Okay, let's get back on track... Flames are pointless, a waste of bandwidth, and only serve to dilute the pertinent information.
Charlie99 once bubbled...
Question 1. for SeaJay: why didn't you just share air for a while? That would have given you a slight additional deco edge since your buddy had 32%, and that would have left a bit more gas on your back to handle any problems while getting onto the boat.
Yeah, I could have done that. I don't like to share air, though, unless I'm really out of air. I think it creates enough potential problems that it should only be used as a last resort measure. Well, okay... A "second to last resort measure," since a "last resort measure" would have been to ditch deco altogether and just surface.
I had enough gas to even permit me to stay the additional "optional" three minute safety stop, which I did. I was there for fifteen minutes, not twelve.
Question 2. Quite a few posts back, you made reference to 18 minutes of deco obligation while passing 45'. Was this really deco time, or was this a calculated "time to ascend" using the ultra slow ascent rate that you had at the time?
Well, that's a great question...
The display on my 'puter said, "18 minutes," and had the ASC flag up... Meaning that I had 18 minutes of deco. Curious to find out exactly what that meant, I found reference to it in the owner's manual:
"The ascent time (ASC TIME) is the minimum amount of time needed to reach the surface in a decompression dive. It includes:
* the time needed to ascend to the ceiling at an ascent rate of 10 m/min (33 ft/min)
plus
*the time needed at the ceiling. The ceiling is the shallowest depth to which you should ascend
plus
* the time needed at the Mandatory Safety Stop (if any)
plus
* the recommended 3 minute safety stop
plus
* the time needed to reach the surface after the ceiling and safety stops have been removed."
So that answers your question, I think. However, I did not do an ascent at 33 ft/min... I did mine at 8 ft/min... Much too slow.
I think that what you were getting at was, "Did you really deco for 18 minutes, or did the numbers simply decrease by the time you got there?"
I can't tell you one way or the other, since an ascent at 8 ft/min really does equate to taking about 3 minutes to get to ceiling - 10 feet.
But I can tell you this... Any time I spent above 35 feet (say I'd stopped at 30, for example) would have resulted in LESS deco time, since that'd be above the floor.
