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gain experience by simulating (within the scope of
their training) and managing realistic emergencies in
confined water. Another instructor and explorer,
Phil Short, said, “I do it when I don’t have to, so I can
when I do.”
DIVING PROVIDES EXPERIENCE.
Diving provides experience that’s hard to get though
instruction (this is what we really mean when we say
there’s no substitute for experience). By going diving
we subconsciously learn normal patterns — how things
are supposed to be and what we are supposed to do in
different circumstances and underwater environments.
When something violates our subconscious
expectations, we go on alert, sometimes reacting
intuitively even before a problem occurs.
There are numerous examples of this intuition
in different endeavors. One example documented
by cognitive psychologist Gary Klein, who is one
of the primary researchers in this area, involved an
experienced firefighter who led a crew into a house to
fight what seemed to be a routine kitchen fire. They
sprayed the fire, but it almost immediately roared back
to life. Uneasy, the commander ordered his crew out.
Moments later the floor collapsed as a huge undetected
fire in the basement engulfed the structure; everyone
would have died if they had stayed in the house.
Right after a close call, those involved often say they
didn’t know how they knew something was wrong, they
just did. Deeper analysis commonly finds multiple subtle
pattern deviations that even trained people may not have
noticed consciously, but their subconscious apparently
did. The lead firefighter said he saw no threat, but he
somehow knew something was terribly wrong. Later
examination found that besides the fire roaring back to
life, the room was much hotter than it should have been,
and the men reported it was unusually quiet (the hidden
fire was muffled in the basement). Unconsciously, these
pattern mismatches warned the commander.
Experience will keep us out of trouble — if we allow
it to. In other words, if something doesn’t feel right
when diving, don’t wait to find out why. Trust your
intuition, and act accordingly.
NOT ALL EXPERIENCE IS HELPFUL.
It’s not just the quantity but also the quality of experience
that counts. We need enough repetitive experience to
learn patterns, but beyond a certain point, more doesn’t
benefit us.
Consider two divers, one with 1,000 dives and one
with 200 dives. The first is an open-water diver who has
made all 1,000 dives on about a dozen shallow tropical
coral reefs, all from a boat in a wetsuit and wearing an
aluminum 80 cubic foot cylinder. The second diver has
about 50 dives on similar reefs, plus 40 dives in kelp, 20
dives in a cold-water reservoir, 15 dives in a river, 20
dives on Atlantic wrecks, 25 in Florida’s springs and the
rest in inland quarries and off Florida’s gulf coast. The
second diver is certified as an advanced open-water
diver, cavern diver, rebreather diver and drysuit diver
and has dived from boats and shore, including through
surf. Which diver has the most useful experience that
will help reduce risk, especially when visiting a new
environment for the first time?
There’s nothing wrong with making a dive you like for
the umpteen-billionth time, but be realistic about how
much it is or is not contributing to your experience.
EXPERIENCE CAN INCREASE RISK.
Be cautious of normalization of deviance, which can
be summed up as getting used to not following your
training because nothing bad happens. If someone
violates safe diving practices (e.g., exceeds training
limits, omits standard gear, skips checklists, etc.) and
nothing goes wrong, there’s greater likelihood the
person will violate these practices again. Experience
makes this worse, because repetition without
negative consequences makes the safe practices that
were omitted seem unnecessary, until the deviation
becomes the new normal practice. Researchers cite
normalization of deviance as primary factors in the loss
of the
Challenger
and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Culture can magnify normalization by failing to
correct the deviation or even encouraging it (“Oh, you
had to do that in training, but no one really does it.”).
Normalization of deviance is particularly common
in endeavors such as scuba diving that tend to have
redundant safety practices to account for unintended
and random human error. Nothing goes wrong because
a redundancy accounts for the deviation — until one
day the redundant factor is accidentally omitted, too.
If you find yourself skipping things you learned to do
in training (such as predive safety checks), exceeding
limits (diving deeper than you were trained to or
entering overhead environments without training) or
omitting gear you were trained to always have (such as
snorkels or surface signaling devices), you’re exhibiting
normalization of deviance. If you and your buddies
reinforce these behaviors, you’re in a microculture that
is normalizing deviation.
Because experience can reinforce normalization of
deviance, experience is only a cure if something bad
happens due to the deviation (and even then some divers
go right back to the unsafe practices). The cure and
prevention are the self-discipline to follow your training,
honesty about the safety of your diving behaviors and
refusal to listen to other (sometimes more experienced)
divers who encourage deviations.
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