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The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

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Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#241

Post by bsder »

owenversteeg wrote: post #165
Syonyk wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not actually the people riding like lunatics that manage to kill themselves on motorcycles at high rates. It's the old guys, riding back from "biker nights" at the bar, in full branded gear to include the do-rag and t-shirt. Lots of single rider, single bike accident with substantial alcohol in the blood. I've ridden for many years, and I also fly small planes, so I'm quite aware of my higher-than-average risk p…

Interesting. I'd be curious to read your thoughts on mitigating risk with general aviation. Is there a checklist somewhere of "always do these 20 things" or do you have to comb the NTSB accident records yourself?

> I'd be curious to read your thoughts on mitigating risk with general aviation.

It seems like one of the big ones is simply: "Don't go up in shitty weather."

Too many people are dead because they just had to fly in crap weather.

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#242

Post by andrekandre »

nkassis wrote: post #239
Nursie wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a Chemistry teacher who tried a similar sort of thing on us when I was about 17. "OK class, today's lesson is going to be a dictation, get your books out and start taking this down" I can't remember the exact content but effectively he started off with some familiar organic chemistry and then veered off to stuff that was pretty obviously wrong. I'm proud to say that I'm the one that said "Eh ... that doesn't s…

I was not a great student but at one point in college I realized that I wasn't listening while taking notes. I was just mindlessly copying everything exactly as was written on the white board missing out on what my teachers said. I stopped taking notes at this point and started paying attention instead. My grades improved. This might not work for everyone but something to try if you struggle retaining lecture content…

yes, ive had similar experiences, and thinking back on it, why take notes when you can just record the lecture and play it back later.... better to engage in the lecture, since thats why we are there in the first place!

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#243

Post by sigg3 »

nkassis wrote: post #239
Nursie wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a Chemistry teacher who tried a similar sort of thing on us when I was about 17. "OK class, today's lesson is going to be a dictation, get your books out and start taking this down" I can't remember the exact content but effectively he started off with some familiar organic chemistry and then veered off to stuff that was pretty obviously wrong. I'm proud to say that I'm the one that said "Eh ... that doesn't s…

I was not a great student but at one point in college I realized that I wasn't listening while taking notes. I was just mindlessly copying everything exactly as was written on the white board missing out on what my teachers said. I stopped taking notes at this point and started paying attention instead. My grades improved. This might not work for everyone but something to try if you struggle retaining lecture content…

Funny, for me it's the opposite. Can't remember it if I don't write it down. I don't have to read it afterwards, I just remember what it was by remembering writing it.

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#244

Post by travisjungroth »

pengaru wrote: post #199
throw1234651234 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an irrational party(professor) trick that wastes everyone's time. An argument could be made for "read the (short) instructions at the start". An argument cannot be made for this. There is often very little value to skimming the entire question set before the exam.

It's been a very long time since I had to do any tests, but back in my school days, with multiple-choice tests, I evolved a method of quickly answering everything I was confident to know 100% throughout the entire test in a first pass, reserving the rest for subsequent increasingly slower passes. What tended to occur was the earlier fast passes at the very least warmed up the cache upstairs, and some previously uncle…

I once used this method and spent the last ten minutes of a test just guess-and-checking the solutions to a question I didn't remember the formula for. Of course, it was the last one I checked. (I wasn't confident enough to early return).

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#245

Post by acjohnson55 »

I've dived the Sinai's Blue Hole, so it's wild to see this on HN.

It was an intense experience. Our dive instructors warned us of how deadly the site was, and the various hazards. But the dive itself was unique compared to other deep dives I've done.

I would describe it like parachuting, slow motion, into the bluest blue. By the second, the sunlight got dimmer and the blue got bluer. It was disorienting if you looked in any direction besides the crater wall. At about 25m down, I looked up and realized we were too deep to reach the surface quickly.

That triggered my panic reaction. I started hyperventilating into my regulator, and had the urge to spit it out. But knowing that would be literal suicide, I managed to override it.

I felt like given a few minutes, there was a strong chance of getting my panic under control, but I thought, "why take the chance?" Also, the dive plan was to continue to go deeper, and if part of my panic was due to nitrogen narcosis, it was only going to get worse. It wasn't worth it for a recreational dive.

So I gestured the "up" signal to one of the instructors, and she immediately worked with me to do a controlled ascent. I spent the rest of the time doing a shallow dive along the crater wall, which was much more relaxing.

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#246

Post by minsc__and__boo »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #60

We have something like that, off the coast of Long Island. It’s the wreck of the San Diego ; a WWI battleship that sank at the close of the war. It’s upside-down, with a hole in the hull, and rests in about 40 meters of water (120 feet or so). What makes it dangerous, is that it’s filled with silt, and it only takes an errant kick of the flipper to fill a room with zero-visibility mud. People panic, and panic at 120…

Have they installed ropes in the wreck or anything like that?

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#247

Post by acjohnson55 »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #194
mxcrossb wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those tourists will die as a result of this? The data seems to suggest it’s vanishingly small.

I don’t know the stats but from what I read a lot of accidents are not tourists but more serious divers who go below 20-30 meters. I haven’t heard about people getting injured while on regular tourist dives. Same with motorcycle riding or paragliding: it gets dangerous once you are beyond the beginner stage. I really don’t know what could go wrong on the typical tourist dive if the dive master keeps an eye on people…

That tracks with what I've heard, anecdotally. Accidents happen when people plan their own dives, go alone, push too far out of their comfort zone, or dive in conditions they aren't prepared for. These things are risk and consequence multipliers.

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#248

Post by Agingcoder »

meowfly wrote: post #44
agent008t wrote: post #16

Diving seems like one of the recreational activities where it is easy to end up doing something much riskier than you intended (another I'd say is alpine hiking): 1. Being able to easily sign up for a dive at an all-inclusive resort makes it seem more 'fine', you get a false sense of security that you will be taken care of. 2. Dive shops tend to be fairly relaxed with checking if someone is properly qualified to go o…

I'm an avid diver and I completely agree. My Open Water took place in a hot spring with extremely low visibility. The goal was the cert it wasn't skill mastery. My next dive was the Great Barrier reef where boats just drop you off and you can get a guide or dive yourself. We irresponsibly dove by ourselves, exhausted all our air, and came up (skipping a safety stop) realizing we were a considerable distance from the…

I remember my padi instructor (British, in Malaysia) as being completely paranoid, which was a good thing.

He essentially told us that any missteps would have very nasty consequences, and spent most of his time badgering us with safety precautions. He also encouraged us to dive with a guide, do refresher dives, etc.

The only downside is that I don't dive anymore now that I have kids, since I believe it's dangerous, and I'm worried I will make a mistake...

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#249

Post by acjohnson55 »

jqcoffey wrote: post #135
meowfly wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an avid diver and I completely agree. My Open Water took place in a hot spring with extremely low visibility. The goal was the cert it wasn't skill mastery. My next dive was the Great Barrier reef where boats just drop you off and you can get a guide or dive yourself. We irresponsibly dove by ourselves, exhausted all our air, and came up (skipping a safety stop) realizing we were a considerable distance from the…

> As a PADI Open Water Diver, you'll be trained to a maximum depth of 18 metres/60 feet, and are qualified to dive in conditions as good as, or better than, those in which you trained ref: https://www.padi.com/courses/open-water-diver PADI does emphasize that with an open water cert you must absolutely always remain above 60ft. That’s what’s shocking to me the most about the article and some of the conversation here—…

The thing is, it's actually extremely easy to get an Advanced Open Water cert. I did it in a few days in Dahab, on the Sinai. We actually dove the Blue Hole as our last dive.

Re: The Blue Hole in the Red Sea is the deadliest dive site in the world

#250

Post by Nadya »

dllthomas wrote: post #200
henshao wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but for my tests on a curve where I might not be able to answer all the questions, doing the quick skim to answer the low hanging fruit before getting to the harder problems is a good way to make sure you don't run out of time and lose out.

Also, content of later questions can be useful earlier, and getting some background brain cells working on the hard stuff while you churn through the easy stuff could be worthwhile. It's a good lesson, but it's a lesson about taking tests not about the material. I can see arguments for and against including that in any given class.

>content of later questions can be useful earlier

In some tests I have seen future questions answer previous ones. For a contrived example:

"Q1: What color was the bookshelf? A. Red B. Green C. Blue"

"Q2: What sentimental item did John take from the red bookshelf?"

I was never sure if it was on purpose to reinforce reading all questions before answering or if it was merely poor test design. Usually it was more subtle than my contrived example but it did bump my scores on some tests up a bit.

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