Another question about no-fly times

[japan-diver]

I have not done the dolphin dive in Palau- but have done quite a few in other places and have always been freediving for best interactions.

 

[Cosmographer]

My comfort zone is 0% risk of DCS

Please correct me if I'm wrong as you are far most experienced than I am. But from what I understand, there is no such thing as 0% DCS risk when it comes to diving. So if that is indeed true, it's all a matter of risk tolerance, not risk avoidance.

 

[Karl_H]

My comfort zone is 0% risk of DCS

What is that phrase again? ...... "There are old divers and bold divers, but no old bold divers!"

So you're quitting diving then?

 

[Cosmographer]

Thanks, Japan-diver. I've never really free-dived, so I probably won't be doing that on this trip. My only other option would be to snorkel, but that comes with limitations too. I'm thinking that after 5 days of 3/dives each, it might be ok to miss one final dive day and do the dolphin dive instead. But then again, from some of the things I read about Palau, maybe 15 dives isn't enough. Seems like there's a lot to see!

 

[japan-diver]

Freediving and snorkeling are the same thing. I have been to Palau many times and 15 dives is never enough.

 

[Cosmographer]

Hi Karl, this won't be a liveaboard. I'm not nitrox certified yet, so while I might take the course during the trip, I wouldn't take that into my calculations just yet. As far as health, we are both in our 30's (ok, ok, closer to 40) and pretty healthy. Thanks for all the info!

---------- Post added December 19th, 2012 at 06:30 PM ----------

Ah ok. For some reason I associated free-diving with those guys who hold their breath for minutes at a time and dive deep.

I suspected Palau would require repeat visits, but I was hoping 15 dives would be enough, lol. Too many places to see in Asia before returning to the same place for a second time (I know, that's arguable, but that's how we roll). We probably won't be back to Palau until after Raja Ampat, Chuuk, PNG, Komodo, GBR, PI, and possibly Okinawa. I hope Palau won't spoil me for those other sites.

 

[Searcaigh]

So you're quitting diving then?

ha ha .... well maybe I phrased that wrongly, but as close to 0% as one can possibly do. There is a risk in everything we do I know, but minimizing it as much as possible is really what I mean.

 

[xyrandomyx]

Thanks, Japan-diver. I've never really free-dived, so I probably won't be doing that on this trip. My only other option would be to snorkel, but that comes with limitations too. I'm thinking that after 5 days of 3/dives each, it might be ok to miss one final dive day and do the dolphin dive instead. But then again, from some of the things I read about Palau, maybe 15 dives isn't enough. Seems like there's a lot to see!

15 dives won't be enough (anywhere). 30 dives won't be enough either. If your trip's good (and I'm certain it will be), no matter how many dives you do, you're going to be thinking 'I wish I had a few more days to get some more diving in' at the end of it. DCS will thoroughly ruin the experience, though, so I'd rather be conservative and come back another time.

My limited experience with dolphins (not in Palau) was the opposite to yours: a pod came through while we were on a dive, but they were about 20' above us, so we couldn't get up close. I got closer to them snorkelling the next day, but they were still very easy to scare off -- just the slightest of splashes when entering the water was enough to do the trick.

 

[Mustard Dave]

This was last weekend on a flight back from LAX (dove Catalina, and surrounding area) to Houston, TX: 737 ~38K feet pilot stated, and my cochran shows the cabin was pressurized to about 7K feet.

I took a monday afternoon flight to give me a 20hr window and Cochran said I'd be clear by 9hrs so I felt good about it...

The Cochran will stay on until the time to fly has ended. It will turn on any time you want it to, but not go into dive mode unless it senses water (it auto calculates salinity). It also monitors between dives so you can go into analyst (desktop application) and see the pressure changes and any flights you'd had between dives. A Cochran is not for everybody but its small for what it does and I keep using it for its advanced features... its a backup to my shearwaters.

I took the PO2 reading on an Analox ATA trimix analyzer I was carrying in my computer bag as you don't want the sensors in it banged around.

I've never come across the Cocran before. The Shearwater is reasonably popular and so is the Heinrichs Weikamp OSTC2n which I have. The OSTC2n is made by a German company and it seems they only use a hand-full of distributors (there's only one in the UK). It is an open source computer and theoretically you can put any software you want on it, but it comes with a program which uses the Buhlmann model. I cannot find a way of getting flight data but it does tell you altitude any time you switch it on. I'm sure somebody with the right technical nous could probably tweak the software to make it do this though.

Having said that though, is there any logic behind logging the data? We are all told when we pack a DCI casualty off to the chamber, we send details of the dive profile or the casualties computer if they have one. I was reading an incident report on a British diving forum and somebody said there is no point. They said the profile the medical staff put you on in the re-compression chamber is decided from the signs and symptoms, not the dive profile. Is there anybody in the know who can say if this is correct? If flight data is of value, I'm surprised more computers don't log it.

 

[mantajohn]

I think the op has a higher apetite for risk than I do. Accepting a possibly life changing injury once or twice every hundred dives seems to be a huge appetitie?

One aspect that does not appear to have been mentioned here is that of the insurers. There have been a couple of instances recently when the insurers have used the casualty's computer as evidence of them diving deeper than their qualification, or the local regulation of 30m and disowned the claim. This left the casualty to fund their own transport and medical costs. Many £000s.

In this instance, if a diver was shown to have ignored the 24 guideline, perhaps they would similarly decline to pay?