agent008t wrote:
| Trails in the Alps in Germany or Austria can be tricky
| precisely because they are fairly well marked and signposted.
| A red route can be a 'walk in the park', nicely trodden path
| with a steep gradient in places, or include bits that are
| quite exposed with a danger of falling. As a complete
| amateur, it is easy to end up on a riskier route than you
| expected, as it would not even look remotely risky until you
| are half-way through. And then you encounter some dodgy bit,
| it can be hard to decide - do you turn back, or do you
| attempt it? Will it get worse or better after this?
|
| One should be vigilant not to get lulled into a false sense
| of security and prepare well for any hike. I have been
| irresponsible in the past at times but now I know better - I
| wish I did back then too.
| izacus wrote:
| Yep, this literally just happened to me here in
| Switzerland. An "easy" route at around 2300m which was
| great - a nice wide, cleaned road around snowy areas. And
| then suddenly a steep descent with 30+ cm of frozen iced
| snow. Without proper equipment, that would be extremely
| dangerous and even with equipment is was far outside the
| comfort zone.
| ghaff wrote:
| Ice can be particularly tricky. One of the nice things
| about modern traction gear is that it's easy and light to
| toss in a pack "just in case." That said, with harder ice
| and steeper terrain, it's not a replacement for more
| specialized gear.
|
| I tried to do one hike this winter that wasn't even
| particularly hard but it was really icy and cold and the
| steep parts were steep enough. I ended up turning around
| given that I wasn't wearing my full crampons.
| whymauri wrote:
| I turned around at Bright Angel in the Grand Canyon this
| Winter. Despite being real bummed about it, I headed down
| Hermit's Rest which gets more sun and was no longer icy.
|
| "Oh well, I'll settle today" I thought. Midway down
| Hermit's Rest I cross a much more experienced hiker --
| she had lived in and around the Grand Canyon full-time
| for a year. She was only coming back to the Rim to move
| her car due to the incoming on-season (yeah, just a
| "casual" river to rim and back, lol). She told me she had
| just been around Bright Angel the day prior and had seen
| a girl be air-lifted away with a broken leg. Even though
| she had microspikes and months of winter experience in
| that park specifically, she bailed.
|
| Suddenly, I didn't feel like I settled anymore... turning
| back can save lives and limbs. The majority of the time,
| nature (and the trail) will still be there when you
| return. It will certainly outlast you, if anything.
| notacoward wrote:
| For those who don't know, there are signs around the
| "presidential" peaks in the White Mountains that say:
|
| > The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Many have
| died of exposure even in the summer. Turn back _now_ if the
| weather is bad.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ScarySigns/comments/ekx3rw/found_wh.
| ..
|
| They are NOT kidding. Things can go from beautiful to ugly
| very quickly. 5,000 feet might seem like a joke to somebody
| from out west, but it's not all smooth trails (practically
| the same as pavement) with plenty of switchbacks like you're
| used to. When you're on steep nasty almost-technical terrain
| and its wet and _hella_ windy, safety can suddenly be a long
| way away.
|
| I know those mountains very well, I'm a strong hiker even by
| local standards, and I _still_ make sure to exercise plenty
| of caution every time. Those rocks are not to be trifled
| with.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Based on the comment about the electronics, GP is likely
| referring to Kate Matrosova, who perished in positively
| appalling conditions, even by the very low standards of
| winter in the Whites.
|
| She died just off the Star Lake Trail, having ascended to
| the ridge via the Valley Way, which hits the ridge line at
| Madison Hut (4800', or much lower than the summit of
| Washington at 6288'). My partner and I have bailed off
| pretty much exactly her route in the summer when the winds
| were too high for our experience and fitness levels when we
| popped up out of the lee side of the ridge line on Adams.
|
| Anybody who wants a really well researched case study
| should read Ty Gagne's book on her trip and the subsequent
| rescue attempt.
|
| Incidentally, my partner and I climbed Washington on a
| guided trip the weekend after she died. The weather was so
| good the guides had their cameras out to take pictures. The
| extremes in the Presidentials are no joke, as stated, but
| can also result in some beautiful days.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, that's the case and the book I was talking about.
|
| The actual accident, while obviously very tragic, wasn't
| especially interesting. Basically don't try to do a
| Presidential Traverse during the worst weather in about
| 20 years. It was actually a different situation from the
| more common cascading failures mode of accidents.
|
| She made a grave error by deciding to drive up to NH that
| weekend and a fatal one by continuing above treeline.
| Even Rick Wilcox (owns local climbing gear/guide store
| and has summitted Everest) basically says in the book
| that she was well enough prepared but shouldn't have been
| out that day.
|
| That said there were definitely lessons around just
| because you have a lot of experience, don't assume you
| understand the local situation when you have little to no
| experience there.
|
| But the search and rescue account was morbidly
| fascinating. Also demonstrates that locator beacons won't
| always save you. (She admittedly didn't use it properly
| but I doubt it would have made a difference given the
| weather.)
| notacoward wrote:
| BTW, when I said "you" before I didn't mean you @ghaff. I
| know _you_ know these things; that was for the majority
| of HN folks whose experience is likely to be with taller
| but still less dangerous peaks. I apologize for the lack
| of clarity.
| [deleted]
| matsemann wrote:
| > _And even had some big mountain experience_
|
| One problem is that that experience lull you into a false
| sense of security. I'm not talking arrogance or so. Merely
| that you can do something everyday that's unsafe and get away
| with it, training you on bad data to think it's safe.
|
| Like avalanches. Certain conditions are met. You go out.
| Everything is fine. Same the other times. You learn that it's
| safe. Suddenly an avalanche happen with those exact
| conditions. It was just arbitrary it didn't happen the other
| times.
| ghaff wrote:
| Avalanches are probably one of those things that you can
| reduce the danger of in various ways but probably can't
| avoid entirely other than avoiding mountains that can
| potentially have an avalanche entirely.
|
| For all the mitigation work they do on a regular basis,
| there are periodic avalanches at ski areas in the Alps and
| in the US West. Many of these are out of bounds, but not
| all. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.powder.com/stories/skier-killed-in-
| avalanche-at-...
| matsemann wrote:
| Yeah. Like when in a group having to traverse something
| almost horizontally on skis, we go with a long distance
| between each other. So that the risk of triggering
| something is smaller, and if something is triggered as
| few as possible is involved and others can do the rescue.
| I also have beacon, back pack with airbag etc. So
| minimized the risk as much as I can.
|
| But sometimes I think. If I have to do aaall those things
| to mitigate the risk, is it really safe and worth it? So
| far, the answer is yes. Maybe it changes if I ever see an
| accident.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Yes we do. I have some 30-40 dives done with Advanced open
| water diving license, but since I only dive in exotic places
| 1-2 we visit times a year, I always need a full refresh as
| first dive on every vacation. Not having any scuba equipment at
| home, the things life all safety and equipment checks, even
| though easy, just fade from my memory.
|
| I recall, when doing my first real dive (not training in 4m),
| in Croatia, the instructor took us to 33m. I was showing him
| this on depth meter, he just signaled OK with fingers. The
| feeling of being so deep that we didn't see surface anymore, on
| a first dive was a bit unnerving.
|
| I also have similar experience to yours with shipwreck,
| although with some 30 dives it wasn't so scary. But we were
| swimming through narrow passages of very old shipwreck from
| WWII on Bali, and I felt how tubes are touching the walls. It
| wasn't a big wreck, but I wouldn't go to this kind of
| inspection on my own, just followed instructor.
|
| One thing I noticed - a minority of folks are so arrogant they
| barely follow instructor and do what they want, ie not
| following the group, swimming lower than instructor etc. Can't
| comprehend this, I mean you are literally reminded by all
| senses how you are in very unfamiliar environment, yet some
| can't show any respect for it, even though they don't have much
| experience themselves.
|
| Anyway, a very cool sport, although its one way to realize how
| messed up our environment is, when you see more and more corals
| dying literally just over few years.
| NotPavlovsDog wrote:
| I've dived the Blue Hole, recreational depths. I felt an evil
| presence there and had nightmares about the Hole 2 nights after,
| with some kind of blue energy trying to consume me.
|
| I am not a superstitious person, and have dived multiple deep
| technical dives with bad visibility, below 0 Celsius sea water
| (poor dive computer) on sites with munitions, chemical
| contamination and war graves with body remains. This is the only
| time I felt that there was a large predatory presence watching me
| and all around me. Was offered to do the Arch, have the needed
| experience and clearances. Did not do, will not do ever.
|
| The memorials and history of the place did not affect me in any
| way, I've worked rescue, dealt with dead bodies and attended many
| a funeral. I've participated in autopsies as part of my training.
| The blue hole was a strange enough experience that it stands out
| of all of my _many_ dives.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Can't read without clicking the "I agree to tracking" full page
| pop up.
| xwdv wrote:
| I remember several years ago I watched the video on YouTube where
| Yuri sank to the bottom of the Blue Hole and drowned in a drunken
| narcotic state. Pretty much confirmed I never want to bother with
| scuba diving. ROVs seem cooler anyway and can go way deeper.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| This type of dive is extremely atypical in terms of risk, and
| also reward. It appeals to a certain kind of person interested
| in technical diving and/or bragging rights. As far as seeing
| pretty fish or coral, there is no point in going this deep
| since it's dark. 99% of divers are staying above 30m, where
| things are a lot safer and more interesting.
| danparsonson wrote:
| Indeed; nitrogen narcosis is almost non-existent within the
| 18m standard open water limit, and even down to 30m is
| unusual. Just find a reputable dive company taking you around
| a reef and it's really very safe.
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