The Last Dive

[Dinger]

just finished Bernie Chowdhury's book.  Thought it was a good read but sad too - I am amazed at how many accidents there has been, especially in the Doria - was a bit shocked at the number - I certainly dont remember that many accidents in UK diving during that time or that one single wreck could take so many lives.  I know that there has always been a bit of -we're better than everyone else cause we have to dive in soup most of our lives- in Brit divers and that the yanks dont know there deco and stuff, but I think that at some level I understand why there are those who say that.  Although this mostly took place at a time when guys were diving the Doria on air - that is nuts and if you did it today you were certainly be seen as nuts.  Guys in the book said that they felt comfortable on air at 230 feet and penetrations into the wreck were carried out often wihout guidelines - not on you nelly!.  Bollocks to that.  I admire their balls but to me alot of it seemed foolhardy - was that the way the early deep wreckers got on? - I was just new to diving then and dont recall this period well.  The Rouse dive team that the book is based around dived to U-Who (U-869) in very poor conditions and on air and then penetrated the wreck - a U-boat which is notoriously difficult and tight.  They were highly skilled divers but to be honest I it sounds that they bit of more than they could chew that fateful day.  i know with hindsight is fine and all but alot of those deaths were seemingly needless.  Was alot of this due to the experimental nature of that time or was alot of it due to very bad diving skills? - like staging your deco gas on the shot and then not getting back and getting bad bends?  Suppose as with alot of accidents its de to a combination of events and what was noticable was taht people tended to dive in poor conditions cause they had paid to get out there and sod the weather - wrecks aint going anywhere fast.  I eally enjoyed the book but did find it sad.  thank God that we now have agencies and we do tend to be better divers and that hopefully we will not ever suffer so many deaths in such a short period of time again.
Dinger

[frogkick]

mmm, funny coincidence, I called waterstones this morning and asked them to set aside a copy of the last dive for me, also to order "deep descent". So would you say I shouldn't bother with the last dive? Did you learn anything from reading it other than how not do do things?

[And]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (frogkick @ Dec. 05 2003,14:58)]Did you learn anything from reading it other than how not do do things?

<font color='#000080'>Hi

IMHO No. But never the less it is worth reading. That way hopefully we can learn from their mistakes, which I think is the purpose of the book TBH. It is designed to shock.

Andy

[Dinger]

no i would go ahead and get it - it is a good read and talks quite a bit about why divers are prepared to push themselves farther and farther. &nbsp;I always think that it is useful to read about dive related incidents - hope that doesn't sound macarbe but I do think that we can learn from them. &nbsp;I did learn things from the book and am sure that almost every diver would - a very interesting section is the time when the author bends himself badly and talks freely about what it felt like and the fuck ups he made (his own words) and how he had to learn to walk again and what that all felt like and the devestation he felt when the docs said he would probably never dive again and why he went against their advice. &nbsp;What is this other book you talk about - is that the one about the dives on the Doria and all of the associated deaths? might try amazon for that
Dinger

[Kate R]

i noticed how the book was mainly about people's obsession with bringing up stuff from wrecks - 'artifact fever', as it's described in the book. i'd say the main message i picked up from the book is 'there's nothing down there worth dying for'

another thing i noticed that most of the serious incidents in the book - such as the author's and the rouses' - was because they simply failed to find their way back to deco cylinders. especially in the author's case, it just seemed to be like - 'whoops, i've wondered off a bit, better get back to the shotline, oh dear lost it, i'll surface anyway'. of course it's easy to get confused as to your location underwater, so it seems strange not to carry the cylinders with you - especially on a dive like the author's, where he wasn't even going inside the wreck, so it's not like he needed to be streamlined.

[And]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Kate R @ Dec. 05 2003,15:32)]another thing i noticed that most of the serious incidents in the book - such as the author's and the rouses' - was because they simply failed to find their way back to deco cylinders. especially in the author's case, it just seemed to be like - 'whoops, i've wondered off a bit, better get back to the shotline, oh dear lost it, i'll surface anyway'. of course it's easy to get confused as to your location underwater, so it seems strange not to carry the cylinders with you - especially on a dive like the author's, where he wasn't even going inside the wreck, so it's not like he needed to be streamlined.

<font color='#000080'>Hi

That falls back to their cave training. It is normal to drop your cylinders and go back for them whilst in a cave, as they will be there on the way out. They brought the same ideas for wrecks, which was not so cool, as they found out

Andy

[Kate R]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (wetlettuce @ Dec. 05 2003,15:40)]Hi

That falls back to their cave training. It is normal to drop your cylinders and go back for them whilst in a cave, as they will be there on the way out. They brought the same ideas for wrecks, which was not so cool, as they found out

Andy

hmmm, i can see how they were applying their cave training to wrecks.... but surely the whole point of dropping your stage cylinders in caves is because you're sure to get back to them if you follow the line. on the dive where the author got bent, he and his tanks were both out in open water, and he wasn't attached to the shotline in any way.

i think that either a) not thinking of the possibility that in open water you might lose your cylinders or b) thinking that you know a certain wreck so well that you won't get lost, is foolhardy.

obviously in the case of the rouses they were attached to their cylinders (more or less) by a guideline, but because of circumstances never made it back to them. i think in their case it was just a case of being too keen and two confident, and being hit by bad luck (or a set of shelves)

[Mark Chase]

I think the last dive is a good book and well worth reeding. It is shocking to find out about dives in the 90s that were carried out by the best divers of thet era would today be deemed mad and bad. The Rouses had the choice of Trimix available to them but it was still expensive devil gas so they opted not to. Deep air in the 90s was a regular thing and if nothing else this book makes you realise just how serious narcosis can be. It put me off deep air and thats a good thing.

ATB

Mark Chase

[Simon A]

Can anyone post the ISBN for this book please, then I can order myself a copy with minimum hassle.
Simon A

[Mark Powell]

I think I prefer Deep Descent to The Last Dive. Deep Descent is almost entirely about the various accidents that occured on the Andrea Doria. It also refers to the obsession with artifacts 'china fever' in this case.

I think the useful aspects of both books is that people can see some of the techniques that used to be considered valid but have since been proved to be ill advised. For example
- Deep air
- Letting yous stage out of your sight when diving in open water rather than a cave
- Having lots of dangly bits that can get caught on the wreck
- Diving solo, on air at 230 ft, with dangly bits to get caught up

As such both are good as examples of lessons learned.

Mark Powell
Dive-Tech: Technical Diver Training