The rest of your post kinda caught me off guard. Are you questioning my qualifications? Well, here they are:

My 2022 dives consist only of those longer than 20 minutes (unless deeper than 60ft) and does not include skill training dives.
My dive log is done by hand and not reliant on my dive computer, since it records everything any time I dip in the water.
My diving experience includes Cozumel, Grand Cayman, North Carolina (quarries and coast), Florida Gold Coast and Keys, British Virgin Islands, Cornish Coast of England, Roatan, Utila, Malaysia, and Hawaii.
I am a PADI IDC Staff Instructor and have been actively teaching for six years with PADI and SSI.
I have over 500 dives to 100ft or deeper, over 300 wreck dives (including 100 penetration runs), over 100 dives in extreme low viz (< 5ft), over 150 dives in cold water (< 60F), over 300 dives in strong currents, over 300 night dives, and over 1000 dives training students.

I don’t pretend to be the most experienced diver in the world, but compared to the other 99% of divers on the world, yes, my experience grossly exceeds the average– technically the definition of an expert. Not THE expert, mind you, just AN expert. Honestly, I have met a handful of diver with whom I was truly humbled to have the chance to dive– these guys are THE experts. Regardless, neither them or myself were consulted in the botched coverage of the Swain case.

One quick fact check: if Utila instructors are turning 2000 dives a year, then they must be diving 5-6 dives per day 7 days a week— sounds like you have a lot of bent instructors stumbling around! We both know this isn’t the case… UDC certainly wouldn’t last on a permanently bent staff.

From personal experience, most of the very active full-time instructors working in a tourist environment log between 500-800 dives a year. I’m currently putting in about only 250-300 per year since I am instructing part-time.

OK 2000 dives; verifiably logged and certified,by who(which agency)??? and for gods sake in WHAT? OH, by the way; most Instructors here, just teaching SCUBA classes will exceed that over just a year.

I have just spent less than an hour and a half, during this show and clearly find so many holes and assumptions that >….. forget the program presented or theories and the so called experts …. for *** sake, has anyone ever considered actually talking to a real full time PAQDI divge professional????

One of my old instructors taught me “If you can still breathe, you’re alive, and that’s a good thing.” If you feel yourself approaching that edge of panic, focus on your breathing. Counting to yourself helps: in-two-three, out-two-three-four-five-six…… Force yourself to concentrate on the rhythm of your breathing cycle. Concentrate on the fact that air is in fact being delivered with every inhalation. Listen to your bubbles. Slow it down. Relax.

Freak out moments do occasionally happen in scuba. I encountered my first when I was at about the same experience level as you, Jared, and it wasn’t my last. Don’t berate yourself over it; after all, we ARE going several stories underwater on a life support unit! Instead, think about what led up to the event, how you reacted and what you could do differently, and then practice. Take some time in the shallows to rehearse an out-of-air emergency with your buddy. If a flooded mask bothers you, run through it a few times in a confined water area. The more you work on it, the more you will replace the instinctual “fight or flight” with premeditated training.

Speaking of meditation, your reference to baseball is a great comparison. I was a highly ranked competitive swimmer for most of my youth and had to rely on meditation techniques to ‘clear my mind’ before my events (with variable results– I would often vomit my guts out just before a race due to nervousness). Scuba diving is an incredibly mental sport. Before a dive, I’ll often sit on the boat with the regulator in my mouth, close my eyes, and practice my breathing rate. If it’s not too choppy, I’ll do this on the surface with my face in the water, triggering the mammalian reflex to lower my heart rate. Competitive free divers (breath-hold diving) use a myriad of meditation techniques to physically lower their need for oxygen.

Remember: long exhalation cycles eliminates carbon dioxide— the toxin that triggers your diaphragm to breathe— from your system, helping your relax, conserve air, and maintain better buoyancy control.

A few notes I’d like to make from your dive log in Just Breathe. When descending, especially when feeling queasy, try to drop down in a heads-up position. Sure, you’ll go down a bit slower, but this can be accelerated by negatively breathing (having very long exhalations). The benefits are that it will help you maintain your orientation (thus avoiding vertigo), allow you to make more fine-tuned adjustments to buoyancy, and (most importantly) assist your regulator with breathing.

Most rental regulators have an unbalanced second stage (the part you put your mouth on) that become more difficult to breathe from when in an inverted position. Combining an inverted position with the over-breathing that typically accompanies the start of a dive (when you are the most nervous) and you are likely to experience a slight ‘choking’ sensation on unbalanced second stages. Descending in a heads-up position will help alleviate this. When you go to purchase your own regulator, you’ll probably want to purchase a balanced second stage with a venturri assist valve; my Aqualung Legend regulator has this feature which helps me with doing heads-first descents as well as hovering upside-down when I want to snap a cool picture or drop into a canyon.

Regarding your concerns about going deep, you should only go as deep as the comfort level and training of both you and your buddy permits. You guys are more than just a team exploring the beautiful underwater realm; you’re also each other’s back-up life support! You should never be so far apart that in the unlikely event of an out-of-air emergency you can quickly reach your buddy’s alternate air source. And never, never, never let your buddy talk you going deeper than you feel comfortable; besides being an example of peer-pressure gone wrong, you also have to adjust for increased air consumption, decreased no-decompression time, and nitrogen narcosis. I strongly advise people to take an Advanced Open Water course to learn more about how to safely plan and execute deeper dives. Remember, 100ft is the wrong place to solve a novel problem!

You asked:

“WHAT exactly is the maximum no-deco depth and time for rec diving? Meaning, what is the deepest you can go and do an uncontrolled emerg ascent without killing yourself?”

The maximum depth for an experienced recreational diver is 130ft. Most people set their maximum at 100ft unless there’s a specific reason to be going deeper. If you’re new to the game, 60-80ft is quite reasonable. No-deco times drop-off exponentially with depth. For a first dive of the day, you can get 2 hours 20 minutes at 40ft, 55 minutes at 60ft, 30 minutes at 80ft, 20 minutes at 100ft, and a measly 10 minutes at 130ft. Repetitive dives cut into this allowable maximum bottom time. A live-saving mantra in diving is “Plan the dive, dive the plan.” Use the recreational dive planner to plan your dive in advance with your dive buddy, then follow it strictly, only making adjustments on the side of increased conservatism. Oh, and get a dive computer. I can’t recommend this piece of gear enough; it really changes the way you dive and keeps you significantly safer when used properly.

The deepest you can do an uncontrolled emergency ascent without killing yourself? It’s not a pretty answer: there are reports of divers dying as shallow as five feet by doing an uncontrolled breath-held ascent due to an embolism. The key word is “uncontrolled.” You should never have to do an uncontrolled ascent. Stick close enough to your buddy to grab her alternate air source should something go wrong! If for some reason you’re not close enough, do a Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) by swimming at a controlled rate towards the surface (sixty feet per minute max) while making an “AHHHH” sound the entire way to vent off expanding air. Open Water divers are required to do this from 20ft down as part of their course. I’ve personally done it from 50ft as part of a training exercise and Navy divers are purported trained to do it from 100ft. The control is crucial, as it gives time for air to safely leave your lungs. Remember, at a mere 33ft your lungs are holding twice the amount of air as they would on the surface.

Both the alternate air source and CESA are skills that you should take the time to refresh if it’s been more than a few months since your last dive. Better to have the skills sharp in your repertoire than try to figure them out in a panic!

Keep diving and breathing!

You brought up some interesting questions here. Especially with the air consumption and their depth. He may have been negligent, but if something seriously happened to her (stroke, TMJ, whatever) there might not have been much he could have done if he was right next to her at that depth. I recently had what’s called a laryngospasm. Which is when you’re larynx spasms and cuts off your air flow for a few seconds or minutes (which seems like an eternity). My first thought was I was dying and to call 911, it really freaks you out! But after getting a CT scan I have acute sinusitis and a cyst in my nasal cavity. The post nasal drip causes the larynx to get agitated and basically charlie horse. My second thought was “man, if that happened when I was diving, I’d be dead.” Although I know what it is now, so maybe I could hold my cool and keep my reg in my mouth until it passes if I ever have one when diving.

My first reaction to David’s video “the last time I saw her” was that I couldn’t believe he was so careless about where she was. Granted he’d been diving for years and years, but I try to always stay within a few kicks of my buddy.

After reading your post here, it reminds me of how important it is to fill out things like this in my dive log. I’ve only had two real times of sort of freaking out, if you can call it that. One was at around 20 feet when I was still in my class in St. Croix (Cane Bay) and had to do the mask removal and got some water in my nose. I got mad at myself more than anything that I freaked a little. I just always remind myself “I have air in my mouth.”

I played a lot of baseball in my younger years. As a short-stop, I would always think about two plays ahead, “if this happens, this is what I’m going to do… if that happens I’m going there.” I do the same thing driving; sort of the “3 second out” idea with cycling. I try and do that mentally before diving and talk through it with my dive buddy also. I’m aware that if someone runs out of air they’re probably not going to politely come over and motion for my alternate. They’re probably just going to yank it out of my mouth. So I’d better be prepared mentally for what and where all my gear is.

This last trip I choked on some water (long story, two much wetsuit, not enough weight) and, in my opinion, crappy rental gear. But I also realize, I’m responsible for my own safety and that of my buddy. I had that “bolt” moment you talk of… I wanted to just shoot for the surface (but I was still only about 10 feet so…) but I just reminded myself that “you have air man, you’re OK, just relax.” Plus I get sea sick sometimes and the thought of waiting on the boat didn’t sound good either.

My wife is always wanting to freaking go deep!! (OK, that sounded nasty… but something to…. never-mind) and I try and convince her to stay closer to me, or keep going after her and keeping her at our depth. A lot of times we actually hold hands (we’ve only been married a year) She’s not totally out of control or anything, but I like to stay aware of how deep we are at all times. I know I should know this, so shoot me for forgetting, but WHAT exactly is the maximum no-deco depth and time for rec diving? Meaning, what is the deepest you can go and do an uncontrolled emerg ascent without killing yourself? I know there’s probably a lot of variables like previous dives, etc. but generally speaking?

The reason why I bring it up is, there seems to be as much sea-life as we ever really want to see in waters no deeper than 30-60ft. But my wife always wants to hit the deeper wall dives, which are nice and all, but it doesn’t really seem like you see as much stuff. OK, I know we haven’t been diving that long… (only about 25 dives each, Curacao, Cozumel, St. Croix, and Kauai). But the shallow relaxed shore dives are really pretty damn awesome if you ask me.