19 replies to this topic

[fixxervi6]

I am interested

[DryHeatDiver]

I am interetsed, too bad I am in Phoenix and not in Dallas.
I talked to my instructor at the shop abut not wanting to do the DM class and we also talked about doing an Advanced EAN and Deep class and poss both at the same time.

Please let me know if and when you go and your thoughts on it.

Genesis , et al.
This last trip, I got to dive with a more experience diver friend. He was teaching me about "surface deco stops" in which we completed our normal saftey stop and then slow assent. When we reached the surface, we hung out on the drift line for a bit before he climbing back up onto the boat. He was explaining to me that it allows for addition nitrogen off loading. He was telling me about exercise speeding up the nitrox in the blood and so he likes to hang out at the surface for a bit if he can.
I though it was an interesting concept and am going to try to incorporate it a bit more.
Besides, I like just being in the water.

[WreckWench]

I have no problem with that on the dubs - depending on the expected profiles I will bring either double 72s or double HP100s, and a sling tank (AL40) of EANx50.

That 50/50 tank is cheap to fill; I pay $16 for a "T" cylinder of O2, which has roughly 300cf in it..... so that 40cf bottle costs me a couple of bucks to reload, and one will easily handle two moderate-deco dives, or an entire weekend of light deco/no-stop diving.

Hey does this mean you are interested in doing some NC diving with us?

[Genesis]

I have no problem with that on the dubs - depending on the expected profiles I will bring either double 72s or double HP100s, and a sling tank (AL40) of EANx50.

That 50/50 tank is cheap to fill; I pay $16 for a "T" cylinder of O2, which has roughly 300cf in it..... so that 40cf bottle costs me a couple of bucks to reload, and one will easily handle two moderate-deco dives, or an entire weekend of light deco/no-stop diving.

Hey does this mean you are interested in doing some NC diving with us?

Sure, why not, so long as they're cool with the way I like to dive.....

Dryheat, this is actually quite important. One of the ways you can get bent is by nucleating bubbles. There are always bubbles in your circulation - the trick is not to get them big enough that they start to grow - then you get trouble. Heavy exercise (like, for example, climbing back on a boat!) can do that and start the cycle that leads to clinical DCS, even if you would otherwise be ok.

The other potential problem is that if you have a PFO (and about 1/3rd to 1/4th of the population does and doesn't know it!) any form of straining (as in climbing back on a boat!) can shunt blood from the venous to the arterial side of the heart. Believe it or not, even a sneeze can do this! Bubbles in the venous side of the circulation are (mostly) harmless, because the lungs are a very good filter, and alevolar tissue has direct access to atmospheric oxygen - so therefore, small amounts of bubbles caught in the alevolar bed diffuse out without harm. HOWEVER, if you shunt those into the arterial side you get big trouble, because that same bubble will block a capillary in the rest of the body, and if it happens in a critical place (e.g. your brain) you're screwed - this is the classic AGE hit. Most "shunt" type hits are neurological in nature - those are the nasty kind you definitely don't want.

There are tests for a PFO, but they're fairly high-risk in and of themselves (in other words, there is a non-zero risk of the TEST killing you!) and as such they're not something that a doctor is usually going to recommend unless you take an "unexplained" DCS hit - then they usually will, to find out if you suffer from this problem (as a means of explaining why you got nailed.) A PFO is also repairable surgically, but that's a fairly high-risk procedure - that's definitely a matter to take up with SEVERAL diving doctors; playing with one's ticker is not to be taken lightly. There are a lot of people who hold very strong opinions in this area of diving medicine - diametrically-opposed opinions at that!

[Scubatooth]

i would be intrested in doing a class like this as there have been times i would like to do some dives that would require a deco obligation. my only question is being a college student with money always being tight, what would this class cost and what gear would i need ahead of time for the class(tanks, ponies, software, computer , etc).

Tooth