PADI Scuba Diver v. Open Water Diver

[tracydr]

The no fly for 24 hr came from the dive book. {Padi, SSI, and others. Most dive computers Give you a no fly time.
I think all you that think you cant learn the basic skills and get certified OW in 3 days. You must think we all wont to be seals or something. Or maybe we are all stupid. How long was your course for OW? 25 dives and 40 hrs in class time like in the nave.
I think a lot of you think you walk on water too.

Just double checked with my PADI instructor. There is no restriction to diving immediately after flying. It's flying after diving that is restricted.

 

[tracydr]

I learned that in 1996 when I first got certified. I think the rationale was that the change in altitude from flight to land to depth at sea could have adverse impact to your body. We talked with 3 dive shops on Boracay Island and all three would not even teach my girlfriend and I until 24 hours after we landed. Since I have not had any incidents with DCI from the 24 hour rule, I will continue to advocate a personal belief that you can wait ~24 hours before and after diving to fly. Whatever is under the sea can wait approximately another 24 hours for me to see it safely.

You want to go sooner, go ahead, I am not going to stop you or even try to. But if opinions are being asked for, then I will continue to express waiting ~24 hours AFTER flying to dive, and ~24 hours AFTER diving to fly will not hurt as a precautionary gesture. The original poster had only a few days prior to leaving for Thailand. Doing a referral course would be very difficult and the e-Learning option probably as well in that short amount of time.

The poster also noted they have done a number of "intro" dives before, so doing the Discover Scuba or Resort course is probably not going to be worth it. By ponying up the time and money now, they do not have to keep taking Intro courses every vacation they take.

I hate to get us back on topic of the post, unless others want to bash a diver's belief that actually erring on the side of caution and waiting ~24 hours may actually do more harm than good. Again, my basis for the comment was initial training from 11 years ago. Current research may have changed, but I will maintain caution and still get my dives in. You go get the 2-3 dives in while I wait topside by the pool soaking in the sun....

The rational for no fly after diving for 12-24 hours (I go off my computer recommendations) is logical. You have loaded nitrogen from diving and if you go up in altitude, decrease pressure then you may release nitrogen bubbles into the tissues too fast and cause DCS.
You don't load nitrogen by flying so you have no increased risk of DCS by going diving straight off the plane. (assuming you are not dehydrated or under the influence)
I read every DAN magazine that comes out, keep up with extra reading and am currently in DM training. No where is there a recommendation that I can find that prohibits diving after flying.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

If there were a relationship between diving after flying and DCI, we would expect to see a great deal of decompression illness on the very first day of diving -- indeed, some data suggests that there are more accidents on the first day of a planned multiday dive trip. Of the 88 cases reviewed from the Caribbean for 1994, 33 -- or 37.5 percent -- occurred on the first day. The remainder occurred on days two through seven. Given that there are thousands of tourist divers who fly to Caribbean and Pacific dive sites, these numbers are far too small to establish a cause and effect.

I can't help but notice the use of the word accident, rather than DCI, when talking about the problems with first day of diving. It does not look like all the cases were DCI and it is not clear if the divers were diving on the same day they landed. There are many vacation divers who are really bad with dive skills on their first dive in a while. Fast ascents, hyperventilation, skip breathing, more out of shape than last time, different conditions than certified, there are lots of reasons first dive accidents are not suprising and to say the flying was the reason is pretty silly.

 

[Bubble Junky]

No where is there a recommendation that I can find that prohibits diving after flying.

Recommendations don't 'prohibit', they recommend !!
I don't think scubapatton was talking about 'official rules'. Think what was meant was that after flying you are fatigued and dehydrated (especially with long-haul), and as both of these are predisposing factors for DCS, one should take heed !!

 

[tracydr]

Recommendations don't 'prohibit', they recommend !!
I don't think scubapatton was talking about 'official rules'. Think what was meant was that after flying you are fatigued and dehydrated (especially with long-haul), and as both of these are predisposing factors for DCS, one should take heed !!

He said the recommendation came from his PADI book. I can't find this anywhere. If anyone can do a search of an electronic version and come up with the reference page that would be great!

 

[Bubble Junky]

He said the recommendation came from his PADI book.

When did he say this ?

 

[unlikelyfish]

I did Scuba Diver first then finished the Open Water. I did it that way because I really wanted to dive in the Caribbean in May and didn't have time to get certified before we left. Since I was pretty sure I would want to do the OW certification I went with the Scuba Diver program instead of Discover Scuba. The cost was about the same as doing the whole OW course with the LDS except for the drysuit upgrade.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I think there is some advantage to getting experience in different types of conditions.

 

[Davidstealey3]

i thinkit is a waste of time to do either of the first two. get certified as OW. if discovery scuba is like an i tried scuba, it dosent give you anything but an experience. the time frame you have sucks, but if you can get it done, do the classroom portion here and the open water in thiland.