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Its been said ad nauseam that you should "plan the dive and dive the plan". And the extent of planning necessary for a rec (no-stop) dive has been discussed ad nauseam both here and other places.
I'm used to providing a rudimentary dive plan for every dive. In my type of diving, there's no DM holding your hand, every diver is in the water by themself, preferably as a part of a buddy pair or team. We have a dive leader topside, and as a minimum every team has to provide a max depth and a max run time before splashing. While max depth can't be checked, if you exceed max time you might well expect to meet a few rather PO'd members of the emergency services when you surface. So, conscience dictates that you don't exceed max depth, and consequence analysis dictates that you don't exceed max run time.
Back when, I got a little stressed when my more experienced buddy more or less refused to surface before we had about one minute left of called run time. It helped when I was told that that dude always used his called run time to the max.
The other day, I was out diving. After a slightly too long dry spell. Some new gear, so I was a little apprehensive. After a short chat with my (new) buddy, we told the DL "30m max, 50 minutes max". That, of course, meant a multilevel dive, since 50 minutes at 30m would've meant quite a bit of deco and none of us were trained nor equipped for a deco dive.
It was a pretty standard dive. Boat entry, but diving along the shore which was rather steep. Parts of the dive was a wall dive. A little bit of downcurrent, but quite manageable. My buddy was diving a rec twinset, so my gas was limiting the dive. At half tank (well within min gas, BTW), I signalled to turn the dive and ascend a bit. During the return, I monitored my gas a little more often than on the way out and adjusted my depth accordingly. At 50-something bar I signalled that we should ascend to the safety stop.
To make a long story a little shorter, we surfaced after 48 minutes' run time, with me having about 40 bar left in my tank. Our max depth was within one meter from the called max depth. And we got there without any calculations, just a bit of gut feeling. Which had been developed through a bunch of dives regularly monitoring my gas and considering how my gas reserves would impact my remaining dive time.
Yes, I'm probably bragging. But I'm more than a little fascinated at how it's possible to develop an almost instinctive feeling for how to conduct a dive to meet a plan which certainly wouldn't have been feasible if it were a square dive. And at how it's possible to dive a plan without any conscious calculations.
I'm used to providing a rudimentary dive plan for every dive. In my type of diving, there's no DM holding your hand, every diver is in the water by themself, preferably as a part of a buddy pair or team. We have a dive leader topside, and as a minimum every team has to provide a max depth and a max run time before splashing. While max depth can't be checked, if you exceed max time you might well expect to meet a few rather PO'd members of the emergency services when you surface. So, conscience dictates that you don't exceed max depth, and consequence analysis dictates that you don't exceed max run time.
Back when, I got a little stressed when my more experienced buddy more or less refused to surface before we had about one minute left of called run time. It helped when I was told that that dude always used his called run time to the max.
The other day, I was out diving. After a slightly too long dry spell. Some new gear, so I was a little apprehensive. After a short chat with my (new) buddy, we told the DL "30m max, 50 minutes max". That, of course, meant a multilevel dive, since 50 minutes at 30m would've meant quite a bit of deco and none of us were trained nor equipped for a deco dive.
It was a pretty standard dive. Boat entry, but diving along the shore which was rather steep. Parts of the dive was a wall dive. A little bit of downcurrent, but quite manageable. My buddy was diving a rec twinset, so my gas was limiting the dive. At half tank (well within min gas, BTW), I signalled to turn the dive and ascend a bit. During the return, I monitored my gas a little more often than on the way out and adjusted my depth accordingly. At 50-something bar I signalled that we should ascend to the safety stop.
To make a long story a little shorter, we surfaced after 48 minutes' run time, with me having about 40 bar left in my tank. Our max depth was within one meter from the called max depth. And we got there without any calculations, just a bit of gut feeling. Which had been developed through a bunch of dives regularly monitoring my gas and considering how my gas reserves would impact my remaining dive time.
Yes, I'm probably bragging. But I'm more than a little fascinated at how it's possible to develop an almost instinctive feeling for how to conduct a dive to meet a plan which certainly wouldn't have been feasible if it were a square dive. And at how it's possible to dive a plan without any conscious calculations.