SCUBA diving success stories?

[CptCrunchie]

Originally Posted by MLOI

Not sure I understand -what's the huge difference?
Surely, if you are actually self sufficient, then it doesn't really matter if you are solo or not? If you think you need a buddy, then perhaps you are not actually self sufficient?

Please reread the paragraph before the one you are quoting from.

Let me paraphrase. I said self-sufficient solo rec diving is no biggie, but solo deco diving is just plain dangerous. Tech/Deco divers already dive self-sufficient, but only a rare few dive solo. There's the difference.

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by MLOI

A lot of you old farts seem to think that, however the evidence doesn't back you up. There is no evidence to show that padi trained divers are bending themselves into pretzels or trying to aspire water at any significant rate.

Or NAUI-trained divers. Perhaps it's just nostalgia for the good ole days when ex-Navy divers would nearly drown their students during pool training exercises to weed out the men from the girls

[Dave_S]

A bit off topic but I did my padi certificate 35 years ago and dived maybe 500 times, approx 10m dives being my favorite. I did a dive with shop recently and they had us decompressing after a 10m dive and we had a time limit. I was told that's how it's done now.

We were taught and practiced unlimited time and no decompression at those depths. We learned to be very frugal on air and made almost a couple of hours. Never heard of anyone having an issue.

Is the decompression necessary or just a knee jerk reaction to some isolated incident somewhere.

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by CptCrunchie

Please reread the paragraph before the one you are quoting from.

Let me paraphrase. I said self-sufficient solo rec diving is no biggie, but solo deco diving is just plain dangerous. Tech/Deco divers already dive self-sufficient, but only a rare few dive solo. There's the difference.

I did read and just now re-read your assertion that "Solo deco diving is just plain dangerous". I was wondering if you had either evidence, a logical argument or even amusing anecdote to back that statement?

I have not seen anything that suggests that solo decompression diving is significantly more dangerous than diving as a pair or team.

As I said earlier, I find it more fun to dive with other people, but we also will happily separate to do different things.

Mike

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

A bit off topic but I did my padi certificate 35 years ago and dived maybe 500 times, approx 10m dives being my favorite. I did a dive with shop recently and they had us decompressing after a 10m dive and we had a time limit. I was told that's how it's done now.

We were taught and practiced unlimited time and no decompression at those depths. We learned to be very frugal on air and made almost a couple of hours. Never heard of anyone having an issue.

Is the decompression necessary or just a knee jerk reaction to some isolated incident somewhere.

This is why I really don't like to dive with shops/tour boats. Time limits are generally mandated by them because not everyone breaths at the same rate and they want to get everyone on/off the boat or in/out of the water at the same time. What you were doing was not decompression though. There is a recommended 20-foot (6-meter) safety stop that is standard good practice (and really should try not to be skipped). Depending on the depth, a "deep dive safety stop" at 50 ft (15 m) is also good practice. Basically going slow is always good for off-gassing. I've heard of some people getting bent even though they followed all the "rules."

[gamayun]

Originally Posted by MLOI

I have not seen anything that suggests that solo decompression diving is significantly more dangerous than diving as a pair or team.

I wouldn't solo deco dive. Too many additional variables to deal with and additional risk factors, but I'm also not talking about about a short "oops, I just went into deco" dive, which if you haven't planned for that scenario, you might not be able to manage either on a single tank. The deco diving I'm familiar with is when you have double 104s and have either staged tanks for pick up/drop off to save the air on your back or you're carrying along your extra tanks and breath them before going to your back-mounted tanks. The presumption is that at your shallowest, and longest time in the water, you'll also have others providing support as you might be several hours in the water overall. That's probably the kind of scenario that most tech divers might think of as deco.

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

A bit off topic but I did my padi certificate 35 years ago and dived maybe 500 times, approx 10m dives being my favorite. I did a dive with shop recently and they had us decompressing after a 10m dive and we had a time limit. I was told that's how it's done now.

PADI tables have 45min as the No Deco time from 10.5m (ie 2 ATA). US Navy tables were 60 min (Both from memory)
A stop for a few minutes at say 5m is certainly not going to hurt anything if you were pushing those sort of times, but a nice slow ascent would probably be OK.

I certainly would not want to be bouncing up and down 10m to surface multiple times after that sort of exposure on air - as some dive instructors are want to do on courses...

Mike
(But I don't have the cleanest of decompression histories, so don't take my advice)

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by gamayun

I wouldn't solo deco dive. Too many additional variables to deal with and additional risk factors, but I'm also not talking about about a short "oops, I just went into deco" dive, which if you haven't planned for that scenario, you might not be able to manage either on a single tank. The deco diving I'm familiar with is when you have double 104s .

Fair enough if it's beyond your comfort zone, or you just don't want to, I'd never argue with that.
And you are tougher than me dealing with those 104s, they are heavy buggers. Here in Oz we tend to use 12.2 litre fabers for backmount twins. But there is also a lot of rebreather use due to the cost and unavailability of Helium. And deco dives are a lot simpler (when everything goes well) on rebreather compared to open circuit.

Mike

[CptCrunchie]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

A bit off topic but I did my padi certificate 35 years ago and dived maybe 500 times, approx 10m dives being my favorite. I did a dive with shop recently and they had us decompressing after a 10m dive and we had a time limit. I was told that's how it's done now.

We were taught and practiced unlimited time and no decompression at those depths. We learned to be very frugal on air and made almost a couple of hours. Never heard of anyone having an issue.

Is the decompression necessary or just a knee jerk reaction to some isolated incident somewhere.

What you are citing seems to be more of a dive charter mandate than something PADI would endorse, mostly because that would circumvent one of their basic principles; to follow the Navy dive tables.

[CptCrunchie]

Originally Posted by MLOI

And deco dives are a lot simpler (when everything goes well) on rebreather compared to open circuit.

Mike

An accidental caustic cocktail from a fin to the mouth on a deep night dive was my last dive on a rebreather. It was ugly and scary. Never again. I'd rather carry the weight. While many of my tech buddies used a Buddy Inspiration or a KISS, (and I appreciate those who can use them) they respected my choice.

I will admit though, off-gassing on a rebreather was very easy.

[transmitterdan]

PADI abandoned the navy dive tables many years ago. They set up their own company to develop tables for square and multi level dive profiles.

Almost no one dives the navy tables today since 99% of divers are using computers. You are right that PADI trained and nearly all divers are busting the navy tables but that is what PADI teaches and computers allow. PADI divers are not getting bent left and right either.

[CptCrunchie]

Originally Posted by MLOI

PADI tables have 45min as the No Deco time from 10.5m (ie 2 ATA). US Navy tables were 60 min (Both from memory)
A stop for a few minutes at say 5m is certainly not going to hurt anything if you were pushing those sort of times, but a nice slow ascent would probably be OK.

I certainly would not want to be bouncing up and down 10m to surface multiple times after that sort of exposure on air - as some dive instructors are want to do on courses...

Mike
(But I don't have the cleanest of decompression histories, so don't take my advice)

Not sure which tables you have, but the Navy/PADI tables show that a 35'/10m dive can be up to 139 minutes before a 'mandated' safety stop is even needed.

transmitterdan, while some cert companies have modified them, all tables are based on the old Navy dive tables. However, the original Navy tables state that the NDL on a 10m dive is 310 minutes.

[MLOI]

Originally Posted by CptCrunchie

Not sure which tables you have, but the Navy/PADI tables show that a 35'/10m dive can be up to 139 minutes before a 'mandated' safety stop is even needed.

Sorry -you are completely correct.
I was thinking of the '60 at 60' mnemonic which was based on the navy tables.
Somehow I managed to convert 60 ft to 10 m, rather than 20m
PADI are 45 minutes at 20m or there abouts

Thanks for picking this up, clearly I shouldn't trust my memory.
(Yes, it's been a long time since I used tables for anything)

I'd be pretty upset with a rebreather that caused a caustic cocktail to make it to your mouth from a bit of water getting in from a dislodged DSV. I'm guessing something with backmounted lungs like a Dolphin? (A closed Dolphin is the only unit that any of my mates have ever had issues on.)

Bugger - I can't go back and edit my post to correct it.

Mike

[Dave_S]

Thanks all.

They did buddy the only two of us together who had padi tickets and the other bloke sucked the life out of his tank and I was left with a 3/4 full tank and no one to dive with :-(

I hate to admit it but we used to stay under until you felt it was hard to draw air then come up. From the first breath that was hard to draw on you got almost one full breath more at that depth then a couple more coming up depending on your depth.

[CptCrunchie]

Originally Posted by MLOI

Sorry -you are completely correct.
I was thinking of the '60 at 60' mnemonic which was based on the navy tables.
Somehow I managed to convert 60 ft to 10 m, rather than 20m
PADI are 45 minutes at 20m or there abouts

Thanks for picking this up, clearly I shouldn't trust my memory.
(Yes, it's been a long time since I used tables for anything)

I'd be pretty upset with a rebreather that caused a caustic cocktail to make it to your mouth from a bit of water getting in from a dislodged DSV. I'm guessing something with backmounted lungs like a Dolphin? (A closed Dolphin is the only unit that any of my mates have ever had issues on.)

Bugger - I can't go back and edit my post to correct it.

Mike

It was a Draeger Dolphin with Gordon Smith's KISS modification on it. Didn't trust any rebreather after that. While I enjoyed the quiet, it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not a good feeling.

Went back to my twin steel 120's (actually, Faber thin wall 95's pumped up to 3000psi), and either a steel 72, AL 80, or a 40 AL for deco.