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At 09:51 PM 8/6/99 -0700, David Reinhard wrote: > You are quite right, of course. Deco should be done on an appropriate >nitrox mix and/or pure o2. But being very cautious I still deco to the air >schedule and take the safety benefit rather than do accelerated deco. So by >choosing 6m rather than 3m I have been spending a lot of extra time in the >water. However due to the large ocean swells we often encounter where we >are diving it may at times still be appropriate to go for the 6m stop. David, your large ocean swells are no larger than anyone else's large ocean swells. Your solution of extending your decompression in big seas by doing extended 6 metre stops instead of 3 metre stops is madness. I assume you are doing deco under a boat? The boat rides up and down on the swells and guess what - so do you, thus maintaining your 3 metre distance from the surface. A Jon line makes hangs in big seas very comfortable. Same when you deco under a float. You go up and down with the float and maintain your 3 metre depth. Maintaining your stop depth does become a problem in breaking swells, but you need a 2+ metre sea and a 30+ knot wind to create these conditions. And even then getting back onto the boat is more of a challenge than finishing off some sort of reasonable averaged-out deco. >(quote) >"If you have done sufficient deco, then spending further time in the water is >increasing your risk. OK, this risk is small but never-the-less a risk and >it bites some people. Doing excessive deco is therefore not adding safety." > >Do others concur with this idea? As I said above I deco on nitrox but >operate on an air schedule. In effect this would constitute "excessive >deco" for the gas I am using. So is there a problem with this practice? Rapidly deteriorating weather conditions. Mechanical problems with the boat. Rescue of other divers/boats in distress. Emergencies requiring evacuation of divers. Predators. Cold. Fatigue. Chasing other divers who are doing drift deco. There are many reasons why you shouldn't extend your deco to the point where you are in the water doing your extended deco when someone else's life could depend on the boat being mobile. rgds billyw -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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