DOES DIVING HAVE A COMPARABLE SCALE TO WHAT ROCK CLIMBERS USE TO GAUGE THE DIFFICULTY OF A CLIMB…
The short answer is: ‘Nope!” Followed by a pause and: “Well, not really.” Then there is another pause, pursed lips and a finger pointing skyward: “Hummm, actually, to tell the truth, it’s a long story…”
Okay. So, when one thinks about it, there is no short answer. The situation is way more complex and the only answer is a hybrid one.
Any climber, or downhill skier, can tell a lot about a rock or ice climb, or a ski run, from the grade it’s given. These grades are published and shared within each respective community freely. For example, a double black diamond at Whistler Blackcomb has a big sign at its entrance telling skiers what it is. They know the run is going to be a physical workout and a test of their skills before they point their skis or snowboard down it. Dive sites don’t have that.
Along similar lines, an active ice climber knows that without the right experience and gear, attempting grade 3 ice has the potential to maim or kill.
Divers are not quite so lucky.
We are left to our devices when it’s time to compare our skills, the kit we’re wearing, our recent experience and cert level, with what the dive site requires.
But there’s a lot of, what an engineer would call slop in that method. Essentially, there’s enough play in the moving parts that efficiency is lost. Efficiency is lost and there’s more. For example, do the challenges of an ocean wreck dive remain constant or are there variables at play… many of them hidden from the surface observer. Equivalent environmental variables are more apparent to a climber or skier. They can see and feel them BEFORE they set out. Divers have to guess.
What complicates the issue in the diving world is we too often equate difficulty with depth, and depth alone. This is a simplistic comparison, yet divers and dive instructors commonly make it. By default, a trimix dive is classified as more dangerous than a nitrox dive, and both are said to be more risky than a 10 metre bimble on a tropical reef off Cozumel. But is that true? Can’t a diver suffer lung overexpansion ascending from 10 metres? Can’t a diver drown in 10 metres of water and be just as dead as one who drowned two or three times as deep?
There is no argument that a trimix dive may be more complicated than the others. And convention suggests each requires a different level of experience (and certification). But is it that alone that makes one more dangerous than another? Is one really more risky while the other two and are both risk free?
Certainly, swimming around the USS Oriskany’s sail and flight deck most would consider less dangerous than penetrating the wreck, but is that open water dive actually safer than a Cenote dive in Dos Ojos, Mexico, for example? Is one the equivalent of a blue ski run and the other a green one; or are they both the same as a grade 3 scramble up a mountain in the Dolomites? I’m reluctant to say.
Oddly enough, it’s not unusual for an diver with just an OW20 to swim in a Cenote, but a dive below 20 metres requires additional work. Is that acceptable? It must be, since that’s what the community supports. But does the “slop” that’s present in the way we classify dive risk, correct and acceptable… in all cases… for every dive site?
The truth is that divers are more of less left to “self-police” when they decide whether they have the chops to successfully dive a specific site. After all, there are no warning signs bobbing around on the surface. Perhaps that’s part of the attraction. But perhaps not. Maybe dive sites should be classified and signposted. Do divers have it wrong or are climbers and skiers living in a fool’s paradise?
Lots of questions.
The bottom line, then, has to be proceed with caution. Every dive has the potential to be a double black diamond or grade 4 ice. And the smartest approach is to treat them as such.
