AD 2015 Q4
This is the “not do” component. It is also somewhat harder to define. After all, who determines the duty to care and the non-compliance thereto in unique emergency situations? Still, this component is more likely to lead to a recovery of damages. Put differently, when you are under a legal duty to take reasonable care and you do not do it, then you could be held liable for damages that are directly caused by the breach of that duty. The key elements are “reasonable care” and “directly caused”. Let’s break that down, starting with directly caused. This means that the damages are linked directly to the failure to perform the reasonable duty. This is called a causal connection. In other words, there must be a connection between the duty not complied with and the damages. deep diving are so hazardous that it may well be better to only jeopardise the life of one individual rather than two. That is, of course, as long as no one is put at risk during the subsequent body recovery or rescue efforts! Well, as a qualified instructor and dive leader, I shall continue to teach and advocate the buddy system. I do not like the idea of diving alone anyway. I prefer to share the joys of diving with someone able to share the memories of the dive. To me, diving is, and remains, a team sport. Which introduces another consideration: How would the principle of duty to take care be applied to children who dive? Training agencies impose age and depth restrictions on children who enter the sport before the age of 14. Depending on the age and diving course, a child may be required to dive with an instructor or at least another adult dive buddy. If the adult were to get into trouble, the child would not be expected to meet the duty of care of another adult. He/she would be held to an age appropriate standard. What about all those waivers? As mentioned in the previous article, waivers define the boundaries of the self-imposed risk divers are willing to take by requiring that they acknowledge them. Waivers do not remove all the potential claims for negligence and non-compliance with a duty of care. As such, it is left to our courts to ultimately interpret the content of a waiver within the actual context of damage or injury.
This is the “not do” component. It is also somewhat harder to define. After all, who determines the duty to care and the non-compliance thereto in unique emergency situations? Still, this component is more likely to lead to a recovery of damages. Put differently, when you are under a legal duty to take reasonable care and you do not do it, then you could be held liable for damages that are directly caused by the breach of that duty. The key elements are “reasonable care” and “directly caused”. Let’s break that down, starting with directly caused. This means that the damages are linked directly to the failure to perform the reasonable duty. This is called a causal connection. In other words, there must be a connection between the duty not complied with and the damages.
deep diving are so hazardous that it may well be better to only jeopardise the life of one individual rather than two. That is, of course, as long as no one is put at risk during the subsequent body recovery or rescue efforts! Well, as a qualified instructor and dive leader, I shall continue to teach and advocate the buddy system. I do not like the idea of diving alone anyway. I prefer to share the joys of diving with someone able to share the memories of the dive. To me, diving is, and remains, a team sport. Which introduces another consideration: How would the principle of duty to take care be applied to children who dive? Training agencies impose age and depth restrictions on children who enter the sport before the age of 14. Depending on the age and diving course, a child may be required to dive with an instructor or at least another adult dive buddy. If the adult were to get into trouble, the child would not be expected to meet the duty of care of another adult. He/she would be held to an age appropriate standard. What about all those waivers? As mentioned in the previous article, waivers define the boundaries of the self-imposed risk divers are willing to take by requiring that they acknowledge them. Waivers do not remove all the potential claims for negligence and non-compliance with a duty of care. As such, it is left to our courts to ultimately interpret the content of a waiver within the actual context of damage or injury.
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IMAGING<br />
SHOOTER<br />
By 2008 I had been diving to 660 feet regularly. These<br />
were eight- or nine-hour dives, often in rough water. At<br />
that point I was working with a great team of divers; we<br />
knew each other’s abilities and trusted each other. We<br />
went to dive with Timm, and after about two weeks he<br />
gained enough confidence in us that he agreed to take us<br />
to the site. This was an exploratory expedition, but it was<br />
very successful. National Geographic ran some of those<br />
first images, and there was a lot of excitement about the<br />
fact that we had gone so deep and gotten the shots. Yet<br />
there was much more to do to really record not only the<br />
fish but also the ecosystem. We knew we could get the<br />
images of the coelacanth I had in my mind’s eye, so we<br />
got the necessary permits.<br />
But such an expedition is expensive. We had a<br />
budget in mind of 1 million euros, and we needed<br />
a sponsor. For two years I went to meetings with<br />
corporate sponsors, armed with the photos I’d already<br />
taken and my dreams about how to do an expedition<br />
bigger and better, but I received only rejection and<br />
humiliation. Then I had an appointment with luxury<br />
watch manufacturer Blancpain. To my great delight, the<br />
president and CEO of Blancpain, Marc Hayek, joined<br />
the meeting. He is a diver and underwater photographer<br />
and immediately understood what I was trying to<br />
accomplish. Within five minutes I knew we would<br />
move forward. The Gombessa Project (gombessa is the<br />
South African name for the coelacanth) successfully<br />
documented the fish and habitat, and then we moved<br />
forward with Gombessa II.<br />
SF// I do know a little about Gombessa II, in which<br />
you and your team in 2014 went to the south pass of<br />
Fakarava atoll in French Polynesia to document the<br />
mating aggregation of the marbled or camouflage<br />
grouper, Epinephelus polyphekadion. Thousands of<br />
fish congregate during the full moon in June, and I<br />
know you were there to get stills and video of that<br />
phenomenon. But you also spent 24 hours continuously<br />
underwater on that expedition — tell me about that.<br />
LB// I had known about the aggregation since 2000,<br />
but when we went we wanted to be able to advance<br />
the science. We wanted to count the grouper, count<br />
the sharks that come in for the spawn and record the<br />
mating of the grouper. As for the 24 hours underwater,<br />
I didn’t want to do that as a stunt. There are behaviors<br />
that happen all day and all night, so it was a valid<br />
approach for that reason, but we also wanted to do<br />
24 hours at 66 feet or deeper to meet the associated<br />
technological and physiological challenges and thus<br />
improving our knowledge and operational capabilities.<br />
My friend and diving supervisor, Jean-Marc Belin, and<br />
I spoke to commercial diving specialists at Comex about<br />
how to do such a dive, and they told us what we already<br />
knew: To dive to 66 feet for 24 hours would require<br />
decompressing for another 20 hours. That’s not at all<br />
what I had in mind, so I went to see other experts, this<br />
time the people responsible for the Chunnel, the tunnel<br />
beneath the English Channel that connects France and<br />
the U.K. This project had to contend with workers at<br />
depth, just as the construction of the Eads and Brooklyn<br />
bridges in the United States did in the late 1800s. As<br />
most scuba divers know, that’s when “caisson disease”<br />
(decompression sickness) was discovered, and I hoped the<br />
knowledge had advanced since then.<br />
In consultation with this team of scientists we<br />
came up with a dive protocol that used 10 percent<br />
oxygen heliox as our basic mix for the first 18 hours<br />
and almost pure nitrogen with a small amount of<br />
oxygen after that. This allowed me to ascend in only<br />
two hours and 20 minutes. I felt remarkably fresh and<br />
happy afterward, aside from my teeth being sore from<br />
holding a mouthpiece in place for 24 hours. I know this<br />
oversimplifies what was a fairly complex and daunting<br />
element of our expedition.<br />
SF// I know you said you use a special dome for<br />
working so deep. Are there other special preparations<br />
you have had to make for your camera housing to work<br />
at such depths? It seems the springs for the buttons<br />
and shutter release would need to be modified as well.<br />
LB// I would say that the critical points for dives deeper<br />
than 330 feet are the dome and, even more challenging,<br />
the flat port for the macro lens. Harald Hordosch of<br />
Seacam built and tested special ports for me that are<br />
thicker and more resistant to pressure. The other difficult<br />
aspect was the buttons. Deeper than 300 feet, normal<br />
springs won’t return to their initial position after you<br />
press them. Hordosch replaced all the springs with ones<br />
that have higher tensile strength. It hurts my finger to<br />
press the buttons, but they work. As for the housing itself,<br />
it is much more pressure resistant. It can go to at least<br />
660 feet — I know because I’ve taken it there.<br />
SF// What’s next for you?<br />
LB// Stay tuned for our Antarctica Expedition. With the<br />
ongoing support of Blancpain we will collaborate with<br />
Luc Jacquet, the creative genius behind March of the<br />
Penguins, for unprecedented deep dives under the ice.<br />
Deep, dark and cold — it will certainly be a challenge for<br />
our team, and we hope to further science as a result. <strong>AD</strong><br />
102 | FALL <strong>2015</strong>
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