251–260 of 302 posts
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Any place with Hard Ceiling (something between you and the surface except water) necessitates specialty training in most dive certification organizations. The issue that many take with PADI is that their values are mostly aligned with making profits.
my dad always called it Put Another Dollar In
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Plenty of resorts and other destinations offer resort and discovery diving. You do need be 10 years old, but no prior experience needed, after some basics some places let you do 1-2 open water dives in the same day! All equip is provided. You really DO NOT configure any of your stuff on these dives (you do get comfortable breathing underwater). It's a scuba dive "experience". Unless you are a diver please don't comme…
Resort Diving is mostly safe, the dive profile helps keep you safe. At 30ft, a lot less can go wrong. You can easily survive a rapid ascent from 30ft, heck you likely don't need to actively blow bubbles unless you took a huge breath or are ascending super fast. OP who hasn't dove in a while shouldn't make their first dive on vacation a 120ft bottom. They will likely not remember how to breath, how to swim and will co…
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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…
In the United States, cops pull over most bikes, especially after 10 pm. It's almost like they just hate bikers? The bikers I know are not getting buzzed at the local watering hole, and aiming the bike home. It's not the 70's. In my county, the fatal bike crashes are usually new high end high performance bikes, on country roads. They are experienced, but pushing it. They are cold sober. The days of having a few beers…
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Am certain if you ask 100 beginner divers, 99 will have their own brush with death adventures! Mine came in the form of a six foot barracuda getting a bit too close for comfort. I am sure if I hadn't played it cool. Had somehow attacked or acted aggressively to shush it away (when I was a guest in it's deep sea domain). It would have enjoyed a nice lunch of fresh human flesh. The second was going below the hard deck…
I've done a few hundred dives (so, intermediate? with some additional certifications for deep/nitrox/rescue/divemaster) and the biggest problems I've had were 1) dropping a steel cylinder on my toe on a boat 2) getting sunburned on my scalp before I started wearing a hood even in warm water, due to an extended surface interval 3) dodgy food on a liveaboard. I don't think most recreational divers push things close to…
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We had a similar one of those in school. The first question of the test was 'read all questions before you start.' Then it had stuff like poke holes in the paper, draw things, random stuff, the very last question though was, 'Now that you've read all the questions, just write your name in the top corner and turn your paper over.' Yeah...a lot of my classmates ended up with holes and scribbles on their tests...
It’s pretty ambiguous, though. In tests you usually complete all questions. Why should you in this instance only complete the first and the last task?
When you are doing a safety check list, you don't skip and do whatever part of the checklist you feel comfortable doing.
You do it from top to bottom.
Multiple people have died in accidents because they focused on small issue ignoring the larger problem.
So when it's time to check safety in scuba diving, you should better follow the instruction instead of doing whatever you want.
Example. There is no point to worry about "Is your mask clean?" when you are going to run out of oxygen and drown.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…
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?
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> 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.
Still, that was circa 1997 so, um, I forgot pretty much all the detail :).
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Based on the comment about the electronics, GP is likely referring to Kate Matrosova, who perished in positively appalling conditions, even by the very low standards of winter in the Whites. She died just off the Star Lake Trail, having ascended to the ridge via the Valley Way, which hits the ridge line at Madison Hut (4800', or much lower than the summit of Washington at 6288'). My partner and I have bailed off pret…
Yeah, that's the case and the book I was talking about. The actual accident, while obviously very tragic, wasn't especially interesting. Basically don't try to do a Presidential Traverse during the worst weather in about 20 years. It was actually a different situation from the more common cascading failures mode of accidents. She made a grave error by deciding to drive up to NH that weekend and a fatal one by continu…
0) Her mileage to the top of Madison was off by about a mile on her written plan. Not a good place to start for an ambitious day.
1) Most of her prior experience was guided where somebody else was responsible for making the decisions. I am fully prepared to believe that she had the physical experience, but would suspect that she lacked the decision-making experience that would have saved her.
2) She died heartbreakingly close to Madison Hut. If she'd turned around 30 to 60 minutes earlier, she might have made it to the relative shelter of the hut with enough energy left to warm up and get back below treeline on the Valley Way, which is quite close to the hut. Speculation, I know, but I can't help but wonder.
We talked a lot about the decision-making because we could both see ourselves having a go in the same circumstances owing to our inexperience (we independently thru-hiked the AT, but we aren't mountaineers). Reading it was a really useful case study for us and helped think through identifying when we're about to cross the line from adventure to peril.
If you didn't know, he's got a second book out, btw. Gonna crack it open next :-)