Barracuda2
Contributor
...that feels like I am very lucky to still be here? This question is for you older divers out there; those of us who started this in the late 50's and early 60's before PADI, before BCD's, SPG's. and Computers, and nothing but Navy dive tables. (and then most of us really didn't understand them) I just read the article "The Final Ascent" in Scuba Diving Magazine March issue, pp. 83-86. This brought a flood of memories of diving lakes, quarries, and my first ocean dive in 1961. According to today's standards, I did so many things incorrectly back then, especially after the dive coming to the surface. Thank goodness, I never exceded 60-80 foot dives then. For the most part, I was as ignorant as a rock about DCS. I just wanted to dive! All I knew back then was the basics: "Never dive alone", "Don't hold your breath on ascent", "Clear your ears on decent", "Pull your J valve when it got hard to breath", "Don't come up "too fast". Safety stops?--never heard of them. I can't believe how many times I played "submarine" on a dive when I didn't know where I was. (No Compass) up to the surface, get my bearings, back down to the bottom until I got lost again, and back up to the surface. Based on that article, I was either very lucky back then, or the article is a bit conservative. How are we NOT going to exert our muscles climbing back onto a boat after a dive? (page 86, paragraph 4) "...some of us may be running a significant risk of DCS just by climbing the boat ladder with tanks and weights on our backs...do not climb ladders with full gear..."[after the dive]. Read the article and let's hear some of your comments.
