Diving to maximum 30 feet and Flying the same day?

[scubadada]

BRD,

You will end up doing what you are comfortable with, you obviously would like to not follow the DAN guidelines in this situation.

You did not say how long or aggressively you will be diving in Jupiter. If you're diving in the afternoon on Sunday, your 18 hour interval would not be up until late Monday morning. You didn't tell us what time the dive at BHB would be, when it would end, or what time you are thinking about flying.

Personally, I dive pretty aggressively but try my best to follow DAN guidelines regarding flying after diving. In your situation, assuming my 18 h interval had passed, I would probably want a 12 hour interval after my dive at BHB

People have mentioned going with your computer desaturation time. Personally, I frequently end up with a desat time of >18 hours and not infrequently end up with a desat time that is greater than my computer no fly time of 24 hours (Oceanic computers). I've never been sure of exactly how to reconcile this with the guidelines but generally fly home from one of my trips to SE Florida 25-26 hours after completing my last dive on Sunday morning.

If you get away with shortchanging the guidelines, you get away with it. If you don't, you'll only have yourself to blame and plenty of others to agree with you.

Good diving, Craig

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Turns out the real boss in my family - has nixed the dive so it is a moot point. I was more curious what the stance was for what I will call a benign dive.

I am still firming up my plans but the boats will be running at 10 am on Monday at the latest so assume 2pm is my last dive - 90 feet is the estimated depth - 2 tank dive on nitrox 32% or greater depending on the OP. Then a quick dive on Tues morning with the tides - no deeper than 30 feet - sounds like a 1.5 to 2 hour dive is standard - air or nitrox (seems like a waste but more conservative). Fly out Tuesday around 4pm...

Obviously I dont want to derail a commercial flight - that would be in poor taste just to cut corners... However - I have never dove and flown on the same day - this is more a what would you do? I am a big boy and will make up my own mind (as long as my wife agrees ) but I was curious if this is a never thing or as some folks have stated a maybe thing...

 

[kwinter]

I'm surprised by a lot of the answers here. There isn't enough info for me to make an outright suggestion. How often do you get to Florida and how many times have you done a dive at BHB? Is this planned dive something really special? Where are you flying and for what purpose? Are you just flying home? If you do have a problem during the flight, how comfortable will you be missing a day or 2 of whatever you have planned after you get to your destination?

I'm not saying that you are going to die or even end up in a chamber. But it is quite possible you could end up with a minor bend or just feeling a bit off. If you're flying to attend your own wedding, you might not get over missing it. If you're flying to spend time with your in-laws, then time in a chamber might be well spent. I'm not saying that Shark River is just as good, but only you can decide how important the BHB dive is to you.

Risk is always a matter of probability times severity. The chances of a problem flying in a pressurized cabin after a 60 minute dive at 30 feet are pretty low. But the severity of missing whatever activity is planned at the other end of the flight might be very high. Your decision.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

I get to Florida every couple of years - certainly with no regularity. Never dove BHB - my wife won an all expenses paid trip to The Breakers (work related recognition) - so I figured I would take full advantage of the opportunity. Just flying back home. I may try to squeeze BHB in on the weekend after a morning dive but I need to juggle a few things to make it happen. And I owe some time to my wife to make sure I don't ditch her completely - we need to show up for some work related activities...

Again I was curious what the prevailing thought was for a relatively shallow dive.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Turns out the real boss in my family - has nixed the dive so it is a moot point. I was more curious what the stance was for what I will call a benign dive.

I am still firming up my plans but the boats will be running at 10 am on Monday at the latest so assume 2pm is my last dive - 90 feet is the estimated depth - 2 tank dive on nitrox 32% or greater depending on the OP. Then a quick dive on Tues morning with the tides - no deeper than 30 feet - sounds like a 1.5 to 2 hour dive is standard - air or nitrox (seems like a waste but more conservative). Fly out Tuesday around 4pm...

Obviously I dont want to derail a commercial flight - that would be in poor taste just to cut corners... However - I have never dove and flown on the same day - this is more a what would you do? I am a big boy and will make up my own mind (as long as my wife agrees ) but I was curious if this is a never thing or as some folks have stated a maybe thing...

So if I understand correctly, if you opted NOT to do the BHB dive on Tues. morning, you would have more than 24 hours between the end of your final dive and the flight? That exceeds DAN's 18-hour minimum recommendation. And if you opted to do the BHB dive, you would have something like 4-6 hours between the end of that dive and the flight?

If I were in that situation, I think I would take the gamble and do the BHB dive. The last time I dived BHB, I don't think my maximum depth even reached 30 feet. I spent the vast majority of the dive at about 20 feet. That's like doing a 1.5-hour safety stop. But of course your depth will depend on the height of the tide that day and what part of the BHB site you choose to focus on exploring.

 

[boulderjohn]

DAN is not the only source of information on this. The NOAA ascent to altitude tables break things down quite a bit more. They use the old Navy tables for pressure groups and tell you when you can ascend to a given altitude after being in a specific pressure group. Taking a wild stab at the depth and bottom time based on what you wrote, and using 8,000 feet for the pressurized cabin of the plane, I would guess the NOAA tables would call for maybe 7 hours before flying.

 

[DavidFL]

Just to add a little noise to the discussion, wikipedia cites a study that indicates "with approximately 40–50 rapid decompression events occurring worldwide annually." So in addition to managing the risk associated with DCS incidence....the referenced flying-after-diving guidelines all tend to use that common '8000' cabin altitude...which is in itself not constant but is instead a convenient single number. Admittedly, I'm old and have 3.5+ million lifetime miles on one airline FF program, but I have personally experienced 3 unplanned decompressions (with the masks coming down) on commercial airline flights. Most flights from Florida to New York will have actual altitudes in the 30,000 range, and in generalized terms, if an unplanned decompression occurs, it will most often be "rapid". For what its worth, I plan my trips with the DAN guidelines. And by-the-way for a final bit of noise for the decision making process, I made my first-ever dive on Blue Heron Bridge a few weeks ago and highly recommend it!.

 

[boulderjohn]

Just to add a little noise to the discussion, wikipedia cites a study that indicates "with approximately 40–50 rapid decompression events occurring worldwide annually." So in addition to managing the risk associated with DCS incidence....the referenced flying-after-diving guidelines all tend to use that common '8000' cabin altitude...which is in itself not constant but is instead a convenient single number. Admittedly, I'm old and have 3.5+ million lifetime miles on one airline FF program, but I have personally experienced 3 unplanned decompressions (with the masks coming down) on commercial airline flights. Most flights from Florida to New York will have actual altitudes in the 30,000 range, and in generalized terms, if an unplanned decompression occurs, it will most often be "rapid". For what its worth, I plan my trips with the DAN guidelines. And by-the-way for a final bit of noise for the decision making process, I made my first-ever dive on Blue Heron Bridge a few weeks ago and highly recommend it!.

The DAN guidelines assume the 8,000 foot pressurized cabin as well, so if that happens it doesn't matter which method you are using.

I contacted DAN about diving in Homestead Crater in Utah, at an elevation of over 6,000 feet. They told me that if flying with a pressurized cabin, there is no need to wait at all, since they do not consider an ascent of less than 2,000 feet to be a problem. They therefore said that when diving there, you could fly home immediately, but they would limit you if you intended to drive immediately to Denver following I-70 over the continental divide (11,000 feet),

 

[djtimmy77]

FYI there is some not totally accurate information here.

The max depth at BHB is right about 20 ft. I think I may have hit 22 feet once. Unless you spend your whole dive laying in the sand south of the east span, you will spend most of your dive between 8 and 15 feet. I would say the vast majority of my dives at BHB average in the 10-12 foot range. I have spent entire 2.5 hour dives in less than 8 feet of water.

What are the dates you are looking at?

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

May 30 through June 2 - I figured 30 feet was worst case - I have never been there.