Did you learn accelerated deco or just air deco back in those days?
Question about learning deco procedures
- Thread starter Bent Benny
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
tom lauder
Registered
Decompression diving was once taught in open water classes. I learned to plan deco dives to 190 feet in my OW course in 1981.
But, the reality of decompression diving means that the equipment, training, and mindset is better left to the realm of quality technical instructors. Some agencies are now giving tech ratings out like candy so buyer beware. If you are interested in decompression diving research instructors.
Also realize that most "recreational" computers will tell you that they are not designed to do decompression diving, and when you exceed your NDL, the length of stops dictated by the computer sometimes can almost seem punitive. My wife & I did identical dives on air a few years ago, my Shearwater had me with plenty of NDL time while her Cressi Leonardo had her in deco with 24 minutes of decompression stop required, plus her safety stop. She was not happy watching me swim around at 40' playing with the fishies while she hung with the boat DM at 15' watching the time tick down.
We still teach deco in core training and have 50m as the certification for Dive Leader and above.
They are not really equivalent though. The deco stuff is completely absent from all those courses. Do they cover tides? Different sorts of shot line? Distance lines? Managing diving?
The OP would have to get to Florida or Mexico to do the course so doing TDI Deco Procedures would be more simple, but those from other parts of world would find SD a very useful learning experience.
K
KeithG
Guest
Agreed. But I wonder if the deco time difference has more to do with different algorithms as opposed to some vague ill defined rec vs tec feature.
In order for "rec" computers to compute longer deco times, they would need a different algorithm.
I am unaware of a rec algorithm vs a tec algorithm.
In fact I believe that my ancient rec computer (Uwatec Aladdin) runs what many would consider very aggressive settings for Buhlmann.
I am not an algorithm expert so I am interested in feedback on my observations above.
Plan the dive, dive the plan?
Btw, perhaps some do this, and indeed some manuals strongly discourage deco diving, but the most common dive computers are just fine with backgas deco.
The last time I was in Scapa Flow (large wrecks in 25m to 44m, two dives each day, some but not mad deco) nine out of ten people had at least one Suunto. There were two Shearwaters and one bottom timer too. Having a bottom timer is a diseased caused by believing what is written in the internet.
They seem to be fairly close to me. Like with most classes - it may be somewhat dependent on the instructor, the agency, the adventure dives chosen in AOW, and how the Rescue course is taught. AOW + Rescue should be about 5 days of training - just like Sports Diver is. Sports Diver includes some Adventure Dive modules, and a Rescue module. And they both can be taken right after Ocean Diver = Open Water Diver. Is it possible I am under estimating how much a couple of deep dives as part of multi subject Sports Diver training qualifies a diver for deco?
Sports diver is lighter on rescue than the PADI Rescue course I believe. It teaches the in water stuff but not managing rescues and is light on O2 admin.
There are no deep dives in the Sport Diver course, the training limit is 20m. Post course there is the idea of depth experience dives which extend 5m at a time. So just because you did the course you are not deemed ready to jump into 35m with a similarly inexperienced buddy.
The course dives include proper dive planning and doing (fake) stops. There are theory lessons covering deco theory, tables, gas planning and recognising DCI. Redundancy is discussed but is not the emphasis.
Since this is backgas only there is no stage handling, no gas switching protocols, nothing about chosing a deco gas.
Keep in mind that Divers doing this course are normally in a club setting with plenty of experianced divers available as buddies. When diving with the club there will be a Dive Manager having an opinion about their plan, so I if they want to do a 35m 30 minute air dive on a 15l cylinder then someone ought to asking them if they are sure about that. Similarly if they get out with insufficient gas or having done unexpectedly long deco some quiet words will be had.
The course is a foundation in a progression which can go on with twinsets, stages and so forth, or not. It means that everyone doing any non trivial diving has had some experiance, or a time least training, of dives involving stops. Many people never do anything past a few minutes of stops as they are diving singles and don’t want the hassle involved with more gear or are not prepared to give up the ability to ascend when they want.
People get used to different risks. I am happy with 10 minutes of backgas stops on a single 15 with a proper buddy. I am deeply uncomfortable past 25m on a single Ali80.
Similar threads
