Is "bailout stashing" a thing?

[broncobowsher]

Also depends on the conditions of "open water"

For the past couple weeks I was doing 160ish foot CCR dives on wrecks that had good moorings, good visibility, and nearly no current. If your dive was around the mooring it was pretty common to drop the rich bailout at the mooring and just do the dive with the deep bailout. Pick up the shallow bailout on the way out. The conditions for doing this were correct. Not all open water dives are.

Even with these good conditions, there were times we still brought the shallow bailouts with us. If we had a long swim away from the mooring, it stays with you.

Comes to your dive planning. Can you make it back to the upline with your deep bailout to pick up the shallow bailout, and do your full deco on bailout (both gasses)?

I'll add that dropping my shallow bailout was pretty common for the past couple of weeks, it is not normally how I dive. My normal default plan is to keep all bailout with me.

 

[J-Vo]

I am nitpicking here, but technically CC divers do not rely on "stage" bottles; I see cave staging as an OC concept. If my dives require more than two bailouts, I'll get a DPV and a backup DVP so that I can get out faster without racking up deco.

There are places worth visiting that require stages even with a backup DPV.

 

[mr_v]

There are places worth visiting that require stages even with a backup DPV.

Fully agree. Way above my skill level at this point ;-)

 

[InWay2Deep]

I didn't see it mentioned here but sometimes 'stage' bottles are left in the cave for a year. On really long dives it takes a lot of work just to 'setup' the dive so pulling all the gear in between dives becomes impracticable. Of course the bottles are tested when passing but then just left in the cave for future dives. I saw a few that were pulled out recently after a being left due to flooding and they were pretty darn crusty looking

 

[flymolo]

There are places worth visiting that require stages even with a backup DPV.

I would imagine also many places that require stages where you won't be able to bring a dpv