DECO and Jellyfish

[dumpsterDiver]

The other weekend we had an "invasion" of jellyfish here in south Florida like I have never seen. Onshore winds blew in a bunch of man-o-war which float on the surface dangling tentacles that can extend down 10 feet or more. And we had tons of actual jellyfish that had 6-8 ft long tentacles and a medusa as big as your fist or smaller. These were not moon jellies.

My buddy did a 230 ft dive and ended up with 45 minutes of deco (calculated using oxyegn for deco). He ascended almost 15 minutes early and i could hear his computers beeping as we helped him up the ladder. My first questions were do you need help? Why are you up early? Why are your computers beeping?

Apparently he was getting so stung in the face that he did only about 25 of his 40 minute deco because he could not endure the facial stings. He was wearing a full suit with hood, gloves, boots but his face was pretty swollen and he was still sore a few days later.

Normally you think that if you have to blow off deco due to some problem organsims (say sharks) you could move with the boat and finish up somewhere 5 minutes away, but the jelly fish were everywhere. He breathed oxygen for 15 minutes on the boat and was fine.

Just one more thing to think about when you consider deco in the open ocean.

 

[electrix]

WOW thats something to think about

 

[TSandM]

Wow -- I know the guys in Monterey often have to manage their shallow deco among the sea nettles, but that's quite different from Man-o-wars. Their sting can actually make you quite ill.

 

[Zodiacdiverdave]

Just a passing question, does your buddy do deep water deco?
ZDD

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Yeah I said to him, that I think I would try to do as much deco on 50% (and stay deep) for as long as possible rather than blowing off that much deco.

 

[akdeepdiver]

I had a similar situation in Truk, we had a 15 minute hang and the water was full of Jellies. I do not know the type, but they looked like moon jellies about the size of a silver dollar. Millions of them. Luckily for me they were just a nusance and I could last the whole hang. but we had one person that had to go back to the dock and take some benadryl since he had a mild reaction and his face looked like a puffer fish.