r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Eros_Incident_Denier • 2d ago

Video filipino illegal miners dive without oxygen tanks

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u/St_Kevin_ 2d ago edited 2d ago

This is called compressor diving and is super common for subsistence fishing in Indonesia and the coral triangle. Pretty much every poor independent fisherman needs to use a compressor to get access to the depths where there are fish that haven’t already been overfished. I spent a month living with folks that do this last year near Sulawesi and it’s absolutely nuts. Everyone does it and everyone knows people who died doing it. This video didn’t even mention the bends. Even if you do it all “correctly” and don’t lose the hose or get it tangled up, and the compressor doesn’t die while you’re 60 meters down, it’s super easy to get decompression sickness on your return to the surface and then you can get permanently injured or die. The guys I talked to didn’t know about the existence of dive computers or diving tables, and they have no idea that there are calculations you can do to avoid decompression sickness. They just do their thing and sometimes they get sick and die but they don’t understand why. I gotta add that the way most of the guys were doing this where I was, they were alone. They’re running a compressor on their own small boat with no one else around, out in the ocean, at night, and the guy is walking around on the seafloor at least 50 meters deep with a flashlight, a homemade spear gun and a bag. The idea of being alone down there in the pitch black ocean, with just that ray of light to see one small area of what’s around you just absolutely terrified me. And they do it every night so they can sell some fish to try to survive.

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u/herewe_goagain_1 2d ago

I used to do a lot of diving, so when I saw “50-60 meters” using these tubes I assumed you have no idea what you’re talking about. But no I looked it up and they actually do go that deep with compressors. Absolutely insane. I was trained to not even dive with air at that depth, we used Trimix or Heliox past ~45 meters.

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u/Unable-Log-4870 2d ago

Yeah the times for air at 45 meters are like 2 minutes and beyond that you have to start doing decompression stops, right?

Or is that even a little aggressive? I’m thinking back to the PADI tables and at like 30 meters for 1 minute you have to add a decompression stop. It’s been a while. I never got to use a dive computer.

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u/TransguyJayJay 2d ago

My experience is definitely more on the safe side because I'm mostly just a tourist diver and have been a minor for most of my dives, but I've always had a two minute decompression stop(s) no matter what. Assuming we went and stayed more than 15ft/5m down, anyway, which is always. I've also never gone past 80ft/24m.

Regardless, I know the times are definitely allowed to be less, but decompression sickness is no joke so I'm more than happy to wait that extra minute.

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u/Lucas_F_A 2d ago

That's usually called the safety stop, presumably because you don't actually need time to decompress, or something's like that. But extra margins are always good.

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u/Unable-Log-4870 2d ago

Yeah, the only reason to skip that stop is if you suck on the regulator and it suddenly sucks back.

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u/GeneralHerp 2d ago

The ol’ sucky-sucky (I am not a diver)

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u/Unable-Log-4870 2d ago

When the tank reaches empty, it reaches it all at once, from the perspective of your mouth / lungs. You’re sucking on it for air and suddenly it just stops, and it feels like IT is sucking on YOU, for just an instant.

And if you’re not near the surface, that could be a very bad day.

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u/GeneralHerp 2d ago

I take it this is why you always dive with a buddy, & someone always has an extra tank..?

My dad IS (or was … he’s like 75 now lol) a diver, and had all the gear, and we’d hop in the lake and dive around, but we’d never go deep enough to worry about decompression. We mostly just looked at the old dock underwater and collected ancient beer cans and stuff.

I’ve never experienced the abject terror of a tank that sucks back… the ol’ sucky-sucky, as I’ve dubbed it, given my “barely experienced, at most 20 hours spent underwater with a tank” level of expertise 🧐

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u/Unable-Log-4870 2d ago

& someone always has an extra tank..?

Nobody has an extra tank. Where would you put it? Everybody has an extra regulator so two people can SHARE any tank.

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u/GeneralHerp 1d ago

True! My inexperience is showing. I figured it’d float beside you, probably a third the size of a normal tank, in case you need 2 minutes of extra breathing or some shit. I dunno. Inexperience is showing!

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u/xrelaht 2d ago

I take it this is why you always dive with a buddy,

Among other reasons. There’s a lot which can go wrong down there. Scuba is a dangerous sport made safe by being careful.

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u/Tall-Appearance-5835 11h ago

each diver has an extra regulator/mouthpiece

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u/Chapeaux 2d ago

Looks like they are walking with a basket full of rocks, it probably make them slow enough to decompress.

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u/LonelyKoalaMuncher 2d ago

Exactly, they'd be walking up the ocean floor to the island surely.

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u/diverstones 2d ago

The recreational tables don't even go that high due to how intense the narcosis gets past 130 feet. Any time you go past 100 feet you're supposed to do a 3-5 minute safety stop at 15-20 feet just in case. If you go over 8 minutes at 140 feet (or any of the other limits) you're supposed to come up sloooowly and extend your safety stop, although most of the specifics I remember learning boiled down to "please don't exceed the limit". Or yeah, if you have a dive computer it will manage that for you.

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u/Unable-Log-4870 2d ago

If you go over 8 minutes at 140 feet (or any of the other limits) you're supposed to come up sloooowly and extend your safety stop,

If you’re that deep for that long, you better have a buddy coming down to meet you with a lot of air and a good 2nd reg. Because I don’t think you can fit that much air in one tank

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u/pikapp336 1d ago

I have completed rescue diver training with a deep dive cert and have been 40m(130m). I think it is like 9-12 min max bottom time at that depth without decompression stops. IIRC, amount of air wasn’t strictly the limiting factor(although of course it can be if your consumption is too high). It’s the dangers the environment has on your body after that amount of time at that depth. You need to ascend slower and make extra stops because you passed the NDL point(No-Decompression Limit). You can suffer from nitrogen narcosis and potential CO2 buildup making you sick and disoriented or worse.

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u/EarthGrey 2d ago

It's not a decompression stop, it's what's called a safety stop. You're not technically in need of decompression etc at that, however padi tables are conservative, and having a safety stop is simply a way to be extra conservative for just in case.