How deep can you dive?

Whether on Facebook, in forums, when checking in at the dive center or at the regulars’ table, the question of who is actually allowed to dive how deep is a recurring theme among divers.
Who allows you to dive? In principle, no one is forbidden to dive, and so anyone can dive anywhere.
Basically. In some countries this is not true.

Who can determine that?

Countries and their laws are the only ones that can set and enforce binding rules for everyone. That’s why the first step is to look at how diving is regulated in the country we are in.
For Germany, that’s very simple: not at all. Period. The only regulation is at federal state level as to whether diving in public waters is generally permitted or not. Nothing else.
In other countries such as Spain or Egypt, diving is regulated by law. If you don’t comply, you are usually committing a kind of administrative offense – something like speeding. If you get caught, you may have to pay a fine. You take this into account and do it anyway or don’t do it.
If something happens, this plays a role in the assessment of the situation for the judiciary. It’s hard to predict exactly what will happen – you know, in court and on the high seas… But: there aren’t loads of divers in jail whose buddy or student had an accident.

But if there is no law regulating diving itself – then you are allowed to do what you want. What then plays a role are the following things:

– Domestic authority at the lake: Anyone who “runs” a lake must guarantee a certain level of safety. Some operators therefore decide to make rules. You have to follow them, otherwise you won’t be allowed to come back. (Just like any other visit anywhere…)

– Dive center house rules: Dive centers need different papers in different countries, but always have to prove in some way that their activities are safe. Some dive centers will therefore decide to set rules. These must be followed if you want to continue diving there.

So you see – there is no really rigid depth limit. But there are recommendations, which are often very well founded. You should be aware of these recommendations, take them seriously and then make a decision that you can stand by. How deep you want to dive yourself and how deep you want to take others and under what conditions.

What recommendations are there?

If we ourselves are responsible for making a sensible decision, it is worth looking at recommendations and their quality.

ISOs – standards that set a certain accepted standard – have the status of such a recommendation, which is generally widely recognized. They are not a law, they are only binding for those who undertake to comply with them. So: If a diving association offers a course according to a certain ISO, its course program must comply with everything the ISO stipulates. If not – well, then you just don’t comply with the ISO.

And then there are the standards of the associations. These regulate diving training within an association, usually adhere to ISOs and set limits during training. After that, the standards usually contain depth recommendations, but the associations are far below any law and also below the ISOs.

What do the associations say?

Diving associations such as SS, PADI, TDI/SDI, CMAS etc. define rules for training within their association. These rules usually follow the ISO, but set their own accents in the parts not regulated there.

Associations issue depth recommendations for all dives that take place outside of training. These recommendations are not fixed limits, but can change with further training or experience (!).

What causes confusion here is the fact that the different levels have completely different names. And that’s logical: there are no universal standards for everything between Autonomous Diver and Dive Leader. First you should stick to 20m, then at some point the recreational diving limit of 40m applies, and that is not a rigid limit, not a law. “40m is enough” doesn’t mean “you die at 42m”, and some of us know that.
So how do you get from 20m to 40m? This is the playground for the card inventors of the associations.

At some point, it has crept in here to equate “Advanced” with “30m”. Many diving centers handle it exactly the same way – without any “Advanced” you stay in the beginner group – but if you have the card, you are almost automatically taken to 30m. The basis for this? None really.
Usually, all associations offer a form of “proof of experience with instructor” for the 30m, and a separate certification for 40m. The CMAS requires at least 10 dives between 20 and 40(!) m for the second star, but also has one or two special rules for deeper than 30 m.
To sort out the chaos, here are the equivalences of the most common associations.

The logic behind the borders

Much more important than the question of what you are “allowed” to do is actually what makes sense. The depth limits follow a logic that has to do with the diver’s abilities: What depth is still safe for someone with these skills?
Here are a few very factual thoughts on this – the last section then deals with this very question in much more individual terms.
Everyone agrees that you can practice and dive to 5m under controlled conditions together with a diving professional. Sure – you have to learn. A pool or a protected area, i.e. confined water, is pretty good for this.
Everyone agrees that before a dive in open water up to 12m you have to blow out your mask at least once, recover the regulator, accept the Octopus from the instructor and be able to swim reasonably well.
Then you have to learn things: some are enough for the Scuba Diver, for the OWD you have to be able to do and know a bit more. And there are sensible limits at 12 and 18m.
Up to 12m is the range that is covered in the ISO as a Supervised Diver. You learn the basics – a bit of buoyancy control, giving your partner air, surfacing on an octopus, removing your mask and a few more basic skills. This is enough to be able to dive after a guide in shallow water, who can help a little when in doubt and stay in control. And if something is not ok, you can also go up at depth without a safety stop if necessary, without any immediate danger.
For the full autonomous diver and the 18m, two relevant things are still missing: dive planning and partner assistance (and emergency ascents, but we’ll talk about those separately…). And then you do a bit more: very basic navigation, setting buoys, taking off your jacket and weights underwater. You actually learn a lot of theory – but how much of it really sticks and is still there after a year? In any case, you should reach a level where you have understood that slow ascents are really important, safety stops are a really good idea, and you shouldn’t shoot to the surface because of a full mask.

With this level you are actually fully trained and “allowed” to go 20m (or 18 for those who think in 60 feet). Everyone agrees that 20m is enough for beginners. But what happens next?
The difference from 20 to 30 is definitely relevant. While at 20m the dive is over for almost everyone because you reach a limit with the breathing gas, the no-decompression limits actually become relevant at 30m. Some people can reach the no-decompression limit with one tank and still have enough to breathe. That’s why at this point you need to brush up on what you learned about decompression in OWD and understand these limits. And you should no longer happily dive along until you reach 70 bar and then ascend – at 30m, this is really no longer sufficient as minimum gas (rock bottom – an important topic). However, you are in an area where there are still a lot of regular dives, and as long as you keep an eye on the gas supply, the risks are manageable. Slowly up, safety stop, the last few meters even slower – and problems are solved underwater.
The 40 meters are another story. This is where people start to feel the depth rush, some become a little reckless, and the limits get shorter very quickly. A relevant problem is no longer quite so easy to solve at depth because the brain doesn’t work as well as it does in the shallows. And if a little effort is added, the density of the breathing gas can sometimes lead to the feeling that you can no longer breathe well – a really unpleasant feeling at depth. There are so many factors at play here that it really makes sense to take this depth seriously and ensure that you are really confident with all the basic skills and partner assistance, and that you have also understood the theory. It therefore makes perfect sense to offer separate training for this depth.

And what happens in the event of an accident?

If the Facebook expert choir is to be believed, every diver who goes a few meters deeper than their certification is directly in jail with one leg. And eternal damnation awaits if you are also a guarantor and something happens to the other person.
But, well, only very few diving accidents ever end up in court and usually end in acquittals or comparatively lenient sentences. So panic in this direction is not appropriate.
Nevertheless, as a diving team you are a community of dangers. You expose yourself to a higher risk together than you would in an afternoon coffee klatch, and above all: you dive in a team in which you have promised to help each other in the event of problems. This leads to certain obligations to help the others.

– Guarantor position of a buddy: When diving, as everywhere else, you are obliged to help other people who are in danger. You should not put your own safety at risk, but you should do everything you can. If you have to help your buddy, it’s not so much about following a specific protocol, but about doing what you can – according to your training and experience. If you’ve done everything you can, you’ve done your best and no one will hold you accountable. Not even if you both only have the OWD and you were on 23m.

– Professional guarantor position: If you are a diving professional in the water with beginners, you must be sure that you can bring everyone safely back to land. If you fail to do so, you have to ask yourself whether you could have prevented it. You have a different obligation in that position and you are expected to do more to help someone. However, you are not automatically to blame for everything because you are more highly certified than the other person in a private diving group.

There is actually not one case in known case law worldwide in which depth and brevet have played a relevant role in court. Anyone who does know of one is welcome to send it to me… The question of whether someone has culpably caused harm to another does not depend on whether a card says AOWD, ** or whatever, but whether the conditions and experience of the diver make the plan appear halfway reasonable.

But the insurance!

Insurance companies generally like to try to avoid having to pay. However, they are also interested in people taking out insurance with them – and many will no longer do so if too many cases are known in which benefits have been refused.
Reputation is extremely important, especially for diving insurance, which you pay extra for to cover accidents in what is actually a very safe sport. Dedicated diving insurance companies (or insurance brokers) such as aquamed or DAN are interested in getting as many people as possible to take out insurance with them voluntarily – and this is only possible if their reputation is good enough. That’s why you can generally assume that diving insurance companies tend to be very generous in their willingness to pay. They occasionally do things that go beyond insurance cover in the narrower sense, and want this to be known about them.

Diving insurance companies first of all insure the activity. They set certain limits, but what they don’t do is interfere with training and certifications.

The section on “Diving technique” in the aquamed FAQs is well worth reading. No certification, no CE, nothing like that is required here – only that you do not deliberately or grossly negligently disregard recommendations.
A few meters deeper is certainly not grossly negligent – rushing to 80m with a mono bottle with air and plenty of residual alcohol is. And that even if you have a certification for 80m – or even just then, because then you know how stupid it is, while the inexperienced OWD could at least pass it off as stupidity and thus possibly still be insured if they survive.

However, it is important to look carefully at the insurance conditions, especially if it is not one of the major diving insurers. Many travel insurance policies only include dives up to 30m, and they mean it. Known cases of denied benefits very often have something to do with such insurance policies.

And how deep can I go now?

The question is not really what you are allowed to do, is it? The question is what you want and what you can take responsibility for.

The deeper the dive, the further it is to the surface – and the more certain you have to be that you will still come up safely. Even if something goes wrong. We have already seen that the training system is actually very logically structured and that the depth recommendations make sense. What doesn’t make sense is stubbornly linking the limits to certifications and not to actual skills.
Many divers with a deep certification expect that they will now automatically be allowed to go on deep dives all the time. But if they only do a few dives once a year on vacation, they have no business down there. Many dive centers refuse to take people with OWD or * deeper than 18m, regardless of their experience. If they take divers with 9 dives and AOWD at the same time, this can lead to discussions.
So, what?
Personal responsibility of each individual: Just because you’ve done a course doesn’t mean you can do everything now. You need routine and experience for deep dives. Think about whether you are really confident about the planned dive – just ask yourself whether you would do it with your buddy without a guide. If not, it may be better to be a little more cautious.
Guide’s responsibility: It’s best to take divers you don’t know on an easy dive first – it can be 20m, but preferably with the option of staying shallower if it doesn’t look good at all… Even if they have the highest qualifications and have been issued a super deep certification by the Lord himself. If you then know the people, can assess their air belly and know how they dive, you can decide how deep you dare to go with them based on that. The certification also plays a role here: going to 40 m with an OWD with only 10 dives because he is so good in the water would certainly not be appropriate. But to 25, so that he can slowly gain experience for the next steps – of course. That is NOT gross negligence, and that is exactly the usual approach when looking beyond association boundaries.