Safety stop when losing buddy

[Neilwood]

Gotta love Sam!
Thirty years is "recent".

K.

Thirty years is recent for Sam!

 

[Sam Miller III]

Hombres
It is all relative ...
Check your PMs
SDM

 

[Dominik_E]

Isn't aseptic bone necrosis something basically only observed in sat diving? Given the exceedingly long desaturation half times of everything in the vicinity of the long bones, it would be very hard to understand how these will even notice a 3 minute stop...

To my understanding, the safety stop was rather conceived for a collection of reasons, most of them not even connected to desaturation:

-- giving the bubbles in your blood one circulation to get eliminated by the pulmonary filter

-- giving inexperienced divers a clear incentive to stop before entering the last 5 and most demanding (buoyancy - wise) meters of ascend

-- giving the DM a chance to re-assemble the group

-- giving time to look up for boat traffic

...

 

[Chavodel8en]

How about this --

Generally, buddies establish that they are to swim around for 1 minute when you're separated. If the separation is mid-dive, why not swim around at SS depth? It may even be easier to find the lost buddy, as you may see their bubbles rising from this vantage point. And if viz is good enough, you may see the buddy at the surface from here.

This wont solve all the problems, but it seems a good compromise, and will give you a 1 minute SS at the very least.

Alternatively, you can take a minute to slowly swim around in a corkscrew pattern to the surface.

 

[BlueTrin]

Thirty years is recent for Sam!

I am myself almost recent, yay !

 

[Bob DBF]

How about this --

Generally, buddies establish that they are to swim around for 1 minute when you're separated. If the separation is mid-dive, why not swim around at SS depth? It may even be easier to find the lost buddy, as you may see their bubbles rising from this vantage point. And if viz is good enough, you may see the buddy at the surface from here.

This wont solve all the problems, but it seems a good compromise, and will give you a 1 minute SS at the very least.

Alternatively, you can take a minute to slowly swim around in a corkscrew pattern to the surface.

Interesting ideas for the search.

Where I do my diving 15' is good viz, so finding a lost buddy on the bottom is a matter of luck. I usually go up off the bottom about half the viz and make a big circle, if I don't make contact I surface even though it may be less than a minute.

I surface at between 30 to 60 fpm, 30fpm or less the last 15'. This puts me on the surface, from 60', in two or three minutes in case my buddy is on the surface in distress. Then I can look for bubbles if necessary, which is easier said than done when looking from the surface on the NorCal ocean.

Different conditions would use different techniques, 60' viz would make finding the buddy underwater a more attainable goal.


Bob

 

[EireDiver606]

Ideally you'd both shoot your dsmbs so there would be no need to hunt for bubbles. If one person surfaced before the others, they could then swim over to the others' dsmb, and descend (gas/time allowing)

I agree with this. The answer is “it depends”. If you think you could increase your safety doing a small shallow stop, do it. If there’s no point, at the start of a dive, don’t. Simple as.

I hope that most people would be doing the stop and while waiting, they should shoot the smb, to let the buddy know where they are but more importantly, to ascend safely by letting boats know where you are so they don’t drive over you. (It’s not always easy to see bubbles from the surface).

In an area with boat traffic, you’re not going to ascend without an smb right?

 

[EireDiver606]

I surface at between 30 to 60 fpm

As per PADI recommendations, surface ascent is no faster than 18m per minute (I believe).

It’s funny because it’s actually hard to be that fast ascending. I think you’d have to be in semi rocket mode to get that fast as it equates to 0.3m per second.

10m per min is safer.

 

[Bob DBF]

As per PADI recommendations, surface ascent is no faster than 18m per minute (I believe).

They recommend 30 fpm, however the PADI RDP says not to exceed 60 fpm, the same limit I learned when I started diving. I ascended at 60 fpm for about 40 years, when I started using a computer I mostly go along with its ascent rate (30 fpm) and safety stop, however in an emergency I will use 60 fpm, faster if the emergency warrants.

Every diver has to make their own risk assessment and decide what they will do while diving and in a diving emergency.


Bob

 

[Diving Dubai]

Missing a safety stop is NOT "risking your life". Not at all. It is not even proven that it puts you at any additional risk, however small.

Safety Stops ARE NOT REQUIRED!!!!!

Recreational diving does not have a ceiling, meaning, that one can ascend to the surface (whilst maintaining a safe ascent rate) without having to stop....So, if you have a buddy separation- follow whatever you discussed as part of the dive planning. Assuming you did plan the dive...

As a follow on from @Bob DBF post, and purely for academic discussion

The PADI RDP does allow for non stop diving (there are some depths/times where a safety stop is demanded on the RDP

Making a dive on 32% The metric RDP allows for a dive to 26m 33mins The Imperial (if I read the blurry picture correctly) 90ft 29mins

From there you can make a direct ascent to the surface at 18m/min (metric) or 60ft/min imperial

So in both cases roughly 1min 15sec to the surface with no stop. Assuming you could maintain that rate. Would you make that ascent to look for a buddy after the max time at depth?

The RDP says you can - but who would?