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On 1 Oct 1994, John Kurre wrote: > I'm wondering if anyone could give me some info. I live in NYC and have > been diving in the NE for a number of years, mostly wreck diving. I'm > looking to progress into more technical diving and would like some info on > doing decompression dives, types of tables and algorithms applicable, > recommended dive computers, equipment set-ups, etc. If anyone has some > experience to share, it would be greatly appreciated. I'll share with you what I did. I wanted to learn decompression diving so I went to the only group which (at that time) addressed decompression diving i.e. Cave Divers. I went to Florida and took all the cave courses over a period of 14 months. This did a couple of things for me. It put me in touch with an instructor that was very conversant with deco dives and I could "pick his brain". It taught me dive planning. It put me in touch with a community that includes most (imo) of the serious divers that had the approach to diving I preferred. I recommend cave training to all serious divers even if they aren't planning to dive in caves. Equipment recommendations are iffy at best. I like at least 260 cubic feet of air, wings, Posieden regulators, a spare mask (with you in the water), a good light (50 watts for >60 minutes), a couple of spare lights and an Aladdin Pro computer. Like Jody I recommend use of a pc based table program. Not so much so you can view your tissues but so you can plan your dives. You need to know your air consumption rate to use one effectively. These programs, DECOM (that's ours of course), DPA (Cory Berggren), Mig Plan (Jody Svendson) and ProPlanner (from England). A new program, ABYSS, will be available shortly. I will say that basically all of them do the same thing. Some have an easier to use interface than others. DECOM is $69.95 ! Take your tables (the one you plan on using AND a couple of backup tables in case your "plan" gets fragged. One piece of advice is to talk with people that use the different programs, find how easy they are to use, how many poeple get bent using them etc. Best advice overall is to chat with the people on the list here. Attend some shows, there is one in Philly VERY soon. Try to go diving with some technical divers (no necessarily do the same dive, but same trip). Join a club that has some good divers in it. Read everything available on the subject. Good books include: Deep Diving - Brett Gilliam NOAA dive Manual Deeper into Diving - Lippman Cave Divering Manual - NSS-CDS Cave Diving - The Cave Diving Group Manual (British group that is) Mixed Gas Diving - Tom Mount/ Brett Gilliam Decompression, Decompression Sickness - Alfred Buhlman (try Springer Verlag in NYC) Most of the books can be had from a cave diving shop in Florida. And most important, use LOTS of O2 and be conservative! Safe Diving Ronnie Bell DECOM
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