deco dive frequency?

[KentB]

350+ dives a year.
Most have some deco.
Planned RTs of 30 min max and depths to 180' up to 7 times a day with as close to 2hr SI as possible.
For any longer dives or trimix 2 dives a day unless it's pretty shallow.

350 a year? oh man im jealous

 

[Scuba Cobra]

I'm pretty much only doing deco dives these days. Wrecks are big, I like to spend as much time on them as possible. I averaged about 50 dives this past year with a deployment involved.

I never do back gas deco.

 

[rabe]

I went to deco only once (only for a couple of minutes) during a NDL dive*, otherwise all my deco dives are planned, with a deco plan and planned gasses.
Depending on where I dive it can be between 15 minutes up to 6 minutes.

 

[Doppler]

extended range brought in a 2nd deco gas. i did the courses in sidemount I really didn't notice any additional task loading carrying another deco gas. I like carrying 2 deco gases strictly for a lost deco gas scenario. more dive planning i do the more i see carrying a 2nd deco gas is a better idea. it also wasnt a weekend course I had over 800 min bottom time

this thread idea was more geared towards curiosity on the frequency of deco dives people do not anything else.

Ah, apologies. After rereading your original post, I see you are Extended Range certified.

As for your question regarding frequency of deco dives, that's a difficult question for me to answer in a meaningful way. The majority of dives these days are cave dives as opposed to deep wreck dives, so the necessity of planning for long/complex ascents is less than the focus on other issues. However, in terms of the total number of staged decompression dives I've planned and managed to complete with all my fingers and toes intact, it's in the thousands. Which is a shock to me! LOL! But when I did almost exclusively Great Lakes diving, my guess would be 150 staged decompression dives a year (most on trimix below 50 metres). I NEVER plan decompression on back gas. Had to do it a time or two, but those were totally seat of the pants unplanned **** hit the fan affairs.

Interesting that you logged 800 minutes of bottom time during your ER course. Was it in BC conditions? If so, that's a tough ask!

As for carrying a fourth bottle in SM (two primary and two deco), it is manageable for sure, and having contingency gas does lend a sense of bliss should anything go pear-shaped... or even if things unfold as they should. My comment regarding the efficacy of practising come to Jesus scenarios holds regardless.

Dive safe and often.

 

[kensuf]

About 50% of my dives are deco dives. I knock out a fair bit of rec dives every year down in the Cayman Islands which really drops the deco dive percentage.

Dude, there's deco diving in the Cayman Islands too. With helium and everything.

 

[NothingClever]

I’m averaging eight to ten deco dives per month but sometimes more if I do a weekend LOB. I’ve slowed down on rec dives from shore simply because I think I’ve seen about all there is to see where I live. Logically, extending my depth and duration are in order to keep my diving interesting.

I plan for deco with back gas (conplan 3) but I don’t plan on actually decompressing with my backgas.

I don’t see the problem with carrying two deco gases. I didn’t get sensitized to that guidance from my TDI courses, my instructor or the TDI shop where I get my 50% and 80-100% O2 fills.

 

[PfcAJ]

Dude, there's deco diving in the Cayman Islands too. With helium and everything.

Living that 1% lifestyle.

For the rest of the proletariat, rec diving will have to do!

 

[Bigbella]

Nowadays, decompression dives comprise about twenty percent of our annual workload. They are all well-planned, but are less frequently required than in the past. Below forty meters, it is far less scenic, here, in Northern California or worth any increased risk; and, at this stage of life, I feel no need for any further pissing contests or potential later life neurological surprises . . .

 

[J-Vo]

Slow year in 2019 with 14 of 71 dives being deco. 25 of those NDL dives where cave training however.

We will often do an NDL dive after a big deco dive where we carry our leftover 50% and O2 to extend the NDL and washout faster. Still NDL, but has all the gas switches. It's difficult to count this as "just an NDL" dive.

I don't do unplanned or backgas deco. I also prefer two gases for deco. At altitude 100% gets you out quite a bit faster and I don't like my next gas being at 20'. Anything under ~240' and I'm carrying 3 deco gases.

 

[ofg-1]

Frequency? I am guessing at least 1050 hertz modulating up and down a couple of dozen hertz, varying with depth and congestion. Damn tinnitus.