SCUBA diving success stories?

[toddster8]

Dunno. My cousin had a German Shepard that loved to eat bees. It was like he got high on them or something.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

In pacific waters many predators (groupers, eels, snappers, etc.) eat live lion fish. But on the Atlantic side almost nothing except sharks and eels will eat a live one. And many of those simply don’t know what they are. Apparently it takes many generations for predators to realize that lion fish are actually fish and edible. They look very alien to Atlantic predators.

The other day a friend speared a lion fish and he pushed it off the spear so a nearby snapper could have lunch. But a bigger shark came out of the deep and stole his lunch almost right out of the snapper’s mouth.

I have video taken years ago of a Morey coming out of a hole and taking a chunk out of a Lion fish.
I’ve also seen video of grouper eating one, hopefully they will learn.
The Lion fish is lightening fast in a few inches, but I doubt they could get away from a Grouper.

[mako]

Sharks that eat lion fish. Shepherds that eat bees. Lions that eat live muddy disgusting buffalo.

Makes me think that we humans are a bunch of wusses

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by makobuilders

Makes me think that we humans are a bunch of wusses

Not all....

https://youtu.be/fEngepUPRWE

I came across this guy and his wacky "experiments" after I spent time in the Mojave Desert where there is a wasp called the tarantula hawk. It reportedly has the second most painful sting in the world.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by makobuilders

How does a lion fish even go down a sharks throat? Those spines and the poison in them have to hurt a hell of a lot

They just crunch them up like so many French fries. The spines fold back and they slide right down their throat. I’ll look for a video I made a while back. It’s awesome to watch.

[mako]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

They just crunch them up like so many French fries. The spines fold back and they slide right down their throat. I’ll look for a video I made a while back. It’s awesome to watch.

That's why sharks have lived for 300 million years, while 300 million years from now humans will just be stuffed displays in an alien museum

[CptCrunchie]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Quite a few cave divers had rather dive alone, I feel that I can handle whatever happens by myself, after all I fly Solo without a Copilot, so why not dive alone?
Especially in open water, the whole buddy concept is silly, if you need a buddy to be safe, you shouldn’t be diving.

VIP’s are not a legal requirement, it’s an “Industry standard” Hydro’s at least in the US, is the law.
I buy my VIP stickers off of EBay and do not let the dive shop do it, I did this after some idiot dive shop VIP’d my O2 clean tanks and valves and put silicone grease on the valve O rings, meaning that I had to have the valves cleaned and rebuilt and the tanks tumbled to remove any possible grease.
If you fill your own tanks, consider getting a CO tester to test the air, it’s been a couple of years but a couple of cave divers died in Mexico cause the shop air was contaminated with CO, that was from improper compressor oil, but they still died.

For recreational diving, I am with you all the way on shop fills and visual inspections. However, in your choice of diving solo, if you are diving without the added protection of redundancy, I will make one suggestion.

I'm a TDI tech diver, rebreather certs and everything. The only thing I don't do is tri-mix, mostly because of the fill cost per tank. That, and that there isn't much to see at those depths except wrecks. While I love wrecks, unless they are stuffed with treasure, there isn't much to see inside them. Besides, the older the wreck, the more dangerous they are to collapsing from gas bubbles gathering in overhead spaces, loosening rusting and very sharp edged metal to fall on your head.

But first, .....hydros are the law in both the US and Canada (Transport Canada - the TC before the hydro date). Shops that do VIS inspections and/or O2 cleaning, however, are my two biggest issues as well.

Most shops rely on the income from VIS inspections, so they exercise that right if you want to have them to fill your tanks. However, very few shops who service EANx educate the staff on what EANx cleaning entails, while some have their own ideas about the truths and myths about EANx, ....enriched air nitrox. The biggest problem is that there are no actual laws or standards dictating what needs to happen. I too do my own cleaning, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Back to diving solo. As my tech diving instructor said, "You have no friends at 100fsw, so don't blame them if you die." Though this seems like an endorsement of solo diving, he is actually referring to diving self-sufficient, ...and there is a HUGE difference between the two.

If you are rec diving (no-deco depths and durations), you can always drop your weights and head to the surface, breathing out as you go. Submariners practice this from extreme depths, and they all arrive to the surface unscathed. Sadly, most open water deaths are because someone ran out of gas and never even thought about ditching their weights. If you have practiced that and are diving within rec limits, you will likely survive a solo OoG scenario.

However, ....if you are decompression diving (or intending on going close to your no decompression limit - NDL), there is a huge difference between self-sufficient diving and diving solo. Contingency plans are the key. First is the dive plan ('Plan your dive, then dive your plan!'). The next 2 are contingency plans. I have them written on my wrist slate when even planning to approach my NDL.

My first contingency is a bailout bottle filled with air. My second contingency is a buddy. While I carry everything I need, something can still go wrong, as has happened to me. Returning from a 150fsw dive, I still had 30 minutes of deco remaining, when my EAN50 reg free flowed the moment I opened the valve. Thankfully, I could share my buddy's. Surprisingly, needing buddy assistance rarely happens on the bottom, but during deco, which is the most critical point of a deco dive.

Whether deco or rec diving, I always dive self-sufficient - which means 'double redundant'; I have 3 and sometimes 4 gas sources and 3 buoyancy systems. Depending on what I'm planning for, I usually carry 3 and 3. For gas, I always carry a 12cu pony, and either doubles or a single tank with an H valve. This gives me three first stages and 3 regs.

For buoyancy, I dive a backplate and wing, a drysuit, and carry a 50lb lift bag.

I also dive with a 7' long hose on my primary, and carry my octo on a necklace. So, if you need gas, I hand you my primary that I know is working, then slip my octo into my mouth. (The most ridiculous sight when diving is to see a diver with their octo and gauge dragging on the bottom, of clipped off somewhere. Not only would someone OoG likely not find it, they would probably grab the reg out of your mouth, removing teeth as they took it.) I always know exactly where my octo is.

My recommendation on solo diving? If you are diving outside or near your NDL, I strongly suggest you inform someone of where you are going and what the tide is doing, so they have some idea of where to look for the body if something happens. While I always self-sufficient, and sometimes without a buddy, I never dive an empty bay or a deep wall alone, and NEVER beyond my NDL.

Good stories? How about some photos instead.

[caradow]

[QUOTE=a64pilot;2764294]Quite a few cave divers had rather dive alone, I feel that I can handle whatever happens by myself, after all I fly Solo without a Copilot, so why not dive alone?
Especially in open water, the whole buddy concept is silly, if you need a buddy to be safe, you shouldn’t be diving.

Well not that I could throw the first stone however I honestly can't buy your statement for myself. I kind of understand what you are saying but there may be circumstances that could result in lives lost due to one being a bit too cavalier.
I was born in the Caribbean and started SCUBA when I was twelve. After a few times in a pool I purchased the gear and off I went without formal lessons. I would simply throw my gear in a small wooded "cat boat" and paddle out to probably 70 ft of water and over I would go. I would spend the day spear fishing and as my second tank ran low I would simply start coming in to shallower and shallower water and would end up snorkeling for the remainder of the day. Since I was spearfishing sharks would always come around and when they got too big I would call it a day. I did this for years. No problems.
At the age of 18 the only people I could dive with back in the states were the owners of dive shops so I took a PADI "forgotten divers course" and became certified so I could get my tanks filled anywhere.
This is when my cave diving experiences began which lasted thru my college years.
On one such cave diving day myself and two friends dove a cave that we had been to several times. Myself probably at least on ten previous occasions. My two friends had gone down by themselves and after a few minutes I had a very strange feeling come over me so I decided to go down on my own. There was a dive club there also and I asked one of the members to follow me down because I thought my friends may be in danger. They tried convincing me to stay and wait however I was persistent and down I went. The cave had a depth of 125 feet. At 90 feet I found the first guy floating with his regulator out of his mouth and also saw a shadow go behind me which were two of the dive club members who had decided to follow me. They tended to my other friend. I took a deep breath and then pushed my regulator in his mouth and purged it and my friend came to. Had a hard time convincing him that I also needed to breath but we made it to the surface. At this point he started vomiting profusely and the first thing he said is "Why did you come down?" After an hour or two we thought that if they were ever going to dive again we needed to go back down so we did. (I was still young at the time) Everything turned out fine. Years later at a party one of the friends that was in the cave came up to me started crying and again asked why I had come down.
That is another story as is why they needed help in the first place but will spare readers for the sake of what brevity is left.
So......maybe not a bad idea to have a little help from time to time. Now I am 71 years old and have continued to dive.
Last but not least the good part of this story to take home is they both confided in me that towards the end of their ordeal that as they became more and more hypoxic the panic subsided and they accepted death as their fate so guess THATS something to look forward to.

[hzcruiser]

Originally Posted by caradow

breath but we made it to the surface. At this point he started vomiting profusely and the first thing he said is "Why did you come down?" After an hour or two we thought that if they were ever going to dive again we

Thanks for sharing this story! I must've missed the reason why they both got into trouble/OoG? Disoriented?

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by CptCrunchie

However, ....if you are decompression diving (or intending on going close to your no decompression limit - NDL), there is a huge difference between self-sufficient diving and diving solo.

Not sure I understand -what's the huge difference?
Surely, if you are actually self sufficient, then it doesn't really matter if you are solo or not? If you think you need a buddy, then perhaps you are not actually self sufficient?

Personally, I like diving with someone else. Generally so they can tell me what the long skinny bit of pipe was ("that was a pelorus you clown"). Or take photos of me with the big guns. But I probably prefer penetrating wrecks by myself - easier to be slow and not silt the joint out.

The couple of times where I haven't been happy anymore underwater have both involved being behind a mate on the way out of somewhere. In one case he got his big arse stuck, in another the line tangled around his gear, pulling the reel from my hands in not much vis. Yet I've never managed to run out of options of something to breathe. May not have always been completely ideal, but good enough.

Mike

[a64pilot]

When I do Deco dives, and I occasionally do dive Tri-mix, I do so sidemount, which of course is two completely independent sources of breathing gas.
When I Deco, I do so with my 40 cu Ft aluminum tank, usually on 100% O2.
I see any Deco dive as an overhead environment dive since you can’t just surface, so I follow cave rules and dive thirds. Which means the first 1/3 is for descending and the dive, the second third is for ascent and Deco, which obviously leaves the last third for contingencies.
I have never violated that last 1/3 and usually surface with 1/2 gas remaining, but remember I dive with at least two 100 cu Ft steels, and if a longer dive I’ll carry up to two 80 cu Ft aluminum “stage bottles” so I’m down with 360 cu Ft if breathing gas in four bottles, all completely independent of each other.
An out of gas emergency is an extremely unlikely event and if your ever close to that, you shouldn’t be diving.

Having said that I began diving in the 70’ with J valves I think they were called, no pressure gauge, you dove until it got hard to breathe and then pulled the wire which opened the J valve to a larger orifice and allowed you to surface.

I’m not 70 for another 10 years, but deep Tri-mix is likely in my past, unless I make it to Truk, then I’ll have to dust off the cob webs and dive that.
Of course a J valve was like a motorcycle reserve tank, it only worked if you remembered to move the lever back off of reserve or when it got hard to breathe, you were out of gas.
Obviously we dove with single LP steel 70’s and dove shallow, without BC’s so that if you ran out of air you simply swam to the surface.

I don’t remember whether it was a J or K valve, bit of trivia, but the name came from that was the item number ron the Sears and Roebuck catalog, J & K.

[OldManMirage]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

When I do Deco dives, and I occasionally do dive Tri-mix, I do so sidemount, which of course is two completely independent sources of breathing gas.
When I Deco, I do so with my 40 cu Ft aluminum tank, usually on 100% O2.
I see any Deco dive as an overhead environment dive since you can’t just surface, so I follow cave rules and dive thirds. Which means the first 1/3 is for descending and the dive, the second third is for ascent and Deco, which obviously leaves the last third for contingencies.
I have never violated that last 1/3 and usually surface with 1/2 gas remaining, but remember I dive with at least two 100 cu Ft steels, and if a longer dive I’ll carry up to two 80 cu Ft aluminum “stage bottles” so I’m down with 360 cu Ft if breathing gas in four bottles, all completely independent of each other.
An out of gas emergency is an extremely unlikely event and if your ever close to that, you shouldn’t be diving.

Having said that I began diving in the 70’ with J valves I think they were called, no pressure gauge, you dove until it got hard to breathe and then pulled the wire which opened the J valve to a larger orifice and allowed you to surface.

I’m not 70 for another 10 years, but deep Tri-mix is likely in my past, unless I make it to Truk, then I’ll have to dust off the cob webs and dive that.
Of course a J valve was like a motorcycle reserve tank, it only worked if you remembered to move the lever back off of reserve or when it got hard to breathe, you were out of gas.
Obviously we dove with single LP steel 70’s and dove shallow, without BC’s so that if you ran out of air you simply swam to the surface.

I don’t remember whether it was a J or K valve, bit of trivia, but the name came from that was the item number ron the Sears and Roebuck catalog, J & K.

It was a J valve, the K valve was the standard valve with no reserve. That was the same way I learned to dive, also back in the 70's. My dad ran Bob's Scuba-Do in Orlando. I've probably dove every spring in Florida, many of which you cannot get to anymore. And we did it in what would be considered a very un-safe way by today's standards, and likely was. Just steel tanks with regular air. In fact, I still dive with steel 72's, and I have 2 of them with J valves, and a regulator with nothing but one mouthpiece, no octopus or pressure gauge.


Now, the course to get your dive certification back then was 6 weeks long, based on Navy Seal training, and had diving every weekend and classes at night during the week. We had to do things like "ditch-and-don" in 30 feet of water, swim a mile and a half, and other stuff. But the result of all that is I have always felt very safe and secure under water.

[JC Reefer]

I frequently dive solo and feel the under water dangers are about equal to diving with a buddy. (Maybe Trust issues?)

That being said, when solo, I don’t do insertion dives or night dives and generally keep it to the shallower side of things > 45 feet and more conservative.

My biggest concern is normally about the boat drifting away for whatever reason.

I have in the past, tethered myself to the boat with 1/8 spectra if holding seems like an issue. For 30 foot dives this has worked well as the spectra floats and keeps out of the way. There are obviously other concerns with getting wrapped up but that has not yet happened.

I have some retired dive instructors in my family and they go nuts when I tell them what I do and how I do it. I get it and can only say that it’s not for everyone.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by OldManMirage

Now, the course to get your dive certification back then was 6 weeks long, based on Navy Seal training, and had diving every weekend and classes at night during the week. We had to do things like "ditch-and-don" in 30 feet of water, swim a mile and a half, and other stuff. But the result of all that is I have always felt very safe and secure under water.

I didn’t actually get certified until College, and there we had to breathe off of a tank with no reg, cracking the valve, learn to swim straight with a black garbage bag covering our masks, and dove to the deep end and put on our gear underwater, change the reg onto a different bottle underwater etc.
Of course the only dove tables were from the Navy and were based on incredibly fit kids with little safety factor, but with a single 72 you couldn’t get yourself into a Deco obligation on the first dive, just not enough gas, so it was safe in that manner.

By today’s standards it was tough, maybe tougher than necessary, but with the bookwork you really understood what and why, and if you weren’t extremely comfortable in the water, and didn’t really want the cert. you would quit.

My parents started diving back when both stages were on your back and there were two large hoses, like a RB, my Mother had a full face mask.
I have lost them, but there was a lot of old 16mm film of them diving in the late 50’s, early 60’s. My Father met and bought the camera from the man who had the Johnny Carson show, before it was Johnny Carson, met him in the Key’s.

But, really and truly the YMCA cert was very, very good, now PADI etc., not so much, and dove cards have gotten silly and are more about another fee than anything else.

Most of my tech certs are PSAI.

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

But, really and truly the YMCA cert was very, very good, now PADI etc., not so much, and dove cards have gotten silly and are more about another fee than anything else.

.

A lot of you old farts seem to think that, however the evidence doesn't back you up. There is no evidence to show that padi trained divers are bending themselves into pretzels or trying to aspire water at any significant rate. Statistically, PADI style diving is very very safe.

I figure that the gear used to be poor, so the divers needed to be good. Nowdays the gear is very good, so the divers really only need to know how to breath in and out.

FWIW my 11 YO boy has been diving for a couple of years now, and I need to beat him regularly to stop him from swimming off by himself. He mostly doesn't see the point of scuba, he prefers the freedom of freediving. (I've only let him dive in good vis and pretty shallow. He freedives comfortably in 10m + and likes swimming fast to cover lots of ground)

PADI's extensive list of specialties is a bit (completely) pointless. But if people want to pay for experiences, who cares? OW, Nitrox, Deco would be enough for most folks.

Mike