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It truly pains me to see this sort of infighting going on between
friends. I don't know how much my opinion is worth these days but I
thought I'd throw my two cents in anyhow.
The fact is that there were some clusterfucks going on during this dive,
just like those happened on many dive's I've been on over the years. I
do think it is important to air your dirty laundry to the diving public,
as other divers will read these posts and avoid learning the hard way.
At least some will. In this case the lessons learned were:
1. It is dumb to do "scooter deco"
2. You are responsible for your equipment, your valves on your doubles
and deco bottles and nobody, but nobody, else. It's your ass and nobody
else's.
I won't argue what training did what for whom, but rather the
fundamental issues which lead to these particular CF's.
On number 1, I have heard Todd mention scooter deco before and I did not
like the idea then and now like it even less. If the current is to the
point that you cannot deco off the downline then you either abort the
dive to begin with or you change your approach to the dive. Scooter deco
is dumb no matter how you look at it.
On number 2, this is such a classic case of somebody other than the
diver touching his/her valves it hurts. I'm not saying this is what
happened to you Allyson, but I have seen it happen, this exact scenario,
too many times (it happened to me but I caught it before I stepped off
the boat). My rule is nobody touches my fucking valves and I don't touch
anybody elses unless asked.
And if I see a mate fiddling with someones valves just before they jump
in I will tell that mate to, and I quote: "keep your goddamn,
motherfucking dickskinners off my valves or I will have to kill you." I
dove solo so I did not have to worry about my buddy fucking up my valves.
The reason why is that before I put on my tanks I have gone through my
written checklist and personally checked my gear. And then I check them
again after donning my gear. Yes I have had to ask JT to open my valves
once (and got the famous "I'll see you at the barbecue" look) and after
that I resorted to my laminated pre-dive check list and it did not
happen again.
Some general thoughts. This buddy thing is good on the whole but I think
it can be carried too far. You are still responsible for your own ass
and your own gear. I don't think is is a good idea to become
"co-dependent" on your buddy. This can lead to complacency, you will
think "did I check that? Ahhh, if I didn't the buddy will". As a long
time solo diver I never had this luxury and if I fucked up, it was my
ass.
Dive buddies, but think solo.
Why should the captain be responsible for looking for liftbags in the
first place? If this is a possibility then the dive team should have a
person responsible on the surface to keep a lookout. You should not have
to "wake up the captain" for any reason except that the crapper is
clogged again. You should have a plan in place and ready to go with team
members taking care of it. I think it's pretty much been determined that
a Capt is just a bus driver and you should not count on him for anything
other than getting the boat out to the wreck and then back without
catching on fire or sinking. Other than that it's your dive, and its
your ass.
If you felt that there was a chance things were going to go south on a,
for chirsts sake, 70' vis Eureka weenie dive, then you should have had
the goddamn zodiac in the water, gassed up and running before anybody
even jumps in the water. (For those who don't know it's a real bitch to
launch the zodiac on the ML, and even then it is doubtful the motor wil
start). There should have been a conversation (especially since you all
were looting a wreck, brass fever and all that) on what if someone
needed to shoot a bag and what you were going to do about it.
At any rate, the sport is scuba, shit happens, and at most both of these
incidents deserve nothing more than a plaque at one of JT's barbecues. I
don't think there is any reason to go mental over all this, folks, let's
calm down and unwind a bit. I am guilty of goofy shit like this too, and
I don't hate anyone over it. We are too good a group of friends to tear
it up over this.
And as far as being trip leader is concerned, if you truly want to pick
and choose who goes on a dive, then correct procedure is to pay LDC the
entire amount for the charter and then personally choose who goes on the
trip. As long as the trip has a signup sheet at LDC then you will just
have to deal with who wants to go along. If there is a signup sheet at
LDC then this implies that people will be signing up for it.
I am afraid that the GUE fundamentals may have had an effect not quite
that which was intended to our group. It was a "fundamentals" class,
people, it showed you what you don't know. You don' t just make shit up
to fill the void. When you do this you wind up taking a flawed system
that works and replacing it with a flawed system that does not work.
Jim
On Wednesday, July 24, 2002, at 11:08 PM, Capt JT wrote:
> Your a joke, if it wasn't for all the baby sitting being done for you
> on a dive, you would probably drift away on a dive, sorry I'm too late
> with this post........
>
>
>
> At 07:56 PM 7/24/02 -0700, dmdalton wrote:
>> Oh great wise one (that's jt) you know all and see
>> all. I don't recall saying the current was
>> sooooooooooooooo bad, that's more jt spin. It was
>> just about the same as in NC this year when you
>> couldn't get to your O2 because you hung it instead of
>> carrying it with you! Bright, real bright! As I
>> recall, you told us in your infinite wisdom, as you
>> puked your guts out, that you just did double your
>> normal 02 deco on your back gas and that gave you the
>> same effect. Yeah, chief, right! Too bad you were to
>> sick (bent?) to do another dive that day. It was
>> great! But hen I'm not a "real wreck diver" so what
>> would I know?
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> --- Capt JT <captjt@mi*.co*> wrote:
>> > I have done it every way there is, asked yourself
>> > this.........if the
>> > current was sooooooooo bad, why did only 2 divers
>> > out of 17 have a problem
>> > with it.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > At 11:05 PM 7/23/02 -0400, Doug Chapman wrote:
>> > >Just for thought:
>> > >Upline with sufficient but not exceessive scope,
>> > redundant surface floats,
>> > >and bottom chain with snap/hook. Down rig with
>> > divers is dropped ahead of
>> > >wreck to drift into wreck (one diver in team drops
>> > with the chain end). On
>> > >end of dive last divers detach chain from wreck and
>> > toss into sand.
>> > >Proceed up line. Now the line is drifting with the
>> > current with a slight
>> > >bottom drag from the chain. No flag flying. No
>> > issues. Relaxing. The boat
>> > >is always free to maneuver. If too crowded on line,
>> > you can hover
>> > >alongside or pop a lift bag nearby. Will still
>> > drift the same as main
>> > >upline with a slight backpeddle to compensate for
>> > chain drag on main
>> > >upline. The captain on the boat knows where
>> > everyone is; can drop a safety
>> > >diver on you if appropriate and recover used
>> > stages. Its a piece of cake
>> > >and works well in raging currents like we can have
>> > in the gulf stream (and
>> > >with close to shore shipping as well). A slight mod
>> > on deep stuff (350+)
>> > >though, and you need a captain with a clue.
>> > >
>> > >My two cents,
>> > >Doug
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> > "You can't learn to dive on the net, sooner or later
>> > you have to get in the
>> > water"
>> > Your Guide to Great Wreck Diving along the East
>> > Coast & more
>> > Web Site http://www.capt-jt.com/
>> > Email captjt@mi*.co*
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> =====
>> Dave Dalton
>>
>> "You just can't show up for "Game Day" and expect to win.
>> You've got to go to practice if you want to be ready!"
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~toddclagett/NovaTech/
>>
>> __________________________________________________
>> Do You Yahoo!?
>> Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
>> http://health.yahoo.com
>
>
> "You can't learn to dive on the net, sooner or later you have to get in
> the water"
> Your Guide to Great Wreck Diving along the East Coast & more
> Web Site http://www.capt-jt.com/
> Email captjt@mi*.co*
>
>
>
>
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