George:

My day is made when I am the subject/recipient of a George Irvine "take no
prisoners" e-mail.

Only one tiny minor little problem. The subject of my e-mail had nothing to
do with technical diving - it had to do with the "helium requirement" that
Dan Volker wants to impose on recreational divers.

Do you remember those types of divers? They don't care at all about
technical divers. They don't care about mix, they don't care about deco,
they just want to put on a single tank and go diving and have fun. No dive
plan, just pure enjoyment.

That's what I was talking about. Nothing to do with technical diving.
Nothing to do with technical training. Nothing to do with using hot mixes.
Nothing to do with decompression.

So ... as usual,  your e-mail had nothing to do with the subject. It was
just another way of getting your point across independent of the subject at
hand. Just another way of telling the world how good and smart you are.

Typical technical e-mail thread:

(1)  Sender:  It is a lovely day for diving

(2) G Irvine Response:You dive shop primate. What the hell do you know about
lovely days. When you've gone as deep and as long as we have, only we can
talk about lovely days. Try being part of the solution. We have our own
training agency and our platform. So we can do everything right without
regard for the Planet of the Apes mentality that has held diving hostage for
the last five years. There is now a real alternative out there - we
represent that in every way. "Do it right" or don't do it at all. Only we
can tell if its a lovely day for diving .

Suggestion:

Why bother responding to e-mails. The chinese menu approach would work just
as well. Have a series of paragraphs already created and have your computer
determine - on a random basis - which paragraphs to include in "today's
flame mail"

Have a good day George.

I'm going diving

P.S. Check your e-mail program. It seems to be generating "To" addresses
that have nothing to do with the sender.


Katherine V. Irvine wrote:

> Garret, John, et al - this is too important a topic for me to waste
> time dwelling on the fact that you dive shop primates remind me of the
> movie "Planet of the Apes" when it comes to discussions of tech diving.
>
>   The real subject here is the identification and minimization of risk
> in a dive plan. You two need to try learning that before you spout out
> all of the situations where the 50 million flies argument appears to be
> true. You two may enjoy a good  meal of feces like so many flies, but
> the rest of us prefer the filet - learn to find the filet, and skip the
> shit.
>
>   First, there is no dive situation where taking on the risk of oxygen
> toxicity  either in the form of a seizure or in the form of lung damage
> justifies using a hot mix. There is no dive situation where assuming the
> risks associated with using a narcotic mix make any sense at all.
>
>   Second, there is no benefit to using a hot mix, and there is no
> situation where the math of mix allows this. For instance, on a short
> dive , the perceived shortening of deco is in no way worth the risks of
> the hot mix, and in a situation where the depth can vary greatly below
> the planned mix, this is an invitation to disaster. If you can minimize
> this risk , then do so. If the dive were longer, then you really can not
> use a hot mix as the accumulated lung damage and cumulative effect of
> the high ppo2 for tox purposes prohibits this in any coherent dive plan.
>
>   Teaching situations should never include extreme exposures as they
> become unmanageable for obvious reasons. Open ocean exposures should be
> managed by splitting them into multiple dives, not one long dive for
> obvious logistic and risk management reasons. Dive where the skill of
> the players is in question should not be provocative at all, and they
> should be screened for gear that functions effectively in an emergency (
> in other words, no built in weight systems, or other crap).
>
>   Decompression has been labeled the big boogie man in most diving
> circles - not the real risk. Lean deco and learn physiology, screen out
> the obvious , manage the rest of the risk. Option Number One says,
> "Don't Dive", and ONO should be used when there is any doubt as to the
> outcome. ONO has a 100% track record of no bends, do accidents, no
> death: learn when to apply it.
>
>   We all have now learned that helium is the preferred diving gas, as it
> is not only non-narcotic, it is easier to breath and easier to
> decompress from. Many of my team divers , like Jarrod Jablonski and
> Brent Scarabin, true real life tough guys, use helium in all of their
> deco gases other than the 100% oxygen, and there they break to
> helium-based gases. I use helium up to 120 feet at deco, and below 60
> feet for diving ( when decompressing at those depths I obviosuly have a
> helium-based gas on my back).
>
>   People who are into diving are into learning about diving. Creating
> bullshit myths and phonie phobias is counterproductive. NOAA is largely
> resposible for the farm animal stupidity in nitrox information, and the
> training agencies are responsible for the rest. The fact is that
> identification of the true risks requires real knowledge and real
> experience - citing examples of other people's long term ignorance is
> not the answer, finding out the truth is. Give it a try.
>
>   What we are saying in response to Capt Jim is very simple : "tech"
> means doing it right , whatever the situation, not making it more
> complex, convoluted, or risky. Diving is a lot more fun when everyone
> comes back. Given where I come back from every time, one would think
> maybe some of you dive instructors would take notice and stop trying to
> make a fun sport into a bungee jumping subsitute.
>
>    Try being part of the solution , rather than backing into a corner
> with your bullshit agency standards and recommendations . Luckily , we
> have our own training agency, Global Underwater Esxplorers, and our own
> platform , The Woodville Karst Plain Project, so we can do everything
> right without regard for the Planet of the Apes that has held diving
> hostage for the last five years. Things are changing fast, and there is
> now a real alternative out there - we represent that in every way.
>
>    "Do It Right", or don't do it at all.

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