What is SSI's "Decompression Diver" course?

[davecampbell]

I could see a course like this being of interest to someone like me. My local diving is Great Lakes diving, and I spend quite a few weekends during our season up in Tobermory. We dive more or less 2 weekends a month. The best sites there are between 100' and 150' deep, and fairly cold. Think the Arabia and the Forest City. Because of this, My wife and I have recently switched to doubles (for safety/redundancy). We always have plenty of gas, and it might be nice to stay at depth a few minutes longer. We always complete a 5 minute (or longer) safety stop, and never treat it as optional. It seems like an easy, and natural progression...

 

[Wibble]

If it’s a planned deco dive why would you be buddy breathing? Why would you stay longer than your turn pressure? It doesn’t matter how hard you’re working if you’re turning on your bottom gas limit or max bottom time.

Planning for contingency is a thing. Deeper, longer and potential failures. Am sure you do that.

The surprising thing was the original suggestion wasn’t planned with reasonable assumptions

 

[scubadada]

Planning for contingency is a thing. Deeper, longer and potential failures. Am sure you do that.

The surprising thing was the original suggestion wasn’t planned with reasonable assumptions

I pointed out that I dive solo with a slung pony for backup. All my light backgas deco is <10 minutes. I gave my plan at 100 ft on 32% with 10 min of deco with plenty of extra gas.

 

[jborg]

You guys aren't remembering the discussed situation clearly. Here's the dive plan in question, again.

Now can I plan a dive with a buddy on Nitrox 32% to 30 metres and factor in 10 minutes of deco time allow for my deco stop and still do that on a single AL 100 tank. Yes.

There's a buddy, and there's an AL 100, and there's no redundant gas mentioned. Nobody's questioning that this dive is possible when everything goes well...

 

[Twiny]

This is correct, but slightly incomplete.
I am a CMAS *** recreational diver.
This includes using a CC pure oxygen rebreather, for which we are certified for a max depth of 10m.
And nothing forbids us to use it for accelerated deco (in fact, when doing this, we were trained to flush the system every 10 min or even more often, for avoiding to accumulate nitrogen in the loop).
And our training in OC, even at the first one star course, was done using twin tanks and two fully independent regs on two valves.
So this, for us, is still a completely recreational configuration, and a deco dive is possible in air down to the MOD.

Hi, taking a level 1 in doubles is not common anymore. What rather still happens as a kind of standard is deco diving to depth of 40m with a single tank without any deco gas.
This SSI decompression course, even if possibly performed with recreational equipment (jacket BCD, single tank, unbalanced regs, ...) clearly differs to that : the maximum depth of the dive is limited by the MOD of the sling tank to garanty a bottom gas redundancy and deco is still performed with a nitrox (this SSI course train the diver to use a deco gas up to 50%, just like the PADI Tec40 course)
Recently again I had a diver teasing me about sidemount complexicity and supporting the idea of deep air diving with a single tank Al80 with the philosophy : "if the s€€! hits the fan my buddy will share air with me ; I never had a hose rupture ..."
It seems to me that many divers forget that a reg can fail

 

[tursiops]

Recently again I had a diver teasing me about sidemount complexicity and supporting the idea of deep air diving with a single tank Al80 with the philosophy : "if the s€€! hits the fan my buddy will share air with me ; I never had a hose rupture ..."
It seems to me that many divers forget that a reg can fail

There's probably not a lot of people who have seen a hose rupture on a deep air dive and lived to brag about it.

 

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

That's what doubles are for.

I have 9 broken ribs on one side, 6 of which are plated with titanium. no flexibility to do valve drills.

 

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

Recently again I had a diver teasing me about sidemount complexicity and supporting the idea of deep air diving with a single tank Al80 with the philosophy : "if the s€€! hits the fan my buddy will share air with me ; I never had a hose rupture ..."
It seems to me that many divers forget that a reg can fail

That would be a show for 2 divers with ali80s, deep, and a failure. The concept of rock bottom gas, would be out the window.

 

[grantmac]

I have 9 broken ribs on one side, 6 of which are plated with titanium. no flexibility to do valve drills.

You are a perfect candidate for sidemount. We have several excellent instructors locally.

 

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

You are a perfect candidate for sidemount. We have several excellent instructors locally.

chuckles ... that I know Grant ... see you when you get back