JustSurfaceInterval
Contributor
I missed the bit where it said it was tech diving, @iliketopetsharks. Now i get it.
Not commenting @gamon 's attitude...
Not commenting @gamon 's attitude...
Is Egypt Getting an Unfair Reputation When It Comes to Liveaboards?
- Thread starter Jay_Remi
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Do you remember the cabin numbers or names? I'll tell them I don't want to be in these two cabins.
Thank you very much for the information. Because of you, this boat is now at the top of my list.
Nope, it is not an unfair reputation but rather well deserved.
The disasters quoted in many posts here are the ones that got to the media- where the LOB went down, caught fire, capsized, loss of life and so on.
But, those are the tip of the iceberg... For each of these incidents there are countless in which it ended by luck with no serious problems or minor injuries, many are not reported at all. For example, if the boat sunk without any guests and only the crew perished? Not in the list... Nitrox compressor exploded and only the mechanic was injured (witnessed this one)? Not in the list.. Boat collided with another boat, but other than requiring towing to port and not sunk? Not in the list... Ach, the list is just a small percentage of all these "almost" that easily could have made worse and enter the list.
Why is that? I would assume that if someone expects high standards such as SOLAS certification for these local LOB vessels, that he probably has never been to Egypt, and it is difficult to explain how different it is than many developing countries. It is not a problem of only the "cheap liveaboards", also the expensive operations can go down.
The disasters quoted in many posts here are the ones that got to the media- where the LOB went down, caught fire, capsized, loss of life and so on.
But, those are the tip of the iceberg... For each of these incidents there are countless in which it ended by luck with no serious problems or minor injuries, many are not reported at all. For example, if the boat sunk without any guests and only the crew perished? Not in the list... Nitrox compressor exploded and only the mechanic was injured (witnessed this one)? Not in the list.. Boat collided with another boat, but other than requiring towing to port and not sunk? Not in the list... Ach, the list is just a small percentage of all these "almost" that easily could have made worse and enter the list.
Why is that? I would assume that if someone expects high standards such as SOLAS certification for these local LOB vessels, that he probably has never been to Egypt, and it is difficult to explain how different it is than many developing countries. It is not a problem of only the "cheap liveaboards", also the expensive operations can go down.
iliketopetsharks
Contributor
Regardless of boat policies, doing 4 dives per day for multiple days in a row is a little sketchy from a DCS perspective. The numbers on your dive computer might look fine but none of our deco models have ever been experimentally validated for that level of repetitive diving. Need a little more surface interval for the residual bubbles to resolve (unless you're staying really shallow).
I know some divers do this and get away with it. But maybe we shouldn't be so concerned with getting our money's worth. Especially when we don't have quick access to a chamber.
As you say, it has not been validated--we just don't know. But here is some information I learned in the past from a presentation at our dive shop from a DAN representative about 15 years ago. What follows is a bit fuzzy in the details because of memory, but the big idea is accurate.
IIRC, with divers on multiple day trips, 80% of the DCS cases happened on the first day. Of those, 80% happened on the first dive.
We in ski country know an old joke in which someone says 100% of the serious ski accidents happened on the last run of the day, the joke being that if it was a serious accident, the skier did not ski again. Similarly, people who get DCS the first day do not go on the dive the second day, usually. So that is obviously a factor in this, but I recall doing the statistics and deciding that the numbers we were given really were statistically significant.
So a least those numbers do not support the idea that multiple day diving increases DCS risk--just the opposite. We had a SB discussion about it around then, and IIRC correctly, some of the old timers argued that multiple diving on multiple days built something of an immunity. Who knows?
And it seems that if you are a DM or instructor and work in divingbusiness on a 6 day working day that the biggest chance of getting bent is after your day off. So then it is again the same as the first day.
I always do on holiday 4 dives a day. Of course there is some personal difference, but a lot depends also of the profile you dive. Just from 25m and then do a safetystop and that's it? Better is then the 12-9-6m 1 minute stop and go up from 12m with 3m per minute. Do then your safety stop and go up from 5m with 1m per minute. A quite commont technique used in technical diving, but not in recreational diving. Yes, you will be some minutes longer in the water, but if a divecenter cannot accept this, then it is not really concerned about safety. It does not cost gas, everybody can go up from 5m slowly if there is only 20 bars left in you tank. So if you hold the more normal 50 to 30 bars, the tank is not drained, there is no risk and there is no moisture getting in the tank.
Similar threads
