We Don't Need No Education

You absolutely must follow training standards.  Until you don't.  

When is that point?  How distant a deviation is acceptable?  What is your responsibility, if you are an instructor or mentor, to act as an example at all times?  You start really getting into the long grass with these questions; the frontiers through which there are a couple of well-worn, lazy paths which can be dangerous and destructive, like a commonly used hike shortcut which becomes a torrential waterfall at the first showing of rain.

Example:

How did you learn deco gas switching?  Instructors, how do you teach deco gas switching?  Now… how do you actually do it?

I am not going to walk through the steps of the former two in my own case, but I'll tell you how I actually make a gas switch.  I always wear my gasses in the same places, distributed on both my left and right sides.  When it's time to make a switch I reach for the regulator on what I know will be the right tank, I get the second stage out and ready, confirm the tank is on, then put the thing in my mouth and start breathing at the correct time.

Those of you either recently trained or otherwise familiar with standards will notice about 42 steps missing up to and including showing everyone in your dive team both the tank, the first stage, the second stage, and a notarized living will detailing exactly what steps they should take if you accidentally forgot to label your MOD in the correct units.

In a recent discussion with another instructor they scoffed when I told them this.  They were wondering after the red valve knobs I have on my 50% bottles.  “It just catches the eye,” I explained, “My 50% regs are red, too.”

“But you would switch to 50% at 70 feet where red wavelengths would have already been diffused, so it would just look black,” they correctly, if pedantically, pointed out.

Ignoring both that I mostly cave dive where everything looks black unless you shine a light on it, I ignored the comment.  I also didn't say anything about how I don't bother looking at the tank valve when I'm making a switch.  What I depend on is that I put the right distinctive regulator on the right distinctive tank before the dive.  Then, during the dive, when I deploy a plastic Cyklon (as distinctive a regulator as exists) I know that 50% will come out of that mouthpiece, because whatever color it is, whether I can even see the reg or not, the only thing I use a plastic cyklon, in all it's weird looking glory for, is as a 50% reg.

It isn't that I'm immune to physics or that I have outsmarted training standards.  I have preparatory procedures and equipment to confirm a series of data that do, indeed, need to be confirmed before making a gas switch.

Do I teach it this way?  No.  There are way more steps in the way I demonstrate it and teach it... even though I'm using my awesome regs.

“I'll just get different regulators, like you,” some eager student may say, if they happened to read this blog.

“This is one of only a very few regulators that trick will work with,” I'd explain, “And they're about seven hundred bucks new… you gonna spend that on a deco reg?  Follow the steps as you learned them.”

Instructors, especially vastly experienced instructors, run the very serious risk of behaving as a poor example.  Perhaps not during classes, but when simply out diving their vast experience and the tools and refinements and personal style over the years has developed into something seamless, which works perfectly for them, but could turn things critical on someone without their many years of experience.

Few instructors I know, either recreational or technical follow training standards during their own, personal, non-teaching dives.  Because… and here's the crux of it… training standards only apply during an active class, when there is a teacher(s) and student(s).  When there is no formal, documented teacher/student relationship, the training agencies have no oversight.

(Note: when people who have a pre-existing teacher/student relationship are diving together, say, right after a class, things get ethically and, probably, legally hairier.  A responsible instructor should continue to encourage strict procedural adherence through those times, as opposed to, “You're certified now, do what you want,” or worse, encourage potentially reckless behavior like, as a totally random example apropos of nothing, diving to/past 200 feet more than twice a day.)

That said: it is pure folly to interpret “instructors don't follow training standards” as “training standards are overly conservative.”

The standards are there as minimums… minimums with the best, most capable students in mind. A more typical student will require more work on top of these, repeated exposure over time. Whether ideal or ordinary what they initially learn from their instructor will be used as a foundation upon which they can build their own styles and decide on their own tricks.

When?

Yeah, I'm not going to answer that.  It's a long, wide, blurry line between when the standards as you learned them should be followed to the letter and when you can start fooling around with what works for you. This line gets even blurrier if you haven't learned according to standards, when an instructor has allowed you scope to believe the shortcut that will turn into a waterfall is acceptable... as long as it doesn't rain (which it inevitably will sooner or later). Poor buoyancy control, crap finning, sloppy gear configurations, lack of buddy or body awareness: these are paths to the dark side.

So while I can't give you a standard answer on when standard breaking becomes safely allowable I can parrot back to you is an old line I’ve variously heard ascribed to Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and Pablo Picasso:

“You've got to learn all the rules so you can break them.”

Learning them -- mastering them -- comes first.

Afterward:

All this comes with a very, very big BUT. As you evolve and learn you must ALWAYS be vigilant for the creeping evil of normalization of deviance. Think things through. Don't ever do shit just because you got away with it this time or someone (even someone you like or even respect) told you you could. Just because some lazy shortcut worked today doesn't mean it will work tomorrow.

The Four Instructors

The Setting: Corner booth of a dive bar on some tropical island. Four tanned dive instructors raise their glasses in a toast.
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PADDY: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

PATTY: Nothing like a round of irish carbombs at the end of a charter, ay Pat?

PAT: You're right there Paddy.

PATSY: Who'd a thought when we were studying for the IE we’d make it here, teaching divers, living the dream, buying rounds of irish carbombs?

PADDY: Yeah. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a carbomb.

PATTY: A warm carbomb.

PATSY: Without bailey’s or whiskey.

PAT: OR beer!

PADDY: In a filthy, cracked mug.

PATSY: We never used to have a mug. We used to have to drink out of a customer’s used paper cone cup.

PATTY: The best WE could manage was to suck on a corner of a beer-soaked bar rag.

PAT: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were just tank monkeys.

PADDY: Yeah. BECAUSE we were just tank monkeys. My old Course Director used to say to me, 'Certifications don’t buy you happiness.'

PATSY: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to work in this tiny old shop, with great big holes in the roof.

PATTY: Shop? You were lucky to have a shop! We used to work in the owner’s garage, all twenty-six of us, no classroom. Half the BCs leaked; we would all fight over the one regulator that didn’t freeflow for fear of drowning!

PAT: You were lucky to have a garage! *We* used to have to work in an alleyway!

PADDY: Oh we used to DREAM of working in an alleyway! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to work in a public restroom in a fishing marina. We’d start class every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! Alleyway!? Heh.

PATSY: Well when I say “shop” it was only a construction site covered by a piece of tarp, but it was a shop to us.

PATTY: Our boss got us evicted from *our* construction site; we had to go and work in a quarry!

PAT: You were lucky to have a QUARRY! There were a hundred and sixty of us working in a mask box in the middle of Route 1.

PADDY: Plastic box?

PAT: Yeah.

PADDY: You were lucky. We worked for three months in an old pizza box in a dumpster. We used to have to start class at six o'clock in the morning, clean the dumpster, eat a piece of stale crust, crew the boat for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got back to the shop, our course director would make us do paperwork for the next four hours!

PATTY: Luxury. We used to have to get to the quarry at three o'clock in the morning, clean the quarry, eat a handful of yesterday’s guest trail mix, crew the boat every day for $10 a month, come back to the quarry, and our boss would beat us until we made $5000 in sales, if we were LUCKY!

PAT: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get to the mask box at twelve o'clock at night, and lick Route 1 clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of month-old trail mix, worked twenty-four hours a day on the boat for $5 every six years, and when we got back to the shop, the boss would slice us in two with a dive knife.

PATSY: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of seawater, work twenty-nine hours a day on the boat, and pay the captain for permission to crew, and when we got back to the shop, the boss and the course director would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'

PADDY: But you try and tell the DMCs today that... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..

The Right Stuff

“Do I really need to buy my own regulator?”

Like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Obviously it isn't meant to be annoying; it's an honest question by someone staring down the long barrel of a several hundreds of dollars purchase.  It's the exasperation, the jaded plea for honesty that grates at me.  As though the instructor is little more than a back-alley hustler and the student asking wants to make clear that they're no Oakie simpleton.  So it’s not the question itself, it’s the implication that I’m trying to take advantage of you in some way that I find upsetting.

Of course the shortest possible answer is, “No.”  None of us really need any of this shit.  It is heavy, awkward, finicky, demanding, and (obviously) expensive.  

The flip side of all that is that it is life support equipment.  From the regulator that delivers you breathing gas, to the computer that tracks your inert gas loading, to the BC that keeps you from sinking to the abyss, to the wetsuit that protects you from hypothermia, to the fins that get you back to the boat in a current.  Every article of gear serves an important safety function.  

So, while you certainly don't NEED this stuff.  You could go take up rollerblading or ultimate frisbee instead.  But if you're going to be a diver, then obviously you need the gear.  If you're going to be a frequent diver then having your own gear grants you a recognition that leads to muscle memory and a frequency of use that gives you the flexibility to keep things just the way you like them.  These benefits grant a consequent level of safety bred of practice and familiarity.

Yet there's that question.  “Do I really need my own…”

I have been asked enough times, now, that I have difficulty not shaking the asker by the lapels while screaming, “I have spent more money on D-rings than you are likely to ever spend on all your dive gear combined in a lifetime!”

If you're actually reading this chances are that you're with me so far.  You're no cert.  Maybe you're an instructor.  You have been asked that question yourself and, perhaps, have to suppress a lapel-shaking impulse yourself.

“Do I really need to replace this bubbling hose?”

“Do I really need to bring a whole other set of gear?”

“Do I really need to refill my scrubber?”

Now, how many times have you been asked any of those questions?  By yourself?

It's not just about the gear… it's about the right gear.  It’s about gear that is both designed for the task, that you’re familiar enough with that you can safely use it, and that is working properly.  Lacking any one of those three points means that it is not the right gear and, therefore, a failure point.

They say all the best stories start in the middle.  So…

Familiarity

This is, almost certainly, the most common failure point among the vast majority of divers.  That is, the vast majority of divers, like those I referenced above, don’t even own their own gear.  So the very first time they are going to use this BC or that dive computer is about 20 minutes after the first time they see it when they pick up their rental gear at the boat dock.

Obviously this shortcoming is often combined with inexperience.  If one hasn’t made the investment in their own equipment, then they are almost certainly not diving frequently enough to have refined their skills enough to quickly master unfamiliar equipment.  Chances are very good they aren’t that hot with their buoyancy control or even heard the word “trim” before.  So typically it is a safe bet that someone who doesn’t own their own gear is not going to be a terribly competent diver.  

Yes, of course there are exceptions to the rule; but in general if you were working at a destination dive center and two divers got on the boat: one with a bag full of rental gear that you know is hanging on by a thread and one with a bag of their own well-used looking gear… which one are you going to expect to be more work that day?

What if it’s one person with a bag of well-used gear and one with brand new gear?  For my part, I’d still be wary of the new gear person.  Good for them for having their own things… but if a diver doesn’t have time with their gear they haven’t developed muscle memory yet, and that is where safety is really coming from, the ability for one’s hands to simply find and manipulate the tools needed at the moment.  Getting caught in a downcurrent is not the time to be trying to figure out or remember which button on a power inflator does what.

This holds just as true for someone with their brand new Aqualung i3 jacket BC on a Thai liveaboard as it does for even an experienced cave diver with a brand new sidemount harness.  Or a bloody camera.  Or the rebreather that you love more than life itself.  If you haven’t practiced using the tool in benign conditions for a while please don’t take it into conditions that will challenge you right away.  How many accident victims have been found on the bottom with their weights in place, exactly?

If you haven’t mastered it you will be incapable of using it safely in the event of an emergency.

Working Properly

This one bites experienced and inexperienced divers just as badly, but for different reasons.

Inexperienced divers often don’t know what “properly” means much of the time.  Especially when combined with not owning one’s own gear and lacking familiarity with either the gear they’ve just rented or dive gear in general.  I can remember a dozen times having been working a boat, rushing to get gear set up for everyone before getting to the dive site and hearing one diver meekly raise the question.

“My regulator is leaking a little.”

“No problem,” I’d step to their side to quickly diagnose.  The first diagnostic being, of course, percussive maintenance.  Just as often as not a couple of whacks to the heel of the hand would stop the regulator leak.

“There you are,” I’d say and return to whatever task.

Generally that person would happily take a couple of breaths from their regulator and, satisfied that the Divemaster knew what he was talking about, went on trying to remember which fin went on which foot.  They probably did not wonder after whether it was just a grain of salt in the second stage or a sticky lever.  It is exceedingly unlikely that they’d know what an IP creep or a cracked crown might be.  So why would they suspect that the dive professional might not know what in the hell they were doing?  After all, the professional must see this all the time and fix things that way all the time, right?

The fact of the matter is that fixing things like that, not taking a potential failure seriously sets a bad example by dive pros.  And yet I would be you a two-week trip on the Arenui that somewhere on a dive deck right this very second, some DM is whacking a leaky second stage with their hand and saying, “It should be fine,” to someone who doesn’t know better.

More experienced divers come at this from a different angle.

I’ve got OPVs (overpressure valves) on all my bailout regulators.  It’s a little $13 part that sometimes goes bad after not terribly long and starts to leak a tiny stream of bubbles.  If I’m going to be honest I have to admit that I have started many dives knowing that one of my OPVs is leaking; hell, one of the OPVs on my main two bailout regs is leaky right now (I can’t remember which one… which is the reason it’s still leaky).  Is it a major failure point?  No.

But, it’s a little like driving with your Check Engine light on after you’ve gotten the code read.  You have learned there is a minor problem that probably won’t affect anything… but if a bigger problem appears it is now completely masked.

And this is how experience divers get screwed.  You set up all that stuff, bring all those bottles to the water or onto a boat, put on heavy underwear and a drysuit, climb into a rebreather, connect, clip, stow, and verify a small fortune in gear… and then discover that the tiny o-ring at the end of an inflator hose is leaking just a tiny bit.  Do you call the dive?

Of course not!  You twist the hose a couple of times or you disconnect and reconnect it a few times and the bubbles go away and you say, “Let’s splash!”

But you know the whole time it isn’t the right thing to do.  A failure is a failure.  And that minor failure of a simple 010 o-ring could be the pebble at the top of an avalanche.

Right For the Job

I am not going to go off on another tear about how sidemount is a fad (even though sidemount is a fad).  Instead I’m going to work from the logical extension.

250 foot dive to penetrate Northeast shipwreck.  Which set of equipment would you like (assuming you’re certified on both)?
-- HP doubles filled with 16/50 trimix, 50% & 100% deco mixes, BP/W, drysuit
-- Single AL80 filled with air, Scubapro Classic, 3mm wetsuit

The above is an extreme example, but I found myself answering the same questions the other day that I once asked around this very topic.  An old acquaintance is looking to get into technical diving, but is trying to be frugal and wondering what wing to get that will work for both single tanks and for doubles.  I gave them the same answer I was given: That isn’t a real thing, you get a singles wing and a doubles wing.

Diving is not a cheap sport, not by a long shot.  Between the travel, the training, the boat fees, and the gear that you sometimes need multiples of it is certainly going to put a dent in your wallet.  But, to go all the way back to the person who asks, “Do I really need my own regulator,” “YES! You really do!”

Not only do you need your own regulator, if you are going into more advanced levels of diving, you are going to need several.  So if you’ve already got a whole closet/room/garage full of dive gear are the savings you achieve by avoiding buying a singles wing and a few cam bands going to make that big a difference?  

Do you really need to bring your sidemount harness on that dayboat in the keys?  (I know, I said I wasn’t going to pick on sidemount, but with the absurd ubiquity of it, it’s hard not to.)  I know you love your rebreather, but do you need to bring it on the 30 foot reef and make everyone wait, getting ever-greener on the boat, while you get in all your planned bottom time?  Sometimes just throwing on a stab-jacket with an 80 and backrolling off the RIB is the best gear for the dive.  Not fucking around with bungees, not trying to pass a bottle up or down, not needing someone to reach your bloody fins for you.  Just wear what everyone else on the boat is wearing and dive.  If it was good enough for Steve Zissou it can be good enough for you.

Conversely, if you know you want to dive to the bottom of that wall or a little further past that scary cave sign is it so hard to wait a few weeks/months/seasons until you’ve got the appropriate equipment and training to use it?  As much as one might giggle at a set of double LP108s for a no-deco dive it would be worthy of a recoil in horror if someone shows up at Eagle’s Nest in a single 80.

To have equipment that is overkill might be dangerous.  To have gear that is inadequate to the task is probably lethal.

And this is not restricted to divers who have not yet been trained up to this or that level.  Do you have enough deco or bailout?  Really?  You sure?

Are you cave diving and carry only a single 40?  You aren’t carrying enough bailout.  Not even a debate or an argument.  You just aren’t.  I’m not even going to do the math for you, you should have been trained and can do it on your own, but what you’ll find is that with an elevated SAC you’ve got enough bailout to swim a couple hundred feet at most.

OK, fine.
40cf is easy.  Let’s say it’s hypercapnia, because you should be prepared for that anyway, right?  SAC will go VERY high; let’s say, conservatively, 1cf/m.  So that tank, at the surface, until it is drained of its very last molecule will last about 40 minutes.  But you’re not at the surface.  You’re at 90 feet, 4 ATA.  So that tank will last you only 10 minutes.  How far can you swim in 10 minutes?  So how much is enough?  A single 80?  Isn’t two one and one none?  So… 2 80s then?

I am not going to be one of those who prescribes a single, uniform gear configuration for absolutely every diver whether it is recreational or technical, nor that only blue Cressi superfrog fins shall be used for all diving.  That is silly.  But as much as our dive gear is a toy, it is also a tool; there are right tool selections and wrong tool selections and just plain silly tool selections.

You can hang a picture by knocking the nail into the wall with a pair of scissor handles, but it makes more sense to get a hammer.  And that is what I think when I see someone wearing a SM harness on a boat.  OK, that’s the last time.  I promise.  For this post anyway.

The Right Stuff

Is it right for the job?
Does it work?
Can I safely use it?

If the honest answer to any of these is “No” you would be better off not diving.  As painful as that might be at the time, it is true.

Most people know The Right Stuff either as a cliche or from that now-cliched scene of a bunch of astronauts walking in slomo.  It’s about the Mercury Seven, a bunch of guys who eagerly participated in, perhaps, the most ambitious and dangerous program in all of human history.  We, as divers, like to think of ourselves as test pilots or astronaut explorers or some other such nonsense.  

But we’re not.  We’re a bunch of dorks with expensive toys.  Real astronauts call the mission when shit goes wrong, if the equipment isn’t right or doesn’t work.  There is simply no question of the extent of training to safely use it.

With the exception of Gus Grissom most of those guys lived into the 80s and 90s.  Several of them even going back into space that late.  That’s badass.  While my prattle hear is mostly about gear The Right Stuff is about the people, who they are and how they managed to do what they did.

Use the right stuff.  Stay safe.