What got you into cave diving? I watch your other videos. But as a person who would never do, something like what you do... what is the mind frame and / or decisions you make that make you want to go and do one of the most dangerous things it the world? What is the thing that makes you decide to do what most of us won't? And what was your first ever official/serious cave dive? And what was going through your mind (apart from safety and procedures)
If done by proper training and never violating the rules it is amazing. My first real cave dive was in Abacos with my cave instructor Brian Kakuk. I love the details of the skill requirements and planning. And it’s magnificently beautiful to see parts of the world very few will ever see.
The connection between Gradients and specific bubble behaviour is unfortunately not given. Bubble formation is not really controllable, as different people produce different amounts of bubbles on the same dive; plus the same people produce different amounts of bubbles on the same dive on different days. The relation between bubbles, ascent rates and DCS is rather chaotic, nothing like "with this GF you have small bubbles, with this big bubbles, and here you have a problem". No. Your risk of getting DCS is higher the higher your GF is at the surface, thats it. No prediction of bubbles at all in the model. So, having a GFLow of 30 can mean you come out of the water with even more bubbles than with a GFLow 50, 60, whatever. Setting it to "half of GFHigh" is.. well... a possibility, but there is no reason behind it more than "my grandmother was born in 38, I always set it to 38" or "I divide my age by two and than add 5", or whatever you want to use.
Great point. Btw I said aim for GF99 to be half your high GF , (as Andy stated in his article) just to be clear. Neither he nor I said set Gradient Factor Low to half your high gradient factor. Personally I dive a 40/70 because I also don’t want my GF Low too low and have those slower tissues continue to on gas. It’s a never ending discussion on “deep stops”. And no one knows for sure what is best and for sure everyone is different. You can even be different on one day to the next. Look at me for example. If you happen on one day not to be as well hydrated as on another day, that can affect this greatly as well. There is no absolute right answer here. Recreational divers should dive the default Shearwater preset settings and I recommend the conservative setting for a very long time. As for Gradient Factor Low, Andy made it very clear in his article that it’s not an absolute and he later in the article goes on to discuss the impact of GF low and GF High and GF99 and GF Surface and NDL and more all have on each other. There is no absolute here. But this is all about sharing knowledge and everyone should absolutely have a right to that knowledge. But that does NOT mean they should dive aggressively or in fact even dive outside of the the default settings. It’s just knowledge sharing and thanks to Andy’s awesome article more of this knowledge is now being shared and creating interest in this subject, which is fantastic!
Great video series, I’m learning a lot! And I too apologize to my dive gear when it’s been a long S.I.T. 😁
very clear explanation, sir. Thanks for sharing 👌
“A gradient factor speedometer man” 😂. I love that explanation. Makes perfect sense
What got you into cave diving? I watch your other videos. But as a person who would never do, something like what you do... what is the mind frame and / or decisions you make that make you want to go and do one of the most dangerous things it the world? What is the thing that makes you decide to do what most of us won't? And what was your first ever official/serious cave dive? And what was going through your mind (apart from safety and procedures)
Within your own mind, how do you go from: "Oh no way!" To "yes, let's do this"... ?
If done by proper training and never violating the rules it is amazing. My first real cave dive was in Abacos with my cave instructor Brian Kakuk. I love the details of the skill requirements and planning. And it’s magnificently beautiful to see parts of the world very few will ever see.
The connection between Gradients and specific bubble behaviour is unfortunately not given. Bubble formation is not really controllable, as different people produce different amounts of bubbles on the same dive; plus the same people produce different amounts of bubbles on the same dive on different days. The relation between bubbles, ascent rates and DCS is rather chaotic, nothing like "with this GF you have small bubbles, with this big bubbles, and here you have a problem". No. Your risk of getting DCS is higher the higher your GF is at the surface, thats it. No prediction of bubbles at all in the model.
So, having a GFLow of 30 can mean you come out of the water with even more bubbles than with a GFLow 50, 60, whatever. Setting it to "half of GFHigh" is.. well... a possibility, but there is no reason behind it more than "my grandmother was born in 38, I always set it to 38" or "I divide my age by two and than add 5", or whatever you want to use.
Great point. Btw I said aim for GF99 to be half your high GF , (as Andy stated in his article) just to be clear. Neither he nor I said set Gradient Factor Low to half your high gradient factor. Personally I dive a 40/70 because I also don’t want my GF Low too low and have those slower tissues continue to on gas. It’s a never ending discussion on “deep stops”. And no one knows for sure what is best and for sure everyone is different. You can even be different on one day to the next. Look at me for example. If you happen on one day not to be as well hydrated as on another day, that can affect this greatly as well. There is no absolute right answer here. Recreational divers should dive the default Shearwater preset settings and I recommend the conservative setting for a very long time. As for Gradient Factor Low, Andy made it very clear in his article that it’s not an absolute and he later in the article goes on to discuss the impact of GF low and GF High and GF99 and GF Surface and NDL and more all have on each other. There is no absolute here. But this is all about sharing knowledge and everyone should absolutely have a right to that knowledge. But that does NOT mean they should dive aggressively or in fact even dive outside of the the default settings. It’s just knowledge sharing and thanks to Andy’s awesome article more of this knowledge is now being shared and creating interest in this subject, which is fantastic!