Northwest Dive Club

CaptnJack wrote: She was fine after a day. Hydrogen sulfide dissolved in the water can permeate your mucous membranes and makes some people puke. That's the "rotten egg" gas.

In case I needed another reason to stay out of caves.....

I'm sure there are different schools of thought. Personally, I would want it both ways. I would want to trust my buddy to manage things and get me to the surface safely by using touch contact. I would also want contact with the line, simply for peace of mind, providing that there was a line to have contact with.

Thanks for sharing your experience Howard, it's given me some things to think (worry?) about.

Nwbrewer wrote:

CaptnJack wrote: She was fine after a day. Hydrogen sulfide dissolved in the water can permeate your mucous membranes and makes some people puke. That's the "rotten egg" gas.

In case I needed another reason to stay out of caves.....

Dude, then stay away from Taco Bell too!

Pez7378 wrote:I'm sure there are different schools of thought. Personally, I would want it both ways. I would want to trust my buddy to manage things and get me to the surface safely by using touch contact. I would also want contact with the line, simply for peace of mind, providing that there was a line to have contact with.

Thanks for sharing your experience Howard, it's given me some things to think (worry?) about.

I've found that there are many things that can loosen and move my mask strap - fins kicking me, air in my hood, scooter prop-wash, and I'm sure there are others I've yet to experience. I've had a few incidents where my mask suddenly just came off and I had the unexpected cold-smack in the face with water up the nose. I can see how losing a mask could easily cause someone to "hit the elevator button" or bolt for the surface.

It's definitely not fun for me and not something I do because I enjoy the challenge, but keeping up the no-mask stuff really helps me feel like "I've been here before" when it happens without warning. The other thing I REALLY like is having my buddy touch me to let me know that they're there while I sort it out... as I mentioned before - the stressful time between losing the mask and feeling my buddy touch me feel VERY lonely and I don't like it one bit.

Yes that is a fun skill, you guys had been doing so well with your previous tasks I thought implement a no mask line contact drill. Wreck Penetration training which this skill was designed for, there is barely room for one diver to fit through the wreck, let alone two divers, so the no mask diver must be able to follow the line through the tight passages. Why the point has always been raised is a well trained Cave Diver really trained well for Wreck Penetration, or vise versa?

Good challenge though.

Nwbrewer wrote:

CaptnJack wrote: She was fine after a day. Hydrogen sulfide dissolved in the water can permeate your mucous membranes and makes some people puke. That's the "rotten egg" gas.

In case I needed another reason to stay out of caves.....

In massive quantities its not very common and where it is present its generally a known deal so you can skip that dive. Its basically not found in wrecks at all. (plenty of other nasties but not H2S)

CaptnJack wrote:

Nwbrewer wrote:

CaptnJack wrote: She was fine after a day. Hydrogen sulfide dissolved in the water can permeate your mucous membranes and makes some people puke. That's the "rotten egg" gas.

In case I needed another reason to stay out of caves.....

In massive quantities its not very common and where it is present its generally a known deal so you can skip that dive. Its basically not found in wrecks at all. (plenty of other nasties but not H2S)

Unfortunately reason number one is a small omount of claustriphobia. I don't see myself going in any caves or wreck anytime soon. Good to know about the Hydrogen sulfide though. Do folks diving these area use FFM's to try and combat the nasties? or just deal with it? Sorry to hijack a perfectly good thread Howard.

Nwbrewer wrote: Unfortunately reason number one is a small omount of claustriphobia. I don't see myself going in any caves or wreck anytime soon. Good to know about the Hydrogen sulfide though. Do folks diving these area use FFM's to try and combat the nasties? or just deal with it? Sorry to hijack a perfectly good thread Howard.

That would be one of many good reasons to stay out! FFMs are fairly uncommon in technical diving (deco or cave). Taking one's mask off is bad enough, but losing the reg at the same time makes it much worse. The NAUI-tech and GUE configuration has you donating to an out of gas diver from your mouth too, can't do that with a FFM. And gas switches are problematic for the same reason. There are some newer model masks that have pluggable "ports" for a reg, but I don't know much about course standards and attitudes towards those.

Hmmm ... good point ... how DO FFM folks do things like deco switches? I mean, since they're used for a lot of commercial and scientific dives, it stands to reason there'd be some deco involved, right?

Do their regs come with "wet plugs"?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Grateful Diver wrote:Hmmm ... good point ... how DO FFM folks do things like deco switches? I mean, since they're used for a lot of commercial and scientific dives, it stands to reason there'd be some deco involved, right?

Do their regs come with "wet plugs"?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Commerical deco = chamber. They don't really do in-water deco. Boydski was a commercial diver hopefully he can chime in.

I always thought that's what gas switching blocks were for? On hose out, several in, make sure your breathing off the right one.

Grateful Diver wrote:Hmmm ... good point ... how DO FFM folks do things like deco switches? I mean, since they're used for a lot of commercial and scientific dives, it stands to reason there'd be some deco involved, right?

Do their regs come with "wet plugs"?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Edited to add: Nwbrewer beat me to it while I was typing.

--- original post ---
A gas block, which is basically a valve that lets you switch sources. Never did gas switching, but when I was a kid I did bridge inspection dives for my Dad's engineering firm on contract for the state of Idaho. We used AGAs for com and because we were in ice a lot. You'll never kick an AGA off someone's face (5-way strap). The other nice thing is you rarely have to equalize because you can breath through your nose. You'd be amazed how much less effort goes into equalizing when your mouth and nose are not isolated from each other like they are with a conventional mask. The downside is obstructed downward vis (can't see your chest, waist, legs) bouyant mask that will give you a neck ache, unless you weigh it down with weights, air-sharing issues, and higher consumption rate (for positive pressure models). I sold mine a few years ago because using it for recreational diving had too many drawbacks.

-Ben

Oh, I don't question the idea that a single diver should be able to follow a line. I just thought it would be odd to have one sighted diver, but put the maskless diver on the line, since it slows the exit significantly. I would think that would be true in a wreck as well. But, of course, we sometimes do things in drills when we wouldn't necessarily do them that way in real life.

Masks do come off, and flood; one of my most stressful experiences was having my mask flood and refuse to clear, just as I swam off the edge of Day Island Wall, on my first dive there. I was in midwater, unable to see, and unsure how deep the bottom was, and after several unsuccessful attempts to clear, I got vertigo. I think it is VERY important to be able to function without a mask, and with a flooded mask on one's face (they are NOT the same thing).

LCF wrote:Oh, I don't question the idea that a single diver should be able to follow a line. I just thought it would be odd to have one sighted diver, but put the maskless diver on the line, since it slows the exit significantly. I would think that would be true in a wreck as well. But, of course, we sometimes do things in drills when we wouldn't necessarily do them that way in real life.

You are double correct Lynne - We do these drills in hopes if we need them in actual technical diving we will be best prepared, and in a Wreck we must follow the line out, so in a no mask line exit scenario there is a good chance the sightless diver will need to have his or her hand led to the line because there will be no room through the doorways and corridors to be guided by touch.

mattwave wrote: Why the point has always been raised is a well trained Cave Diver really trained well for Wreck Penetration, or vise versa?

Wreck divers make better cave divers. Cave divers make better wreck divers.