Talking to an old saturation diver changed how I look at deep water work

Ran into a guy who did 300 foot dives in the North Sea back in the 80s. He told me they used to just suck on hard candy to keep their ears from popping on the way down, no fancy equalization techniques. Made me wonder if we overcomplicate stuff now with all these new courses and gear.

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer_bell4d ago

Hard candy trick is smart but it misses the real reason ear issues happen - pressure changes when you don't wait long enough between depth shifts. Old timers had slower descent rates because their gear was clunky, so they naturally avoided the problem their "hack" pretended to solve.

drew_grant524d ago

Gotta admit I used to be one of those people who thought you needed ALL the latest training and gear to do anything serious underwater. But hearing stories like that really flips the switch. The guy you talked to proves that experience and common sense can sometimes beat a thousand dollar course. I mean, hard candy for ear pressure? That's GENIUS level simple and it worked for years. Now I feel like we overcomplicate diving because companies want to sell us stuff, not because we actually need it. This post honestly made me reconsider some of my own gear choices.