Wreckless Wreck divers (As seen on T.V)

[Shark Bait]

Something I learnt whilst watching Professionals Dive

The other day I hadnt got much to do so I sat down and watched a pretty interesting programme on shipwrecks (Aptly named Shipwreck Detectives)
They were diving in Greece I think and were looking for shipwrecks from before good old J.C's time.

They found an area about 35-40m deep and were excavating a large bowl,
After this they filled an airbag sent it up on a crate whilst hanging onto it to make sure it didnt go out of control.

Around 10m they had to a deco stop to do, it didnt say how long for.
They lost control of the crate and bowl on thier stop, but instead of letting it float to the surface they followed it all the way up, got it and brought it back down to 10m to finish the deco stop.
At this point I just thought thats a bit daft, I mean I stick to my stops and wouldnt dream of doing that but I thought hey they are pros' maybe they feel they will be fine. At this point I should say they were working with tables not computers. And when I say that I mean the crew on the boat were working it out for them, odd I thought how are they going to communicate that to them? and how the hell do they know depth and bottom time to make even an educated guess?

Then for a second time they lost control, went back up brought it under control and went back down to finished the stop they had twice abandoned.
This time I was thinkin you guys are nuts, really stupid.
Of course during all this they had drifted away from the boat, both divers were low on air and after 2 mins one had run out.

So there they were 10m sharing a tank low on air, crate with bowl on it and drifting away from the boat, no SMB or the like either.
once they were located, a rope was sunk down to them by a small dingy and they were towed at 10m to the other boat. At this point they had only a few breaths left and were just up in time, of course with this oh so precious cargo.

I was left sitting there thinking, these guys have 30 years experience and thats how wreckless they are with there lives of a bloody bowl, one bloody bowl they could have been dead over it, and it probably would have floated to the surface by itself and stayed there. Idiots

Somehow they didnt get the bends, God knows why not but there you go.
They did have a chamber on the boat, and maybe this influened them to be so reckless but, in my mind they had no excuse.

Through this I learnt that even the pros make mistakes that a newcomer (1 year since I started diving) would find Incomprehensible

So what do you guys and gals think of it then?

[Scubee]

I didn't see it, but I suspect that what was televised was exaggerated to add dramatic effect.

They were probably breathing from oxygen cylinders as well

Wasn't it wreck detectives who made a whole programme to 'solve the mystery of why the Magraaf sank in Scapa? I remember watching that and thinking they could simply have read one of many books to discover that they pulled the plugs out

[Hapless]

Oh yeah, I saw that programme around Christmas time and it is as described - crazyness. Probably a bit too much artistic licence in the edit and narration but that doesn't mean it was'nt stupid stuff they were up to.

They didn't have a decent plan for lifting the artifact in the swell and - as far as I remember - no spare gas for deco other than their singles.

Ok, so they had a porta-pot on the boat, but they shouldn't be tempting a spell in it.

[Shark Bait]

Watched it again, I hadnt realised i recorded it. But they were supposed to sit at 10m of 20 minutes for decompression.
And they still didnt think twice about going up 2 times in a row