Scuba certified?

M

mpgken

Jr. Member
Oct 3, 2016
66
66
Montana in winter and Yukon in summer
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
In my quest for a reasonably priced full face mask and regulator for dredging (which I already received answers about on another thread, thanks) I stopped into the local dive shop and the owner started talking to me about how dangerous it is to 'dive' in even in 5 to 10 feet of water. He claims that if the air line breaks or for some reason the supply air is cut off while I am down at say 10 feet and I hold my breath then rise to the surface that it could cause my lungs to burst or I could have a seizure, stroke or worse. He claims I should take $600 worth of courses to become certified so I can 'dive' safely while dredging.

I am relatively new to dredging so I am asking all those who have actually done it it for years, is there any truth to his claims. I have thought about what he said and it really doesn't make sense to me. I dive and swim underwater in a pool at 10 to 12 feet and come back to the surface and everyone else I know of can do that without death hanging over their shoulder. I realize that taking a breath of air at the surface and going to 12' and back up is not exactly the same thing as breathing at depth. But why wouldn't I take my last breath and as I surface let some out as I go up?

My hose is only 20' long so at max I can dive to about 17' if I am right under the dredge which I don't know why I would be right under the dredge, so my depth won't be that deep but just for clarification let's say I can go to 20' deep what reason is there for me to spend $600 for scuba certification?

Thanks in advance for everyone's help.
 

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SAFTY! Being certified teaches you what to do and how to do it safely! If I ever dove at much depth I would have done it but most of my dredging has been maybe waist deep. I would advise anyone (including myself) to get certified if you dredge. But at my age and health ,I don't think Ill be doing much of anything in the future. My 4 inch dredge is about to be sold this morning!
 

If you want to do some research to see what the dangers are regarding diving in shallow water, Google "shallow water blackout". Doesn't take much to get into trouble even at 10-20 feet.
Your life, your choice. Good luck
 

mpgken said:
In my quest for a reasonably priced full face mask and regulator for dredging (which I already received answers about on another thread, thanks) I stopped into the local dive shop and the owner started talking to me about how dangerous it is to 'dive' in even in 5 to 10 feet of water. He claims that if the air line breaks or for some reason the supply air is cut off while I am down at say 10 feet and I hold my breath then rise to the surface that it could cause my lungs to burst or I could have a seizure, stroke or worse. He claims I should take $600 worth of courses to become certified so I can 'dive' safely while dredging.

Arterial Gas Embolism (AGE) and Shallow Water Blackout would be the main concerns at those depths. Holding your breath on assent is very dangerous. AGE as far as holding your breath on assent. If you have held your breath at depth(As in breath Hold Diving not SCUBA) you have a higher percent of PPO2 at depth and the elevated O2 levels keep you alive. As you ascend your elevated PPO2 lowers and then Hypercapnia (Elevated CO2) causes shallow water black out.

Go get certified! It will at least teach you to recognize the symptoms.
Click to expand...
 

Looked up SWB and this makes less sense than what the dive shop was telling me. I won't be holding my breath for extended periods of time while swimming.

At 16 feet deep it would take less than a half second to rise to the surface. I am 5' 9" and at 16 feet that is just 3 times the distance I am long so it would take no time at all to get to the surface. Not like if I was diving deep water and it would take minutes to get to the surface.

Here is the site I went to and their explanation of SWB. How It Happens ? Shallow Water Blackout Prevention

Let me make things clear. I am not opposed to spending the money to get certified but so far nothing the dive shop told me or the responses here make any sense. I am trying to understand and so far I am more confused by why this is needed.

SWB seems to be about something that I won't be concerned about since I won't be holding my breath underwater for long periods of time like competitive divers, free divers and so on. It would be just to get to the surface which would take maybe half a second from just 15-20 feet deep, right?

I must be missing something here and can't understand what it is. I appreciate any help in explaining what I am missing. I just want to understand. Thanks.
 

Just thought of something, has SWB been brought up because supposedly there could be a problem of the air being delivered to me that I may not notice until there isn't any left for me to breathe?
 

He's right. Get certified. Diving whether it be 10' or 100 feet is not something to take lightly. The danger of holding your breath comes in when you breath compressed air at depth. When you rise the air in your lungs will expand causing serious injury. Hence why you never hold your breath when diving and if you must rise without your regulator, exhale for the extent of your ascent.
 

I'm SCUBA cert'ed, and have been for decades and I have been fresh water suction dredging for decades. SCBA cert is extreme plus but not a requirement. I also would never dredge with a full face mask. Having had many "Air Aware" situations, for a variety of reasons, I can recall several that a full face mask would have compounded a very bad situation and probably would have been detrimental.

ratled
 

ratled, I was planning on full face mask because I will be cold water dredging and it isn't likely that trying to hold the regulator in my mouth for even 6 hours a day will be at all likely to happen.

Do you cold water dive for a full day dredging?

Ken
 

It doesn't really matter. Do it whenever time/money allows. Full face masks are nice. You will use more air with them though. We use the interspiro AGA on the fire dept dive team. They have integrated communications so I can talk back and forth hands free to my tender on the surface. Pretty sweet setup. I think they are less than a grand with out the coms.
 

Why someone dredging using a simple hooka setup no deeper than 15 feet or so would need scuba certification is beyond me.
dontknow.gif

However, learning underwater safety is never a bad thing.

I have snorkeled for years and free dove to depths of 15-20 feet holding my breath both in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans without ever taking a scuba diving lesson.
Of course if I were diving using compressed air in a Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus I would definitely want to be trained and certified.

As full disclosure I have to admit that I have no experience dredging any deeper than 6 feet deep or dredging in salt water.
Although I do feel that I would be capable of hooka dredging down to 20 feet or so if conditions warranted but only for short duration's because the pressure at that depth for extended duration becomes too uncomfortable for my sinuses.


Hooka dredging safety 101 (oversimplified)

Make sure the snorkel (air intake) on the hooka compressor is nowhere near the exhaust of any combustion engine and if the air stops or you don't feel right, stay calm, drop your weight belt and surface. pretty simple common sense stuff.

For more detail.......
Click here: Intro to Hooka Diving Keene Engineering

There is also much to be learned about dredging safety that I doubt would be addressed in a scuba certification course such as; fast water dredging, dredging around boulders and cobbles, and so on.
Click here for safety tips on fast water dredging

Also here: for safety dredging around boulders and cobbles
 

Last edited:
Come to Florida for a vacation. Getting certified around here is only about $300.

IMO, if I'm using SCUBA equipment, I would want to be certified in it's use and the safety concerns regarding the equipment and the environment. I think you hit it on the head earlier;

Just thought of something, has SWB been brought up because supposedly there could be a problem of the air being delivered to me that I may not notice until there isn't any left for me to breathe?
Click to expand...

If the air supply cuts out on an exhale, or something causes the supply to get tangled, etc. (there are a million things that can go wrong), time is of the essence, and using that time correctly is the key.
 

mpgken said:
ratled, I was planning on full face mask because I will be cold water dredging and it isn't likely that trying to hold the regulator in my mouth for even 6 hours a day will be at all likely to happen.

Do you cold water dive for a full day dredging?

Ken
Click to expand...

The Yuba is about 34 - 40 degrees at the beginning of the season based on the sign at the hardware store in town. So cold your wrists ache to pan and a brain freeze headache at the beginning of the dive and never used a full face mask for safety reasons. Routinely use full face mask for hazardous atmospheres so I am familiar with that aspect too.

ratled
 

SCUBA is a different ball game, it really has nothing too do with your system. It is useful to be certified for regular diving but these are 2 different types of breathing. I still prefer a full face mask for cold water and black water diving, they are totally safe and the best way to go, plus they don't get so easily ripped off of your face in fast water. They protect your face from the cold and are easily cleaned and way more sanitary then using a standard mouth held regulator in dirty brown,, black water... I've dredged at 35' depths for hours on end with a 50' suction hose and being able to breath thru your nose is a huge plus at that depth where keeping yourself adaquitly equalized to the added pressure is difficult to maintain for long periods with a standard 2 piece mask and regulator.
 

Greg here, I will introduce myself to the group and reply to this thread at the same time. In the winter of 2010 I decided to build a dredge and head to Nome. I told my son what I had planned and asked him if he wanted to join me. I told him that I would pay for his Open Water SCUBA diving course, not because I thought that he needed to know about SCUBA, but because I wanted him to learn basic skills and experience emergency simulations under a controlled environment instead of alone in dangerous conditions without any skill sets or muscle memory. A buddy of mine and I designed and built a dredge and I flew the pieces up there in the spring of 2011 and we reassembled it there. As we were assembling our dredge there was a fatality in the dredge fleet which underscored the seriousness and potential for danger. The day we finished putting things together was the end of the nice early spring weather and we had to wait for 7 days of storms to launch the dredge. The storm finally subsided some and I decided to launch and run out behind the breakwater to test all the systems so I wouldn't lose a day if anything was wrong. Everything worked fine, the wind came down and the sun showed some so we ran outside along with half a dozen other guys who came charging out when the wind died down. I went over the side and sucked for half an hour before it started feeling like I was wrestling an anaconda. I wrestled it until I started worrrying that we might be dragging anchor and going through the surf. when I surfaced I found that everyone else was gone and we were in 4' seas.

We waited 7 more days of storms before we got the chance to dive again. We anchored on a spot that looked as good as any other and I started the engines. The moment I started the second pump the compressor shot the pressure relief valve over the side. I had some assorted spare parts but no pressure relief valve. We had been in Nome for three weeks with a total of half an hour of dredging and I didn't want to lose another day so I stuffed a wadded piece of plastic under a smooth round rock under a pipe fitting, cracked the water drain at the manifold under the reserve tank to keep from overworking the compressor, and went over the side. After a couple of hours on the bottom I exhaled to find there was nothing to inhale. That's what happens when the engine quits and you're dumb enough to leak the air out of your reserve air tank, it all goes faster than you can take one last breath. I was aware of breathing out on my way up, and maybe I got some more out of my lungs on the way up; I know I did more trying than exhaling. We gassed up again and the wind came up before I had to decide whether to let my son dive on the same BS system I had just survived or whether I was going to go again.

7 more days went by before we got to go again. The next time I went over the side the viz was still marginal from the last storm and it was still blowing just enough to keep the dredge set in the same direction so I went over the side with one anchor. The vizibility was just good enough to see that the dredge was trying to wind up the anchor line, air hose/tether/ hot water line, and suction hose into one ball. After threading myself through several rotations I gave up as it was just too dangerous. After surfacing I watched as the forward momentum from the water jetting out of the box took the dredge into the position that the wind would catch it and swing it untill the strong current could complete the revolution and let the water jet start all over again. The bottom line is that if you had to bail out you'd have to do some more serious equipment ditching to get out of that mess. I pulled anchor and went back to Nome to try and put together a reverse bucket to spoil the forward movement from the water jetting down the box. 7 more days of storms went by before we got the chance to dive again. It was the worst summer weather that anyone could remember.

The point to all this rambling is that there are plenty of things that can and will go wrong while dredging. The more experience underwater you have with your equipment the better your chances of surviving. Even though SCUBA training and surface supplied air are different, the skills learned will help your ability to survive an emergency situation.

I agree that there are benifits of having a full face mask. I think that becoming proficient with a separate mask and regulator until you have more experience in the conditions you are facing would be a better choice.
As far as choosing an instructor I would start by talking to the actual instructor rather than a booking agent or store salesperson and running your plans by him. Most would be interested in helping you accomplish your training needs. It might be that a local instructor at 600$ would be a better investment than a 300$ instructor more interested in selling dive trips. It might pay to go that route and get some hands on training in a full face mask too and then decide based on your comfort level after using both setups.
 

Welcome Logjam, and thanks to you and everyone else.

I will look into talking with an instructor and taking the classes. From what I have read from all of you it makes sense to learn about underwater safety even if all of the scuba stuff doesn't apply to surface air. I will be in the Yukon, CA and although the claims are about a 10 minute rescue flight from Whitehorse there is no communication of any kind there. I will have a Sat. phone but again I am not sure it would matter or that a life flight from Whitehorse would be any good. The chopper could not land near the creek and it is about a 20 - 30 minute hike up the creek side to get there. Can't even think of a place a chopper could land which leaves a 3 hour drive from Whitehorse to the creek and another 20-30 minute hike up the creek.

My biggest interest is safety and that is why I was interested in knowing if taking the classes was important or a waste of time and money. If it wasn't going to teach me anything that was needed for dredging it would be a waste of time and money. But knowing there are some things that I could learn that will possibly help save my life is worth the money.

Saving $300 on the classes would be great but spending $2k for the round trip to Florida isn't going to work! I'll shop around for other dive shops in Montana to see if I can save a little money.

I have one last question, is there really that much more to learn in the open water dives than in the closed? Or is it more practice? I ask only because the open water section I will have to travel to Utah to do 4 dives, they don't seem to do them here in Montana during the winter and spring.

Thanks again, everyone.

Ken
 

GG, Thanks for the links. I have gone through the ones on the 49'er site before but had not found the one on Keene's site. The new Keene site is not very user friendly.

Ken
 

when the dredge stops sucking for no reason (not a rock jam), it means your air supply has stopped, make a slow ascent. i have a 7 gal reserve tank, but even at 10ft i'm up and have it off long before my bandmask uses all the air even when im using the freeflow valve. the t80 keeps my tank at 35-40psi
 

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