REEF SEEKERS DIVE CO. - DECEMBER NEWSLETTER

[Ken Kurtis]

Attached you'll find the December, 2018 issue of the Reef Seekers newsletter, which is being sent as a 141KB PDF file of four pages. (It may be different/larger when you receive it.)

You can also access the newsletter through our website simply by using this link: Reef Seekers Newsletters (PDF format). Read it on-line or print out a copy for yourself. If you have any problems, please let me know personally at this e-mail address. In either case, you'll need a copy of Acrobat Reader, which comes pre-loaded on most computers. However if you don't have it, or don't have the latest version, you can obtain a free copy by going to this site ( http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html ) and following the on-screen prompts.

If you have any comments, thoughts, concerns, etc., about anything you read, please don't hesitate to e-mail me. Thanks for diving with Reef Seekers.

- Ken (for all the gang here at Reef Seekers Dive Co.)

 

[MaxBottomtime]

After reading the story of the diver with skin bends I came away with several thoughts. Making five relatively deep recreational dives in one day followed by three deep dives the next aside, The one thing that really stood out was swimming to the stern from fifteen feet after the safety stop. The change in pressure is greatest the shallower you get. Divers should continue to slowly ascend from fifteen feet, perhaps taking several minutes to surface after profiles like the diver in question.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

The one thing that really stood out was swimming to the stern from fifteen feet after the safety stop. The change in pressure is greatest the shallower you get. Divers should continue to slowly ascend from fifteen feet, perhaps taking several minutes to surface after profiles like the diver in question.

Yes, but if he's swimming at a fairly constant 15', all he's doing is extending the safety stop. He's not starting at 15' at the anchor post 3-minute stop and then swimming on an angle to end up at 0' at the swim step. (Although if he was, that would actually be the slow ascent you're referring to.)

I think the overall takeaway here is the larger picture you started with, which is deep repetitive dives followed the next day by deep repetitive dives. So when - as I mentioned in the article - you're doing things on the front end that might increase your risk level., do some things on the back end (like longer safety stops) that might help mitigate that a bit. The problem is that, unless we figure out a way for you to dive with a needle in your arm measuring bubbles, you really won't know until after you surface, if you did all the right things.

- Ken

 

[ScubaJCBS]

I got skin bends once and still do not know what I did I've looked at my profiles several times. Really wish I new what I did to cause it. Good read though thank you

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Merry used to get them whenever she made two dives in a day. She charted her depths, bottom time and ndls and now leaves the bottom with at least ten minutes of ndl and makes a minimum of ten minutes safety stop followed by a three minute ascent from fifteen feet. She hasn't had any skin bends since she began this routine.