First Stop

[rjack321]

Here in Puget Sound we rarely have a day when a 10ft stop is impractical due to weather/waves. Sometimes I too hang at 20ft for quite awhile if there's heavy boat traffic and I'm nervous about being just under the surface. SMBs can be more of an attractive nuisance sometimes... "Hey bubba what dhat orange thang?"

 

[amascuba]

Here in Puget Sound we rarely have a day when a 10ft stop is impractical due to weather/waves. Sometimes I too hang at 20ft for quite awhile if there's heavy boat traffic and I'm nervous about being just under the surface. SMBs can be more of an attractive nuisance sometimes... "Hey bubba what dhat orange thang?"

Ug... My one and only dive in the Puget Sound so far (Harper Pier - Southworth, WA) was great other than the fact that we had some fishermen sitting on the pier trying to 'catch em a big one'. They saw bubble in the water and were casting their lines out to us...:no

 

[rjack321]

LOL of all the places you could have gone you went to Harper's? Be sure to ping one of us next time you're around - promise to take you someplace better. We can do 1st stops whenever you like

 

[lamont]

On MDL do you guys still do a 3 min at 15' for the hell of it or just the 4 mins from 40 to 10?

for a single/first dive 1's from 50% works fine on 32% or 30/30 down to at least 80 fsw.

it still isn't a bad idea to spend extra time shallow. 1-1-1-2-3 or 1-1-2-2-2 instead of 1-1-1-1-1 only adds 3 minutes but doubles time time spend coming up from 30...

i believe that doubling the shallow stops (e.g. 1-1-2-2-2) is recommended by GUE for SIs under 90 minutes and recommends padding stops when dealing with multiple dives over multiple days even with SIs over 90 minutes.

if you're padding out decompression for MDL dives like this, though, in an emergency you should stick with the unpadded MDLs.

and if you're practicing for tech1 then you probably want to be getting into the habit of doing stops at 10' increments (or 3m increments) with 30 second slides. so, instead of 3@15 its better to pad the 10 and/or the 20.

 

[rainman_02]

I round shallower. And for dives with a SI less than 90 minutes, I double the 30-20-10 stops. And, I sure don't mind drawing out the tail...if there's something cool at 20-10 feet, I'll chill there for a bit. Nothing to see? Just a normal ascent (doubled shallow as previously referenced).

Depending on the dive, I might practice the 6 minute ascent from 20', or the "at least 20% of the 20-10 deco time" ascent from 20'.

 

[Sloth]

The reason I threw in the 3 mins at 15 added is that I still do charter boat dive and occasionally you do get funny looks when you try and tell a DM the 4 mins from 40 to 10 is ok in replace of a 3 min at 15. That and a 3 min stop at 15ft is so ingrained its habit now.

Plus its so enjoyable hanging at 15ft off the upline watching 10 divers clinging to the line at the same spot

 

[dsteding]

The reason I threw in the 3 mins at 15 added is that I still do charter boat dive and occasionally you do get funny looks when you try and tell a DM the 4 mins from 40 to 10 is ok in replace of a 3 min at 15. That and a 3 min stop at 15ft is so ingrained its habit now.

Plus its so enjoyable hanging at 15ft off the upline watching 10 divers clinging to the line at the same spot

I've run into this on some dive charters-mostly in tropical areas (your neck of the woods). Once the charter operators get used to your skills and your approach to things, they'll probably let you do your own thing.

In Puget Sound, no one tells you how to run your profile, and the charters we do usually have a few DIR types on them.

 

[TSandM]

and the charters we do usually have a few DIR types on them.

Says more about the charters you go out on than it does about charters in general in the Sound, I'm afraid . . .

I can't give you a real DIR answer, because I never asked my instructors the question.

When I'm worried about how deep I've been or how long I've been there, I start the stops deeper. When I'm cheerful, I round shallower. I often double the shallow stops, because I'm old and the water's cold, but I only do that if I've been deep.

One of the things GUE teaches about deco is that it isn't a science. Precision to the one minute/ten foot level may be fun for training, but it's probably not significant for safety, and this will be even more true on MDL dives.

 

[Rick Inman]

Precision to the one minute/ten foot level may be fun for training, but it's probably not significant for safety, and this will be even more true on MDL dives.

It is good training for when/if you do true deco dives with lots on 1 min deep stops to be able to easly do the 30 sec then slide thing.

 

[lamont]

One of the things GUE teaches about deco is that it isn't a science. Precision to the one minute/ten foot level may be fun for training, but it's probably not significant for safety, and this will be even more true on MDL dives.

Yeah, I was actually very mindful when I included "if you are training for tech1..."

For shore dives I'll often just make sure that every 5 feet from 30 takes a minute or two, or else we'll just be coming up so slowly from 30 feet that it doesn't matter (10-15 minutes)...

But, I know that we got in the habit of only being lazy like that, though, after DIRF and then wound up with a huge ***-handing during RecTriox because we couldn't do 1 minute 10 foot stops with 30 second slides (I think the new standards for the DIRF Tech pass may have fixed this problem). Its still probably better on square profiles boat dives coming up a line to stick with set increments for practice. You can always do 5s or 3s from 20 feet, which should satisfy the 3 minutes between 10-20 (which is actually what the 3 min @ 15 stop is).