Scuba and freediving on the same day

[Aigtbootbp]

I have been trying out a bit of freediving and got to wondering. If I max out my scuba for the day can I still freedeive without fear of problems?
I.E.
I scuba dive on wednesday morning. I fly out thursday afternoon. If freedive wednesday night/thursday morning will there be any possibility of DCS?
A weird question but I would like to know.
Thanx

 

[bleeb]

Not that weird a question. The short answer is that there seems to be some reason to believe this may be a bad idea, although it's not necessarily completely proven and not everyone believes this. A on the term "bubble pumping" (including the quote marks) will bring up a list of threads some of which go into the theory behind possible issues.

 

[romad119]

A consideration might be depth? 20ft vs 100ft for example.

 

[NvScubaSteve]

My limited knowledge of decompression theory tends to make me think you may be increasing your risk for DCS if you were to "max" your body's nitrogen load by getting close to NDL while scuba diving and then engage in free diving. The theory behind the dive tables is a decompression model disigned to account for nitrogen loading into your body's compartments while under pressure at depth, and your body's ability to release nitorgen while at the surface under one atmosphere of pressure. When you free dive you are introducing variables by putting your body under pressure which could alter your theoretical surface interval and effectively change the timing of your body's release of nitrogen.

Depending on how much free diving you do you may be introducing a significant enough change in the decompression model that could increase your risk of DCS, espcially considering your fact pattern of flying in combination "max" scuba diving and free diving, in my humble opinion.

 

[fisheater]

My "take away" from all the discussions I've read is that freediving after scuba is risky, but just snorkling (i.e., staying shallow) is fine.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

My "take away" from all the discussions I've read is that freediving after scuba is risky, but just snorkling (i.e., staying shallow) is fine.

1+.

Snorkel on the surface after scuba is "ok", but leave freediving for a different day.

An interesting fact I picked up while reading about this topic a couple years ago:

If you are skilled enough as a free diver (think world-class), you can get bent free diving, completely independent of scuba. It takes repetitive, deep freedives, with inadequate surface rest intervals, but I guess it can be done, and has been documented (first among South Pacific islanders I think).

I had always thought it was necessary to breath compressed air at depth to get bent diving, but this is apparently not so.... and the knowledge has been out there for years, I'd just never heard/read about it before.

Best wishes.

 

[deepstops]

Freediving after scuba diving is a VERY bad idea as you are recompressing the bubble nuclei and thereby allowing those bubbles bypass the lung bed (shunting) without being offgassed.

It's the same reason you don't do bounce dives after diving.

Here's a great article on it: http://www.gue.com/?q=en/node/596

 

[Scott L]

Freediving after scuba diving is a VERY bad idea as you are recompressing the bubble nuclei and thereby allowing those bubbles bypass the lung bed without being offgassed.

That's what I have learned. Cave Diver has an excellent peice by GIII on this subject. Will ring CD...

 

[Cave Diver]

That's what I have learned. Cave Diver has an excellent peice by GIII on this subject. Will ring CD...

Why We Do Not Bounce Dive After Diving in the WKPP | Global Underwater Explorers

Edit: That's the same link that DeepStops has posted above.

 

[Scott L]

Sorry Deepstops. I did not see link. Tired!