Keeping up with Changing Thinking in Scuba

[Patoux01]

Remember, Google results vary largely, so it would have been better to give links.

In my case, the 5th link is from our buddies at Shearwater, and does a decent job in my opinion. Review of Deep Stops in Technical Diving - Shearwater Research

Was there some sort of spike in DCS cases that prompted the elimination of deep stops, or is all this just theoretical?
Were deep stops a fad that just came and went like so many other things in diving?
Was there ever any solid science supporting deep stops? Who were the ones that came up with the notion?
Why were deep stops initiated in the first place, was there some sort of spike in DCS cases that promted the practice?

If I'm not mistaken. I guess it should be in Deco for Divers, but I don't have it available at the moment.
- Not really, but data is kind of scarce
- It came, and they're not quite gone (or the threads wouldn't get that heated)
- Nope, never. I think they came from Pyle stops
- Pyle figured he felt better when the fish he caught didn't blow up when being brought to the surface. At least that's what wikipedia says, so it's true.


Edit: Happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken, it's also not impossible that people came up with the same idea at the same time in different places.

 

[AfterDark]

First off Google has always been off limits at the AfterDark residence so I wouldn't use Google. I do attend seminars related to diving when they happen locally(within 100miles) I use other search engines to find medical research related to diving. I have always read EVERYTHING I find related to diving. Long ago I read the US Navy diving manual from cover to cover.
I find the UnderwaterTimes site to be quite informative on diving and the ocean in general, also monthly issues on the TECH DIVE MAG site are very informative and up to date. Lastly these sources frequently reference other sources. My interest in diving and the ocean has been ongoing and insatiable for the last 50 years. I believe that is how one stays informed.

One more thing, deep stops were just a theory, it was never proven. My reaction when I 1st read about it was to wait, well I waited and now it turns out deep stops may not be all it was thought to be. Being informed is how we make informed judgments.

 

[TrimixToo]

I find people who know as much or more than I do on any number of boats, and each of us seems to have different insights. We talk. I sometimes read what they recommend. From time to time, I change something I do as a result of those discussions. ("Hey, that's a great idea!")

As a DAN member I also get Alert Diver. Since I live close enough to Secaucus NJ, I go to BTS, where the major attraction is the seminars (and this year there were some exceptionally good ones). The Deco Stop was a good source of infoo for a while. And, of course, there's SB, which we are all here fortunate enough to share, and the links people post (I have one of Simon's articles in the queue in another open browser tab).

For some things, it's possible to just get lucky, like the transition from bubble-based models to Buhlman and GFs due to the difference between generations of dive computers, which happened to match my progression to deeper diving. But of course those things also made me curious, so read more.

 

[Blasto]

In short, if I were to research current thinking on deep stops using Google as my guide, I would come away absolutely convinced that the latest and greatest thinking on deep stops is that they are absolutely and unquestionably the way to go with my diving--the absolute opposite of what is actually happening with current thinking.

So--where is a diver to go to find out what is going on in the world of scuba diving?

Outside of diving, in the scientific world, a common compromise - since no one can keep up with the entire volume of research - is to rely on secondary research to identify the most influential original research and read the latter.

Since rec/tec diving isn't a scientific pursuit, and not all divers can read primary research, it should be fine going to secondary research, the kind that directly cites original sources, identified by further sources like Scubaboard. But the goal is still to get as close to the original as you can easily comprehend.

Simple web searches tend to favor information that's been regurgitated dozens of times - inevitably leading to a lag of years and decades from contemporary research.

 

[boulderjohn]

BTW, about a month ago, I participated briefly in a FaceBook exchange in which the people were attacking PADI and other mainstream recreational agencies because so many years after deep stops had shown to be so important they were still not making it a mandatory part of their instruction for recreational diving. My participation was brief because I rained on that parade, pointing out that research did not support that, so I was removed from the discussion.

 

[tomfcrist]

I don’t have the current navy tables handy, but I would assume that even the profiles being run by “deep stop haters” have deep stops in comparison.
Pyle was using navy tables at the time he was published concerning deep stops if I recall.

People that have said enough of the deep stop bs and now running buhlmann 50/xx....are still doing deep stops.

 

[MichaelMc]

As new data, but not better answers, I reproduced boulderjohn's general results, below, with maybe a bit more caution showing up.

Learning stuff on the net is hard, divers could benefit from guidance. As one view of certification agencies in that they are publishing companies of scuba knowledge, in the form of teaching guides for their instructors, the incentives for a central repository of knowledge may not be there.

Michael

As reproducible research, I repeated the search for "Scuba diving deep stops" in an anonymizing browser twice with the same top results. The top results, in order with just quick pro/con labeling, were:

1. Deep Stops: Is it the same as Decompression Stops and what are they good for? - DIVE.In
For.

2. https://watchyourselves.com/scuba-diving-deep-stops-when-diving-at-depths/
Nothing I see on stops. A store page selling computers, with some anti leave-this-site features.

3. Deep stops for recreational diving
Mixed? A 2010-2013 scuba board thread with 23 posts. A quick read sees Navy cautions early in thread, Duke mentioning 50' stops as helpful, and differences between recreation and technical depths.

4. Alert Diver | Deep Stops
Mixed. DAN 2010 article. Do not add arbitrarily. If compelled to, use in a system designed with them.

5. Hollis 150LX Octopus
A dive shop

6. Deep stops & Decompression stops in diving, what are they about?
For. A dive shop article for, despite research concerns.

7. Deep Stops | Scuba Diving | Water Sports
For. Erik Baker article "Clearing Up The Confusion About "Deep Stops".

8. The Deep Stop Argument: Should Deep Stops Be Used In Recreational Diving?
For-ish.

9. One Minute to Safer Diving
For. 2006 article.

I used the Tor browser bundle, using the Duck Duck Go search engine set for the US. The first time I search, Tor entered the internet from France; the second time, Tor entered the internet from the US. I did not kill and restart the browser between searches.

 

[boulderjohn]

Pyle was using navy tables at the time he was published concerning deep stops if I recall.

People that have said enough of the deep stop bs and now running buhlmann 50/xx....are still doing deep stops.

As I said earlier, I was working on an article when I ran into this issue.

Pyle's original article did not specify the program he was using, but he advocated stopping halfway between the starting ascent depth and the first deco stop. He used specific numbers. He talked about ascending from 200 feet with a first stop planned at 50 feet. He stopped instead at 125 feet--which equates to doing the first stop at 75% of the depth from which he started.

If you run a bunch of plans at 50/80 through multi-deco, you will generally find your first stop will be at a little past half the maximum depth. It is still deeper than Bühlmann had in mind, but it is a lot less deep than Pyle was advocating.

 

[dmaziuk]

My guess is most of you would start with Google, and you might put in a search phrase like "Scuba diving deep stops." So that is what I did, and I was appalled by the results.

Could be worse, you could search FB... oh wait.

Google has no idea what results mean, it just has a magical "page ranking algorithm". Unfortunately only a (relatively) very small number of comp sci/"it" professionals get that and know you have to game it by adding other keywords. Like "research" -- and I still get DGX as the top link. (Faceplant's algorithms "tailor" results to your "interests" so you'll never even see the opposing points of view.) Wikipedia, bad as it sometimes is, is written by humans and does at least include references... Adding "scuba diving deep stops wikipedia" returns article on Pyle stop as the top link, which is not half bad even if it doesn't reference NEDU study etc.

 

[Couv]

So--where is a diver to go to find out what is going on in the world of scuba diving?

Well, I thought surely I can go directly to Alert Diver and search "Deep Stops" and come away with current information.......nope.