14 hrs of deco for a couple minutes of insanely dark, insanely cold stress that ought to kill your body? No.
Challenge accepted? He already beat this back in 1989, with the help of Ed Harris. No challenge at all.
All joking aside, how do you withstand 30 atmospheres of pressure without a hardsuit? That’s 441 pounds per square inch!
They show Mr. Gabr with the lower half of his face uncovered. Assuming about five inches by five inches of uncovered skin, at that pressure, it’s like having five and a half tons sitting on your chin. That’s the combined weight of several commuter cars.
I guess it’s the fact that the water is compressing his body from all directions, equalizing the force on any one part of the body?
I’ve been to around 200 ft (as deep as is considered safe on normal air). We went for a reason though: the growth down there was wonderfully Suessian with giant delicate plants unscathed by ocean storms.
This, this is purely about living to tell about it. Respect.
This will need to be updated.
That’s what protects the bones, the non-bone parts of the human body are 90% water, which isn’t compressible is other big part.
And the gas* you’re breathing expands to fill lungs, etc so that provides some small support for your internal spaces too. It’s extremely nifty that we can even survive past 30 metres.
Edit: It should be noted that having compressed lungs and internal cavities does not stop free-drivers from hitting some frankly mad depths (Current record on a breath-hold is just over 700 feet) and returning safely.
*Gas, not air. Air will kill you at that depth. The gas they use will be something like Trimix (Oxygen/ Nitrogen/Helium) or HeliOx with only a 4% O2 content which would kill you at surface level. Very important to not get your tanks confused. So many different ways to die down there…
And then, as you´re sitting there in the pitch black, 1090 feet depth of the red sea, a huge shark drops by to say hello. Take your time getting acquainted with it, you have another 14 hours to kill down there after all. Brrr … no thanks.
Ah wonderful: last week’s news in obscure units! I’d have preferred it in chains (16.5) or perhaps more appropriately fathoms (181.7).
and take back one kadam for the FSM which is their god
Well, that painted a vivid mental picture. The darkness and being surrounded by giant marine life you can’t see (or, if you have a light, can suddenly see rushing towards you out of the blackness past your light’s limited range, I’m not sure which is worse) is just as scary as the danger of pressure and drowning, in my opinion.
Dammit, who keeps on tapping on my shoulder?
But way less likely. Being eaten is so far down on the list of probable ways to die, it barely registers.
But yeah, in the dark, at night, or inside a wreck, when the lizard-brain starts to shout, the best way to shut it up is to focus on the real dangers, the ones you can control.
1.615 furlongs, 3270 palms (Br.), or 332.2x10E10 Angstroms. Whatever makes it easiest to visualize.
What did he do for 14 hours? Did he have an waterproof e-book reader with him?
The huffinton post article says
Scuba organizations say recreational divers shouldn’t go below about 130 feet, but one Egyptian diver recently ventured a bit deeper – going more than 1,000 feet below the ocean surface and setting a world record in the process.
But the reason for the limit is that if you go below 30-40 meters (dive tables vary amongst organizations), decompression stops become necessary, and if you go below 66 meters, the oxygen in compressed air becomes toxic. Divers can be trained to use techniques and equipment to overcome these problems, but at that point it shares little in common with what most would consider to be recreational.
Depends on your training agency and instructor.
For example, BSAC will teach deco techniques fairly early on, with the second tier of training requiring planning and execution of dives requiring mandatory decompression stops.
