Learnings from the deep end

Over the last 2 weeks I went for a technical diving course to further my diving education and progress from a recreational diver to an amateur tech diver with aspirations of going to places few have ventured to.

It was a beautiful, challenging, reflective and inspirational experience to say the least.

As I developed strong fundamentals from the likes of my instructors Ben & Achilles, and pro cave diver Jean Claude (JC) - Below are 5 skills I learnt under high pressure (literally and figuratively) in the deep which are transferable to other areas of our daily lives:

1. Understanding the error chain - the time it would take and things which need to happen before the proverbial “hell” breaking loose. At depth the error chains are generally quite short and the risks quite big. In our work lives too when things go wrong, having an understanding of the error chain is important for resource allocation and prioritisation and also for mitigating catastrophe by halting the chain midway
2. Resource planning - to fix anything or get to an objective the biggest resource is time. Down there, gas supply gives me the time needed and the same needs to be planned for (carefully) way before the time requirement arises. The need for planning resources in daily life too can’t be overstated - be it a deliverable at work, time I should budget for to spend with family or something as mundane as ensuring domestic chores get done to lead a normal life
3. Task loading - dealing with multiple basic tasks all at the same time. At depth you gotta ensure you watch your depth, your time limits, your gas supply, your buoyancy (and more) to have a safe and successful dive - basic tasks, but under pressure and with short error chains the criticality of getting all of them right is high. Over time and with experience the task loading does get easier but it’s important to appreciate that it has an impact - we become capable at multi-tasking only after mastering basic task loading - don’t be too hard on yourself, but budget for it and work on achieving the required mastery to mitigate task loading and be able to multi-task
4. Building redundancies - as a tech diver one cardinal rule is to only dive if I am confident of being able to accomplish a safe return even if I get separated from the team - being self sufficient and self reliant is paramount - both from a material and an emotional strength perspective - have enough gas, enough back ups, enough calm and mental strength to not panic alone are but a few redundancies needed. In life too there are times when it is important to have redundancies in place especially to ensure error chains can be halted midway
5. Team - tech diving is a team activity for the most part, and with your redundancies in place the team ideally only provides you with additional brain power. They are your back-up’s, back-up’s, back-up if it comes to it. But the team is always vigilant of each other and always looking out for and at each other to ensure no one needs their 1st back up itself. This mindset allows for teams to ensure no avoidable F%$€-ups happen and business as usual is as efficient as it can be

Thanks much to Darren Williams - you inspired me to take up this sport by regaling several of your stories and satiating many of my curiosities over the years

And ofcourse a big thank you to my beautiful wife Deidra Humphrey for putting up with my whims, encouraging me, being supportive (even when I ranted on about partial pressures and hang times) and above all being patient with me. I love you!

Downwards and onwards!