BlueDevil
Contributor
A very similar question was raised on another forum recently, so rather than come up with a new reply I may as well just reproduce the answer I posted there:
If you are within the no-deco limits then supposedly you should be reasonably safe to surface without a safety stop. However we now know that this is not always the case, and a significant proportion of divers that get bent are within accepted limits of their tables or deco computer. We also know now that it is very common for divers to form 'silent bubbles' after dives. Hence safety stops were introduced quite a few years ago as a way of increasing your safety margins. They are a good practice and most divers adhere to them. In fact many divers do considerably longer stops than just 3-5 mins. Of course if there are major safety issues as to why it would be best to get straight out of the water (eg white pointer circling, running out of air etc) then it may be appropriate to omit the stop.
It is also worth mentioning that the safety stop concept has now been extended from the common 3-5 min at around 5 or 6m to include a deeper stop. Reasearch by the Divers Alert Network (DAN) has shown benefit from including a deep stop, and this practice has been accepted by the training agency NAUI. I suspect that other training agencies would also be carefully considering this option. NAUI now recommend a 1-2 min stop at half your maximum depth, followed by the usual shallower safety stop. Many technical divers have been incorporating deep stops into their recreational (no deco) dives for some years (based on the success of the concept in deep decompression diving), but the concept is only just starting to catch on amongst recreational divers.
If you are within the no-deco limits then supposedly you should be reasonably safe to surface without a safety stop. However we now know that this is not always the case, and a significant proportion of divers that get bent are within accepted limits of their tables or deco computer. We also know now that it is very common for divers to form 'silent bubbles' after dives. Hence safety stops were introduced quite a few years ago as a way of increasing your safety margins. They are a good practice and most divers adhere to them. In fact many divers do considerably longer stops than just 3-5 mins. Of course if there are major safety issues as to why it would be best to get straight out of the water (eg white pointer circling, running out of air etc) then it may be appropriate to omit the stop.
It is also worth mentioning that the safety stop concept has now been extended from the common 3-5 min at around 5 or 6m to include a deeper stop. Reasearch by the Divers Alert Network (DAN) has shown benefit from including a deep stop, and this practice has been accepted by the training agency NAUI. I suspect that other training agencies would also be carefully considering this option. NAUI now recommend a 1-2 min stop at half your maximum depth, followed by the usual shallower safety stop. Many technical divers have been incorporating deep stops into their recreational (no deco) dives for some years (based on the success of the concept in deep decompression diving), but the concept is only just starting to catch on amongst recreational divers.
