ivobj
Contributor
With the dive profile you described, although you would benefit from it, you defintely don't need it, as long as you ascent slowly.
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My question regards the three minute stop at 15 feet in the setting of recreational, no decompression diving... Yesterday my wife and I did a 40 minute dive. Most of it was in the shallow zone of the quarry at around 30-35 feet, working on skills, doing the swim throughs, etc., and then we made one short descent to around 70 feet. I.e., we were very much within the safe no decompression limits. Later my wife asks me, “If we were so much inside of the safe no decompression limits, why did we have to do the 3 minute safety stop?” (Now let me say that neither of us is in any way against hanging out at 15-18 feet for 3 minutes!) However, I could not give a concrete answer and so I am asking for input.
This "Golden Rule" was pulled out of thin air by the founding gods of recreational diving. It was born around a table littered with beer bottles and late night after-dive yacking.
Absolute fact... but not science.
Did you plan the dive on the tables? Assuming you're PADI, the RDP is quite clear about when a safety stop is *required* and when it's *optional*.
Not sure who your certifying agency is but with PADI tables only the bottom 3 pressure groups (2 shaded and 1 black I think) require a safety stop.
.. my wife asks me, If we were so much inside of the safe no decompression limits, why did we have to do the 3 minute safety stop? ... I could not give a concrete answer and so I am asking for input.
...As you get near to decompression limits but still within the no-deco range, does the safety stop serve as precautionary but non mandatory decompression stop?
(BTW Cave Bum, your avatar is missing some parenthesis)
Hummmm? Looks right to me...
Thanks for letting me know, I fixed it.
Probably the single biggest benefit of the safety stop is getting folks to slow their ascents and stop just before going into the portion of the ascent with the greatest pressure change.