Quickest path to deco diving?

[Brett Hatch]

Are you implying that propensity for alcohol intoxication is related to susceptibility to narcosis?

No, he's describing his own risk tolerance by making an analogy: some people dive to 150'/45m on air, he doesn't. Some people will drive after 3 or more beers, he won't.

While I consider myself well-qualified on beer drinking, I'm not sufficiently qualified on deep air to say whether @Lorenzoid's analogy holds up or not -- but that's how I read the post.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

I didn't even take the time time to read this entire thread........ but the quickest path to DECO diving is to dive to a depth and time of dive that will require DECO. Get the training and experience to do it safely.

 

[lermontov]

If you can hold your position in a column of water and have basic math skills you can do it. a deco course is a fantastic platform to either jump off into technical diving or stay in the " light deco" zone and. Either way it's one of the better courses to take and will help to get a better understanding of your diving physiology as well as open up a whole lot more diving site options. As other have said it's pretty straightforward a few days diving and a few dollars and your ready to go
On a side note its funny to watch divers go down that track- it's a slippery slope-once they start doing decompression dives and spending time on deco only to find later they make every effort to reduce or avoid deco - probably why some migrate to ccr

 

[Lorenzoid]

Are you implying that propensity for alcohol intoxication is related to susceptibility to narcosis?

Huh? I meant my risk tolerance in general is low. If I think my senses might be impaired, I don’t drive a car. I’m at least if not more concerned about the possibility of being impaired underwater, whether by narcosis or whatever.

 

[Wibble]

The point about being able to do decompression diving is not necessarily just to go deep diving, it's the ability to extend your shallower times.

For example, a dive to 30m/100ft would be 30 mins on 32% to the NDL (check your own tables). On air it would be 20 mins. If you have the ability to use accelerated decompression you could easily dive it for 60 mins with around 30 mins decompression time, or longer if the circumstances permit (75mins and ~45mins deco).

Same for all dives within the NDL depth range down to 40m/132ft. The narcosis does have an effect beyond 30m which you need to work out your own tolerance for. Lots of wrecks and interesting things lurk in the 30m/100ft to 38m/120ft range which is easily doable with some decompression.

Deeper diving to 45m/150ft, normally requires some helium in the mix to limit the narcosis. Helium isn't cheap and isn't always available.


Just for illustration, a 75m/250ft dive will give you circa 30 minutes on the bottom and around 1h30 decompressing. All said and told, that's pretty dull and boring, albeit somewhat zen-like. Of course you make the absolute most of the wrecks you're diving upon and you've plenty of time hanging around thinking about it. These kinds of dives need a rebreather as they're simply not tenable given the amount of money for the gas for open circuit.

 

[johndiver999]

Huh? I meant my risk tolerance in general is low. If I think my senses might be impaired, I don’t drive a car. I’m at least if not more concerned about the possibility of being impaired underwater, whether by narcosis or whatever.

I was just curious.

I often wonder if a person is a frequent user of mind altering drugs (including alcohol) then they may have developed some psychological coping skills to really concentrate on the task at hand and may also be able to compensate more effectively to handle nitrogen narcosis - all things being equal.

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

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[crofrog]

Just for illustration, a 75m/250ft dive will give you circa 30 minutes on the bottom and around 1h30 decompressing.

Whoa, that looks pretty close to ratio deco.

 

[Wibble]

Whoa, that looks pretty close to ratio deco.

Funny that. I call it a rule of thumb.

 

[Celt]

I asked the local PADI shop, and was told "deep diver" was the intro to DECO.

I went home and was researching the course, and found this was incorrect.....

I am never going to do cave diving, but would like to do some of the very deep wreck dives beyond 130 but less than 180.

Download Ideco pro, plan a 35m dive for 20min, giving 3min deco at 3m on air. i would bring 2500ltr of air. Or a 15ltr tank at 200bar. Welcome to deco diving. If you're diving you already know how nitrogen affects you. And you're already doing 3 min safety stops. Take it from there in handy steps.
P.S. If you're planning on using helium or a rebreather, get in the shower and start tearing up money to get used too it.