Deco for Dummies?

[halocline]

I always think accidentally staying over your NDLs is a bit like getting into a car accident.

If you keep d(r)iving long enough, it will happen sooner or later, no matter how careful you are.

That's only true to the extent that you can stay out of the way of bad drivers. I've been in two car accidents in my life; once getting rear-ended while waiting at a stoplight, once when someone ran a stop sign.

Whereas in recreational diving you can pretty much never blame getting into deco on someone else.

I'm not a big fan of the "all dives are deco dives" philosophy. I believe that there is a qualitative difference between situations in which you have immediate access to the surface in the case of emergency, and those in which you do not. The line is blurred a bit in the sense that you 'might' be fine surfacing with a small blown deco obligation, and you 'might' get bent rushing to the surface in an emergency, even if you are within NDL.

However, the idea that deco diving involves MUCH more than simply knowing how much time you need in a given situation is absolutely right. In that sense, taking a intro to deco course that stresses the type of gear, skills, and behavior that are part of being prepared for deco diving could be very helpful to strictly recreational divers, as it might influence their dive behavior during NDL diving.

 

[Rhone Man]

Very true, and in my case these situations often involved getting a stuck boat anchor loose. In fact, my motivation for learning basic decompression technique has mostly to do with being a boat owner. As skipper of a boat with divers on it, you are responsible for much more than just yourself, and I feel that I should be able to respond to various problem scenarios and mishaps. To my knowledge, there is no PADI "Dive Boat Skipper" certificate. But if there were, I would take it.

Then, I could confidently turn to my two friends and say "Bill and Sam, go back down to 80 feet, pry that beam off Veronica's leg, and bring her up slow to 30 feet. Susan, take three spare rigs down to 30 feet and tie them off. When Bill and Sam get there with Veronica, make them all stay for 10 minutes, then come up to 15 feet and do another 15 minutes."

Do I have a Mike Nelson Complex?

I'm afraid I have no such honourable explanations - mine usually result from me being too aggressive with my surface interval or simply getting distracted and paying too much attention to fish and not enough to dive time. Of course, wearing a Suunto puts you in deco a lot more often than might otherwise be the case...

 

[hudson]

However, the idea that deco diving involves MUCH more than simply knowing how much time you need in a given situation is absolutely right. In that sense, taking a intro to deco course that stresses the type of gear, skills, and behavior that are part of being prepared for deco diving could be very helpful to strictly recreational divers, as it might influence their dive behavior during NDL diving.

Indeed... my earlier comments about waiting till you have more experience and perhaps taking an intro to tech style course beforehand assumed one was planning to immediately move on to planned deco dives. Nothing wrong with taking the course early on if your focus will remain NDL diving in the short term and you are just seeking to further your knowledge and be prepared for emergency situations.

On a related note, I was reading another thread where TS&M pointed out the benefits of training for continuous improvement, without necessarily having another certification as the end goal. I had not considered that before, but now I very much agree with that point of view. It may not be practical for many, for various reasons (scheduling, cost, etc) but time spent with a good instructor should be gold in the absence of a readily available mentor for the skills you are trying to improve. It's something I'll pursue once I can schedule enough practice time to go along with the training.