Book review: Deco for Divers

[Joris]

For those interested in buying it; it's currently available from The Book Depository for £18.32 with free international shipping. (BTW, I'm not trying to spam; just saved me about £15 over the link posted above and would like to share )

 

[calwolf]

For those interested in buying it; it's currently available from The Book Depository for Ž£18.32 with free international shipping.

Thanks for the suggestion... if the currency converter I just used is right (and excluding any extra charges), that makes it about $26 shipped to the US.

The Book Depository - Book Details - Deco for Divers

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

I'm currently reading my way through it.

It's an excellent guide to deco and Mark has done an great job in making a sometimes daunting subject very clear and easy to understand. I also have a few books by Weinke but have never managed to digest them: maybe after Marks book I'll give them a go again.

There are a few typos and small layout errors - but these don't distract from a nice looking and well written book.

It's a must have for anyone starting out in tec diving or for anyone who just wants to understand the fundamentals of decompression, decompression illness and the various algorithms.

Cheers,
Rohan.

 

[hobodiver]

I finished this book recently, and have to say that I found it to be excellent.

 

[Doppler]

Mark sent me an advanced copy of this book and I was stunned at the depth of his coverage and at how successful he was at making such a difficult topic hugely accessible.

I have several books that sit on my desk when I am writing rather than in my bookcase. Mark's has joined that little pile.

On top of everything else, he's Welsh so that is a definite plus!:cool2:

Seriously, a great book that anyone thinking about advanced diving should own.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Too bad that Bruce (Wienke) couldn't contribute some "pro bono" material from his proprietary RGBM work . . .that section of the book was very cursory.

 

[El Orans]

Just ordered it.

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

I finished it recently and I, too, found it to be an outstanding book that is very informative but also very "readable" for the non-physicist!

 

[gcbryan]

I'm just about finished reading "Deco For Divers" by Mark Powell. It's a great book, well written and illustrated. It's a broad treatment of the subject and very complete in this sense. There are a few editing mistakes but the overall impression is very favorable.

I'd done a lot of reading on this subject before I got the book but his very clear and logical style of writing gave me a clearer picture of even the areas that I thought I understood well.

In particular I liked his description of the process of air entering the body, passing into the lungs through the vapor barrier to now go into solution (02 attaching itself chemically to hemoglobin) and then on into the blood and the perfusion trail into the tissues with O2 going in and Co2 coming out. I also appreciated the clear description of what the Oxygen Window is and is not. The description of total pressure being reduced while depth (and partial inert gas pressure) remained the same at the gas switch was quite clear.

One thing I've learned however is that the subject at first seems complicated especially for the non science or math person. Once you learn the terminology and a little about how the body works it isn't all that hard to understand. At this point though I began to wonder why make all of this so complicated when the more you learn the more you see that it's all a wild a## guess. On one level it makes me wonder why I'm even reading and trying to understand all this when there is little science behind it.

After reading about all the various decompression models (and it is interesting) you realize that they all are just describing what we already know as far as the output from these models. We see how many divers get bent at a certain time/depth combination and then we tweak the model to fit that. We might as well not have a model.

I've created a few new models. The first is called the "Peanut Numbers Theory". Before diving see how many peanuts you can comfortably eat. Next count how many peanuts remain in the can. Finally take that ratio and apply it as the supersaturation ratio numbers in any existing model. The most important part of this model however is to make sure that (when diving air) you don't stay at 100 fsw any longer than 20 minutes.

I have a model which relates to the phases of the moon. There's also the hydration model which is too complicated to get into here but has to do with how much water you drink, how much comes out at the other end, and the timing interval. They all require the diver (on air) to not stay at 100 fsw any longer than 20 minutes.

It's a great book actually and the strengths are in it's thoroughness and clearly written style. There are some things I wanted to know more about but after doing a little research I see that the info I was looking for just isn't publicly available (I guess). I was interested to learn more about the dive profiles of the pearl divers mentioned in the Thermodynamics Model section of the book. It was implied that perhaps current theories are too conservative considering what the pearl divers did but when you really got down to it their complete profiles weren't really described. (edit: I've since found similar profiles on the Rubicon site).

Anyone who is interested in deco models and all of the related subjects should read this book.

 

[Doc Harry]

I too agree that this book is a "must" for any deco diver.

As a physician, I thought the review of respiratory physiology was unncessary. A review of that material is available elsewhere. I wanted to read about deco theory, not a review of respiratory physiology.

I think his description of the "oxygen window" made it clear as mud. Heavy, dark mud. Can someone explain the "oxygen window" to me?

Despite these criticisms, I found the book to be the best that I've read on decompression, especially in juxtaposition to the other deco texts that are available. Other books such as Wienke's are for the researcher, not the diver.

I found the whole theory and process of deco diving to be rather anticlimatic. After a long/deep dive, you must perform a specific and detailed ritual at various depths during the ascent.... and if you do everything correctly.... nothing will happen. I wonder, has anyone studied whether or not crystals or magnetic bracelets shorten deco times?.......

Go out and buy Mark Powell's "Deco for Divers" now, it's worth every penny.