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On Wed, 20 Jul 1994, Scot Anderson wrote: > One thing I gotta throw on the table, ... those old school divers > are part of an elite that will probably not be seen again. I know > what they do with depth, but I have a suggestion for you folks to > consider. OMS 121's, Genesis 120's and the nice cool doubles rig > with side mounts are a relatively recent development, I think. > Like, diving with 240 to 320 CFT worth of gas on your back alone, > not to mention what is tied on the side. And, as we know, O2 > toxicity is a function of pO2 exposure, that includes time and > pressure, and CO2 levels, et. al. So, are you sure they were > exposing themselves to the same hazardous levels that are > possible today? If I understand your point correctly, that's EXACTLY what my perspective is. These "old-school" guys generally dive(d) with single or, on rare occassions, double steel 104s. They almost always dive with air only, but a few use oxygen for deco. Most of the ones I know have no intentions of getting higher capacity tanks, or tweaking mixtures to increase bottom times/decrease decompression. With thousands of dives to 180'+ under their belts, they have little reason to change what they've always done. One guy, who's probably made 15,000-20,000 dives, a good third of which were in excess of 150', and several hundred (perhaps 1000 or more) to 300'+ - all on air - summed it up best: When I tried to convince him to think about putting some helium in his tanks for those 300' bounces, he seemed very reluctant and replied "I'd rather deal with the devil I know than the devil I don't know." His point was he knew his limits with air intimately, but had no experience with fancy tech stuff. Incidently, he's NEVER been bent. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that not only CAN these guys get away with deep air diving, but the HAVE - time and time and time and time again. At some point we have to accept that they haven't simply been relying on luck or living on borrowed time - they know what they're doing and we, as "educated" mixed-gas divers of the "enlightened" age, shouldn't be so arrogant & conceited as to presume that we're somehow better or safer or less likely to die than these guys who have been doing deep air for longer than some of us (me in particular) have been alive. Wow....I guess I got a little fired up there and got carried away. Sorry...what were we talking about? Oh yeah.... > Also, it is also well known that divers have hit 450+ on air. > Just ask Brett Gilliam. He did it, and others have too. The point > is NOT that it can't be done. More that the hazards are well known, > particularly if one tries to get any work done down there. > So, then. I still hold that folks should think seriously about > diving below 200 fsw on air. I think you made an excellent point, Scot, and one that I should have been more careful to make when I first started "defending" the deep air divers: They are truely a group of elite divers, the likes of which we'll not likely see again (a dying breed, if you will - no morbid connotations intended). They became experienced as deep air divers because they really had no other options available to them. My main concern was that we, as "technical" mixed-gas divers, shouldn't get too wrapped-up in ourselves and become the sorts of people we (I, at least) used to Loath: the kind of person who says "You're not conforming to OUR standards, so you're doing it WRONG and you're being IRRESPONSIBLE!" I HATE that! (sorry...I seem to be getting carried away again...too much caffine this morning, I think...) Enough ranting and raving. I guess the important issue is: "What, if any, role does/should deep air diving have in technical diving?" (and, of course, how deep is "deep"?) These are very difficult questions to answer - even for someone as outspoken as I am. At tek.94, I was interviewed by Walter Comper, the Greman rep. for aquaCorps. He asked me: "Do you think that people who want to learn to be trimix divers should first gain a lot of experience doing deep air dives?" I thought about it a lot, but couldn't come up with an answer - I really don't know what to recommend here. The issue relates to the present-day diver who wants to learn how to do trimix dives, but doesn't already have a lot of deep air experience. Should that person first go out and do a couple hundred 200' air dives to gain the "wisdom" (for lack of a better word) needed to really acquire the necessary discipline to do deep mixed-gas dives? Or should that person never face the hazards of narcosis, etc., and go straight to helium-based diving? The old-school types (and I as well) would be very tempted to say that the deep air diving is a necessary first step to becoming a deep mixed-gas diver. The rationale behind this perspective is based on the belief that the most important qualities a deep mixed-gas diver must have are: 1) An ability to calmly and intelligently respond to problems under very stressful conditions with a very narrow margin for error 2) An adequate self-awareness (with associated control of one's own ego) to be able to accurately assess one's own personal limitations 3) The supreme discipline to not exceed those limitations The rest of the stuff - knowledge, training, practice, etc., are all basically means of achieving these three basic qualities. A lot of very experienced deep air divers will tell you that these things can only come through real-world experiences - many of us began developing (and, we like to believe, continue to develop) these qualities through our deep air diving experience. That's why some of us cringe at the thought of taking someone straight from a nitrox course into a trimix course without that person ever having the opportunity to grow through real-world diving experience. The big problem, of course, with this "learn-the-hard-way" approach is that the price for making a mistake can be extremely high (as in the "ultimate" price). The alternative perspective (one which I am gradually moving towards myself) is that it's too risky to suggest divers pass through the "deep-air" stage on their way to being a trimix diver. Why expose these people to the hazards of deep air diving at all? Why not just take them straight to the "proper" technology, now that it's available? None of us really knows what the answer is. The big problem, I guess, is that the vast majority of people who are doing trimix dives come from a fairly long history of deep air diving. We're just now seeing the introduction of divers who are in a position to bypass this deep-air history, and I guess I'm just a bit nervous about whether the training agencies are able to convey the necessary "wisdom" for achieving the three basic qualities listed above. I'm really sorry I went on so long, and I sincerely apologize if the above comes off as some sort of holier-than-thou sermon. I REALLY don't mean to lump myself among those "elite" deep air divers. Rather, my original motivation to ramble on so long about this topic was to emphasize that students like me have much to learn from these extremely experienced deep air divers, so we shouldn't (as Sheck Exley pointed out at the tek.94 meetings) "point fingers" at the deep air divers, because we'll only be hurting ourselves by excluding them from sharing their wisdom with us. I'm fully prepared to deal with the expected onslaught of flaming, so go for it. I've whined long enough, so I'll shut-up now.... Aloha, Rich deepreef@bi*.bi*.ha*.or*
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