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---- Microsoft Mail "VMS Mail" message ---- From: HeimannJ on Wed, Feb 17, 1993 10:04 AM Subject: RE: Deco stops in open ocean To: techdiver David Giddy writes: >I am interested in techniques for doing deco stops in open ocean. What do >people do if you need to decompress in open ocean when there is a 1 m (3 foot) >swell running ? Using a computer is one way around this. I always hang 5-10 feet below my indicated ceiling. It keeps you down longer, but that's fine if you are warm enough and have the air. Coming up exactly when the computer tells you is just like diving tables to the limit - risky. Aquacorps #1 has some suggestions for computer use in deco diving. One thing I use when decompressing is a "jonline" (named after NY diver Jon Hulbert, and described further in Gentile's "Advanced Wreck Diving Guide"). It is a 3-6 ft piece of nylon rope with a clip on one end and a loop on the other. When doing a stop in rough water, you cinch the loop around the anchor line and clip the other end to the harness. You then adjust your bouyancy and relax at a fixed depth while the anchor line bounces up and down. As for finding the anchor line - most people here in the northeast who do deco diving use some form of upline (also described in Gentile's book). The best way to do this is to use a reel of some form and a liftbag. In NY and NJ, people tend to use a long spool with about 250 ft of sisal rope; you can see this in typical underwater pictures of people on the Doria. I find it easier to just carry one or more Dive Rite reels, which double as penetration lines. If you find yourself needing to come up and can't find the anchor line, you attach the end of your upline to the liftbag and send it to the surface while keeping a tight hold of your reel. You then attach the other end of the line to some fixed object, and cut the line. You may then ascend at your leisure. Advantages to this approach are that hanging under the liftbag allows you to maintain constant depth, and also marks your position for the diveboat. Some people carry a liftbag and a 30 ft length of rope, and hang below the bag without fixing it to the bottom, but this may allow you to be carried away in current. Some people who decompress on O2 combine their 10 and 20 foot stops at 20 feet. This is referred to as "pulling a stop" and is actually more efficient. The details of this are beyond the scope of this note (I have to get some work done this morning!).
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