I run a discussion board on scuba for a social network Im part of, and Ive gotten a new member thats raising some red flags with the comments he’s posting.

He starts off stating he’s new to diving with just over 2 hours exp. underwater, and goes on to say he’s been on a 300 ft dive. So Immediately Im like yeah right, and begin asking if he was sure of that depth, linking to articles regarding deep diving, specifically geared towards showing those depths are in the tec realm. Ones demeanor and disposition is difficult at best to show online, and I dont want to sound like a jerk, but Ive gotta call BS on what this guy is telling me. He confirmed the depth, so I began asking more questions, the latest being what his setup and gas mixes were.. his reply:

" 50/50 and as for the rig. Just a Standard Rig. Im new to it all still. But it was when I was on a cruise. went to Barbados and we spent 3 days at land there. so was able to do some scuba diving."

Im sorry but things just arent adding up. and what I dont want is some other newbie interested in diving coming onto the board, seeing this guys comments and going "cool he did a 300’ dive, I want to do that" then go off on a cruise and get hurt, or worse.

Again, as the owner of this board, I dont want to come off as an ahole that questions everyones dive experiences, and have ticked off members leaving because of it. But Im just having the darnedest time figuring out a way to get this person on the right track, as from what he’s said so far Im having trouble believing any part of his claims.

Comments

CanuckDiver - 5/09/2009 10:08 PM I think your friend has looked at a lot of books on Scuba Diving at the local library and picked up on some of the basic terminiology. One of those super-old tome that has the then only dive table in existance, the pre-1988 U.S Navy Standard Air Dive Table. I think he flipped to the section that had the Extended Dive on Air Table as they had a 250 foot and 300 foot table believe it or not. But of course, the dive times where in the hundreds of minutes, simply due to decompression. Did s/he mention any thing about "Hawaian Parks", double-hose regs or the "new" horsecollar BC’s?

Argonaut - 5/09/2009 4:43 PM Personally, I would just post a sincere reply to him stating your concern that the mentioned dive may be beyond his level of experience providing that all the details he gave are accurate. Perhaps there was a typo and he hasn’t realized it, only 30 ft instead of 300 ft, or 2 yrs experience instead of 2 hrs. But if he is diving beyond his training level on his own or was lead down to that depth by a dive master taking extreme risks then he and your other potential newbies need to be aware of it. This post could also cover you in any liabilities you may have as a result of running the website. As long as your response is geared toward safety and not a personal attack it should be well received by any stable minded reader. Your post here shows your concern, so kudos to you for that.