Dive Packages & Unlimited Shore Diving

[DawgPaddle]

Hi!

I normally read my dive magazines cover to cover and always look over the many dive packages offered. Many of these offer 2-3 daily boat dives and unlimited tank refills for shore diving. The most dives I've done in a single day are three, but wouldn't continuous shore diving on these trips saturate your body with nitrogen and make the boat dives shallower & shorter? Sure, I'd love to make a bunch of dives on one of these trips but don't want to ruin the boat dives because of too much diving from the shore. Are the unlimited shore dives really used so much on these packages, or is this a marketing scheme to attract more divers?

Just Curious, Thanks

 

[granthammer]

Actually with the shore dives...if you stay within 30 ft, it helps you get rid of the nitrogen in your body not saturate it. It's like doing a safety stop.

 

[scubasean]

Hi!

I normally read my dive magazines cover to cover and always look over the many dive packages offered. Many of these offer 2-3 daily boat dives and unlimited tank refills for shore diving. The most dives I've done in a single day are three, but wouldn't continuous shore diving on these trips saturate your body with nitrogen and make the boat dives shallower & shorter? Sure, I'd love to make a bunch of dives on one of these trips but don't want to ruin the boat dives because of too much diving from the shore. Are the unlimited shore dives really used so much on these packages, or is this a marketing scheme to attract more divers?

Just Curious, Thanks

As you indicated, all dives add nitrogen...regardless of depth.

I would encourage you to do your boat dives first, and see what your RDP tells you for the remainder of the day, based on your ending pressure group.

Also, you might consider doing some dive simulations using vplanner or Suunto Dive Manager. That may give you more info.

Good luck!

 

[DiveTyme]

The last two years I have done the unlimited shore diving in Bonaire. We did anywhere from three to five dives a day. The combination that allowed us to do this was a dive computer (mine is set very conservative), careful monitoring of the computer, nitrox, and at least the last half of each dive spent a 20' to 25'.

By the way, my computer never was even close to the yellow zone. All in my group were very experienced divers. It was great!