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In a message dated 12/22/01 12:58:08 PM, dougch@ea*.ne* writes: << ... Many "tech" divers are diving for the wrong reasons .... they are diving so far outside their circle of comfort that all they can think of is getting back to the surface (to beat their chests and feel like a big-time diver before their peers). These people don't realize they dive within a razor's edge of killing themselves and/or someone else on a dive... -Doug >> Hi Doug, I could not agree with you more. An experience I had last week really brought this home. My wife and I took the ferry from Playa del Carmen over to Cozumel so I could get in a week of fun rec. diving looking at pretty coral and fish. No students, no lugging tanks and no responsibility. The hotels are so bad off for the lack of tourists that a week at the Hotel Barracuda together with thirteen dives with Dive Paradise cost less than $400 ppdo. On the third day, an idiot (and I use the term in it's most derogatory sense) by the name of Larry Parker from Philadelphia, was on the boat with me. The dive plan was to do a drift dive on the beautiful Santa Rosa wall with a planned maximum depth of 80 ft. There were one couple, Larry and I and a local divemaster. When he first started setting up his equipment, I figured this guy was some kind of dumb wannabe techie. He had redundant bungeed wings with a plastic STA and two weight pouches containing (I think) seven or eight pounds each on the sides of his tank strap. I figured it would be nearly impossible to dump these weights if necessary. It was the first time I can ever remember seeing a single first stage with six connections to it; two inflator hoses, primary and backup second stages, an SPG and a hoseless computer transmitter. I believe the hoseless computer was the only depth and time measuring instrument he had. He also carried an unmarked AL30 pony bottle rigged as a stage (with a boat clip on the bottom). In addition, he had a SMB tube and a reel, but no lift bag. And all of this for a simple 80 foot air rec. dive to look at pretty coral. Well, we all rolled off the boat and started to come together over the reef at fifty feet before going over the wall. The divemaster had requested that because of the potentially strong current, we all stay relatively close together. But as soon as he could reach the wall, Larry started over and down. I figured that he was simply anxious so I drifted over to the wall so he would not be alone. But by the time I got to the lip of the wall, he was already down to about 100 feet. I didn't know if he had a problem or simply didn't realize how deep he was, so I immediately started down to catch up and remind him of the dive plan. Now I was swimming pretty hard and dropping pretty fast and although I was catching up, I was not catching up very quickly. And as I was observing him it did not appear to me that he was out of control, simply that he kept proceeding deeper. Now being a trimix instructor trainer, I am not afraid to dive deep when on a technical dive, but I was not equipped for a technical dive. I was wearing a 3 mm shortie, a US Diver's Alcyone tropical BC with perhaps 20 pounds of lift, a Sherwood regulator with a Shadow + in the inflator hose, a hoseless computer and a Monofin single fin. To make a long story short, I leveled off at around 160 feet and that stupid SOB was at least 50 feet below me and still heading down. But at that time I figured that if he had a problem, he was on his own and there wasn't much more that I was willing to do. He stayed down for only a few seconds and immediately started up. A classic bounce dive. When we finally got back to the boat, and after I had determined that he had not made any special arrangements of which I was not aware, I had a few rather strong words to relate to him. The gist of which was that I didn't appreciate his forcing me into an unsafe dive in order to help with what I perceived as being a potentially significant problem. And that there was no way that he and I would ever dive off the same boat again. The local divemaster was far more polite than I, but I must congratulate Dive Paradise as a dive operation. Even though we had planned on two dives, after the boat captain radioed the office, we headed in to the nearest dock and Larry, although a paying customer, was asked to leave. Although I have nearly 3,000 dives, I guess I was a little naive in that this was the first time I had experienced a diver knowingly and without consideration for any other divers, plan and execute a dive not even close to the agreed upon dive plan. And if any of you come across a Larry Parker from Philadelphia who was in Cozumel last week, give him a wide berth. Or you could pass along some well placed curses from me. Take care and dive safe, Scott Some weeks it's just not worth the effort to gnaw through the restraints and scramble up out of the pit. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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