Light deco?

[ScoobaChef]

Since one can obviously do a direct ascent from any dive without a hard overhead I don’t see the validity in your definition. Its the wisedom (or not) of doing so that is key.

Should have included without getting bent. My bad.

 

[KenGordon]

I confirm, when i'm in Italy, were we dive, a good 80% of our NO TEC dives will end with few minutes of deco stops, especially if you're at your second (or third) dive. This is due to the conformation of our dive sites, where (not all, but most) are beyond 30 meters and it's really limiting yourself staying withing the NDL for the whole length of the dive. You won't have OW doing this, but for most of the AOWD with good experience it's a common practice (whenever the doctrine says it's not).
We must be realistic, it's not a taboo, it happens every time.

So why not train people to do the dives they are going to do? Here it seems the alternative is doing the dives anyway without the training.

I think this is a case where describing the diving world as “recreational” vs “technical” is unhelpful. If people think of dives with stops as suddenly needing the full blown twinset and deco stages the. No wonder they can’t be bothered with the hassle and just go ahead with neither the kit nor the training.

 

[npole]

All factors being equal, if you can do a direct ascent, it wasn’t a deco dive.

By picking up the words, neither this is correct: you can always do a direct ascent. What it changes is the increasing risk of DCS proportionally with the deco obligation time you're skipping. So, in case of an emergency, skipping a deco stop could have a different priority in the list of available options.

 

[npole]

So why not train people to do the dives they are going to do? Here it seems the alternative is doing the dives anyway without the training.

I think this is a case where describing the diving world as “recreational” vs “technical” is unhelpful. If people think of dives with stops as suddenly needing the full blown twinset and deco stages the. No wonder they can’t be bothered with the hassle and just go ahead with neither the kit nor the training.

I would love to see no differentiation and everyone being trained for what the scuba diving is: every dive is in fact a deco dive (there's no such "no decompression dive"). The differentiation began when the scuba diving started to be a large business, so now we have people "trained" to do "recreational dives" within 3 days of training... that is crazy, no matter from where you look at it.
So yes, recreational vs technical only because of the deco stop, is a counterintuitive definition: the limits (the skill) of a scuba diver should be determined by his/her experience, nor by a label.

 

[dmaziuk]

Just playing devils advocate, but wouldn’t being able to directly ascend invalidate the point of having a deco obligation? Or are you meaning when your computer shows a couple minutes of deco that will clear during a normal ascent?

Every dive is a deco dive. It's just that on some of them you can decompress on the way up and reach the surface with acceptably low risk of clinical DCS.

 

[Jack Hammer]

Every dive is a deco dive. It's just that on some of them you can decompress on the way up and reach the surface with acceptably low risk of clinical DCS.

Technically true. Just dont forget to add that the gray area around where NDL ends and mandatory deco begins can be a very risky time to blow off deco.

 

[sigxbill]

I would love to see no differentiation and everyone being trained for what the scuba diving is: every dive is in fact a deco dive (there's no such "no decompression dive"). The differentiation began when the scuba diving started to be a large business, so now we have people "trained" to do "recreational dives" within 3 days of training... that is crazy, no matter from where you look at it.
So yes, recreational vs technical only because of the deco stop, is a counterintuitive definition: the limits (the skill) of a scuba diver should be determined by his/her experience, nor by a label.

The problem is that not everyone has, wants, or needs the same experience - which is why scuba education - like college education - is modular. Without somehow labeling one's experience, how would you match a particular skill level of dive, or training module, to one's experience?

Since we are talking about "deco dives" here, I don't see what that has to do with large business? "Deco diving" has never been part of the "large business" of scuba diving. "Deco diving" has always been a small niche. If you wanted to talk about this niche, what term system would you use? It's true - the difference between recreational and technical can be a grey area, just like most of life is a grey area, so sometimes we need arbitrary definitions so we can have intelligent discussion - even in grey areas.

if you have figured out a better naming system than the one we have been debating since 1985 when IANTD invented technical training (don't get excited Trace - I realize it was actually PSIA in the 1920's ;-) ), then let's hear it.

Cheers,

 

[dmaziuk]

Technically true. Just dont forget to add that the gray area around where NDL ends and mandatory deco begins can be a very risky time to blow off deco.

Technically I should've added without stopping there.

And the first sentence is a quote from DSAT report so if anyone has a problem with it, don't tell me. Powell et al are over there -->.

 

[npole]

if you have figured out a better naming system than the one we have been debating since 1985 when IANTD invented technical training (don't get excited Trace - I realize it was actually PSIA in the 1920's ;-) ), then let's hear it.

Cheers,

Scuba diving is scuba diving, if you plan to have a mandatory decompression stop, you'll do a mandatory decompression stop, otherwise you don't. "Technical" diving isn't related to the decompression, its meaning also change according to the agency.
Teaching people to go underwater without explaining them what's the decompression, how it works, the theory behind it, and everything they need to know to perform a dive with a obligatory decompression stop is plain stupid; it's like giving a driving license to people saying to them they can drive up to 90 km/h, without explaining them what's the meaning of "speed" or how a vehicle works and especially what's gonna happen if they go faster than those 90 km/h.
So yes, all this happened because they need to finish the scuba diving course in a couple of days and collect those 200-300$ from ppl.

 

[sigxbill]

@npole - you still haven’t answered the question! What criteria would you use to denote different levels of dives and training? And then what would you name those levels? So far all I have gotten out of your posts is that you think what the industry calls decompression diving should be taught in iso 24801-2 autonomous diver training (Scuba Diver / Open Water Diver - depending on the agency).