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> Rich., I know exactly why they work. I have not used them for ten years like > you have (yeah ,right - you have been using them since you were sixteen) Eighteen, actually (I'm 29). I started doing them when I was fifteen, when I made money on the side collecting aquarium fishes with my high-school biology teacher. However, I never made the connection between the deep stops and the lack of fatigue at the end of the day until I was living in Palau. So technically I've been "doing" them for 15 years, but understanding their value for only 10. > got bent when I didn't , and I went to the pros to find out why, and did. If you went to the real pros, then I already know what they told you: "I don't know". This is a general truism in intelect - the more knowledgable a person is about a complex topic, the more they realize they don't know what's really going on. Bill Hamilton asked me how I thought deep stops should be worked into existing models; not the other way around. Jean-Pierre has some interesting ideas about tribonucleation - and he's probably the closest to the mark. However, even he will tell you that he doesn't really know what's going on, he just knows that empiracly the commercial harvest divers in the Mediterranean have been successfully getting away with insane profiles. Andre Garlene, who has been doing this stuff longer than ANY of us (even commercial divers - Hamilton calls Andre the "father" of trimix diving), doesn't have a clue *why* deep stops work - he just knows that they do. The Ozzies noticed how commercial harvest divers in the Torres Straight were doing deep dives on a daily basis and were getting out of the water in half the time (literally) that the USN tables said they should, yet had a relatively low DCS rate. The Ozzies proposed a thermodynamic model, but I think if you asked them to state that the *knew* what was going on, they would not. Yount worked out the VPM model of deco calculations (the first real "bubble" model). Without knowing much about the empiracle value of deep stops, his model called for them based on bubble physics. However, he would be the first to tell you that he knows very little about DCS and how it happens. Eric Maiken knows the bubble physics *and* the empiracle stuff, but I don't think he's willing to say he "knows" what's going on. I spoke with Max Hann at the rebreather forum, and I got the same impression from him - believes deep stops work, has a few great ideas about why they might work, but wouldn't tell you that he "knows" what's really going on. I've never met Bruce Weinke, but if he is as smart as he seems to be, then I doubt he would say he "knows" what's really going on either. The best that the "pros" can do is try to work out a model that is consistent both with their understanding of physics & physiology, and with what works in the real world. If any of these "pros" actually told you they "know" why the deep stops work then please tell me who they are, so I can scratch them off my list of people to go to for decompression advice. > By the way, you are just playing at this - when you do the kind of exposure I > do, which REQUIRE doing it right, it is a different ballgame - That may be true, but very few folks on this list do the kind of profiles you do - they usually deeper and for shorter bottom times. I, for example, rarely exceed an hour on the deep ones, but when on expedition I will usually do two such dives a day. This means deep stops are even more important for me - especially on the first dive - than they are for you. > that I stepped up > and pet the pony on myself before I talked about it, and while there is no > reason to do that in the ocean, you may not want to be recommending things you > have not yourself tried. Which "things" do I recommend that I have not tried? No reason to do what in the Ocean? You lost me here chief. In any case, when it comes to the issue of deep stops, you and I should not be arguing with each other - we should continue our common campaign to get people to do them. If the weenies want to pad their shallow deco because they fear more "ongassing", then let them - it doesn't do anyone any harm. I usually tack on an extra 30 minutes or so to my shallow stops partly because I've been stung once, have no more redundant spinal neurons to allow me to re-learn to walk, and I don't want to fuck around -- but mostly because I usually need to finish a roll of film. The only thing that should irk you is when the weenies tell you that you are stupid to cut your shallow stops shorter (I think you are crazy to do this, but I don't think you're stupid). Rich
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