Most recreational divers believe the PADI no-decompression dive limits, and its reliance on buddy-diving for redundancy and added safety margin.
Most recreational divers don't. They pay fleeting regard to the person who got into the water with them. Buddy checks are often nothing more than a quick breath from the first stage and some random tugging on straps... if done at all. They strap on a computer and swim around until they get low on air, then they ascend. It just 'happens' that their air runs low before their NDL expires... but they're not thinking in those terms. Most recreational divers, if asked, couldn't tell you what their NDL for the planned (!?) dive was, as they jumped into the water. Neither could they tell you what their expected gas duration was, for the planned (!?) dive.
Of course, that's not to say that most recreational divers don't
believe they're safe for the dive. The training...and concepts behind the training (NDLs, buddy system etc)... only work if they are actually properly
applied. They very rarely are.
All dives are decompression dives.
So is ducking to the bottom of a swimming pool. The body saturates nitrogen, then it desaturates - in varying degrees.
From a diving perspective, the dividing line between deco and non-deco is whether the amount of necessary desaturation allows a direct ascent to the surface, at a pre-determined pace, or not. That pace is calculated to be sufficiently fast to enable the diver to attain the surface on a single breath.
We don't need marketing techniques that falsely train people that NDL are not decompression dives.
A dive agency trains people according to its own definitions. The definitions of 'deco' and 'non-deco' are pretty standardised across the whole scuba industry. They are so for a reason... that being clarity and ease of understanding.. in the interests of diver safety.
If you want to apply your own definition to something, feel free. But don't then raise cynical points because of that.
PADI needs divers to stay viable and some divers would not certify if they new they were performing decompression dives (there are two types of dives: decompression and staged decompression dives). Rec divers who don't have redundant systems on their back are rationalizers.
Crock of....
Recreational divers know they can make a direct ascent to the surface if they have a problem. We can call that an 'NDL dive'. We can call that a 'pink' dive. We can call that a 'happy' dive. Whatever.
Depth + Time = Saturation. Saturation dictates ascent. Apply limits to saturation = reduce limits on ascent. Easy.
Divers understand the risk, because they know what options are, and are not, available to them. They are taught
not to exceed certain limits - so that certain options remain available to them.
A line is drawn... actually, it's a curve... and divers are taught not to step over that line.
For convenience, the line is given an easily remembered name.
Again...it's quite easy and straightforward unless you over-complicate it, or try and be 'clever'.
[/QUOTE]Rules based on orthodoxy are rediculous. Religion belongs in the church, not the dive boat.[/QUOTE]
So, if a visitor comes to your house... your property... you wouldn't apply any rules?
They could do whatever they liked... and you'd say nothing? Do nothing? Be OK with that?
Hmmm.... What's your address? Is your wife hot? Is your refrigerator full? Beers cold? Bed comfortable?
Just saying.....
(
my point: Dive Boats are private property. Unless that's your property, you do as the owner wants)
