driving to elevation after diving?

[jdubdiver]

I am going to be doing some shore diving in monterey in a couple of days, on one of the days I am staying at a friends house in the coastal mountains, he lives at an elevation of approx. 600/800 ft, how long if at all should I wait to go up to his house after say 2 shore dives to approx 50/60 ft, an hour for each dive, probably an hour between the two?

 

[Mako Mark]

Altitude is altitude, although this is not a very great altitude.

 

[jdubdiver]

yeah I know it is not very high but like you said altitude is altitude, I dont plan on going up there right away after diving. I would think that after waiting 3 or 4 hours I would be in a sufficient pressure group to go up there, I am not flying just driving up to a friends house at 600/800 ft. elevation.

 

[Crowley]

You don't really need to wait at all. The flying after diving reccomendations (from PADI this is) suggest an extended surface interval (either 12 or 18 hours, depending on your diving) before immediate ascent to altitude based on aircraft cabin pressures based between 600 metres / 2000 ft. and 2400 m / 8000 ft.

At only 600 ft you really don't need to worry. If you want to make doubly certain though, do your dives early, then maybe hang out for a couple of hours before you start driving.

Hope that helps,

C.

 

[knotical]

I agree with Crowley.

NOAA addresses the issue.
http://www.ndc.noaa.gov/pdfs/AscentToAltitudeTable.pdf

Note that they don’t require a surface interval unless you are ascending at least 1000 feet.

caveat: To take full advantage of the NOAA table, you’d need to use their pressure groups from their dive tables:
http://www.ndc.noaa.gov/pdfs/NoDecoAirDiveTable.pdf
http://www.ndc.noaa.gov/pdfs/ResidNitroTable.pdf

Note also that recent DAN guidelines imply that elevations of 2000 feet and below are not worrisome:
From: http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/ne...asp?newsid=258
“The following recommendations . . . . apply to air dives followed by flights at cabin altitudes of 2,000 to 8,000 feet.”

Waiting before ascending to the moderate elevation you describe is very conservative. I’d consider disassembling my gear and packing it in the car a sufficient wait.

 

[fdog]

Given your profiles, I would not even give a second thought to jumping into my car and driving straight to your ffriends' house immediately after a dive.

Even if I'd just gotten out of the water at Pt. Lobos after a trip to Montana I still wouldn't think twice.

To put this into perspective, we routinely dive at Monterey and drive home to Reno, which transists Donner Summit at 7000', with no issues.

All the best, James

 

[jdubdiver]

Point Lobos is exactly where I am going to be diving, I know that 600/800 ft is not very high just wanted some input:huh:

 

[Thalassamania]

Your profiles give me no concern. To be technically correct you should plan and conduct your dives as though you were at 1000 feet. We use a 2000 foot adjustment to compensate for the drive back over Highway 17.

 

[shurite7]

I wouldn't be to worried about the drive.

Today a friend and I completed a dive to 130' for 15 minutes + deco (total dive time was an hour) and another dive to 45' for about 40 minutes. Both dives were at altitude of just over 7500'. An hour after the second dive we drove over a pass which was over 8500' and neither one of us had a problem.

Cheers

Chris

 

[RonFrank]

I am going to be doing some shore diving in monterey in a couple of days, on one of the days I am staying at a friends house in the coastal mountains, he lives at an elevation of approx. 600/800 ft, how long if at all should I wait to go up to his house after say 2 shore dives to approx 50/60 ft, an hour for each dive, probably an hour between the two?

Altitude diving is something that I've given a considerable amount of time and research on considering I live at 9000', and I dive at altitudes anywhere from sea level to 10,000 feet.

The bottom line is that there has not been a lot of studies done involving any of this, especially on how altitude acclimated divers are impacted.

DCS is NOT a very well understood concept. One diver out of a group maybe impacted where others are not. There are factors that are common in DCS hits. So pay attention to those.

The dives you are describing are no worry dives from an altitude perspective as far as my experience goes. I routinely dive to 80' at 5000', and then hit an 8000' pass on the way home to arrive at 9000' when I am at home.

Tech divers from our area don't bother to even compensate for altitude, and often (monthly) hit 280' for several dives, and then drive home over the same route I hit, and go home to 5500'. They don't use altitude adjustments in their dive plan.

I think you are VERY safe diving at or under 1000' based on a good number of divers in our area who routinely dive in altitude without issues at much higher altitudes than you are suggesting. Granted most of us also live at altitude, so as I started, DCS is NOT well understood.