Septics and diving?

[Duiker]

Whilst me and the good lady were on honeymoon in Bonaire we dived, on average, twice a day with a third night dive on occasion.

We noticed however that the Americans thought nothing of diving four to EIGHT times a day for an average of 40 mins or so.

It's difficult to know what sort of profiles these guys have but they must be pushing it if they are doing this every day surely? How the hell do you make 6/8 dives lasting 40 minutes in one day and get time to eat or sleep? No "one hour" S.I's for them I guess?

Anecdotal evidence also suggests that it's the yanks that fill the chamber on a regular basis too.

This seems to support the theory that divers from the US seem more inclined to believe a dive computer than good advice? IS there so much difference in training and standards between us?

[Finless]

Duiker,

I have never had a chance to do that kind or amount of diving. Sureley ANY dive computer would be having fits with that kind of repetative diving and would be throwing out warnings all over the place in the water. Perhaps the last dives of their day were 2 minutes diving an 38 minutes deco?

I must admit, I have no idea what my dive computer would do under such conditions. You would certainly think that anyone with any sense would try to avoid a dive schedule such as you have described.

[Dr Stevil]

I've done four dives a day in Red Sea last November, don't think I'd do more than that though as the "sub-clinical DCI manifesting as fatigue" issue means you need a post-lunch nap every day (IME)

[Brass Monkey]

Sound more like pain than pleasure to me, there's only so much you can do then it becomes work. I wont even start to think about the Phizzyloggy thing.


Dave.

[CotoChris]

However much I love diving I reckon three dives a day is my limit. This naturally depends on depth and time, maybe 4 dives if the 3 were not too hard and there was a night dive thrown in. Then again can do one long dive, surface 3 or 4 times, wait five minutes at surface and register them as diiferent dives. I've seen some sad gits doing this

[MATTBIN]

Every time I read about multi-day multi-dives I see dire warnings from all and sundry with an almost obligitory day off in the middle. Seems like good advice to me.

Matt

[chrisch]

just run the same profile 8 times with a variety of SI from 7 min to an hour lunch break.

DIVE PLAN #8
Surface interval = 0 day 0 hr 8 min.
Elevation = 0m
Conservatism = + 1

Dec to 15m (1) on Nitrox 32.0, 10m/min descent.
Level 15m 38:30 (40) on Nitrox 32.0, 0.80 ppO2, 12m ead
Asc to sfc. (41) on Nitrox 32.0, -9m/min ascent.

OTU's this dive: 26
CNS Total: 41.0%

No deco yet.......

Chris

[ScubaK@]

We did 4 dives a day, over 4 days in Jordan last week. The computers weren't bouncing around the beach with joy, but they didn't lock us out (14 divers, 13 Suuntos)! We had one diver on tables, and so long as he calculated the dives on a conservative avg depth (calculated by his buddy's computor) he was ok!

8 dives a day must be a killer. We were all exhausted on 4!

Kat

[HelenM]

I had a couple of weeks on a liveaboard in the RS over Christmas and New Year (hey, you have to make the most of gardening leave when it's available!). Was doing three to four dives a day (couldn't do nightdives as we were round the Brothers etc) ... it was a standing joke with everyone else on board in between dives -

'Where's Helen?'
'Asleep... again'

The need for sleep might also have something to do with a 6.30 wake up call for the first dive. I'd get up for it - but with notoriously bad grace and to much mockery from everyone else. The one day I thought 'sack this, I hate mornings' I had six people pulling me out of bed (kicking and screaming)... and was then marched up on deck where two of the Welsh blokes shaped up to throw me over the side, until I managed to convey my unhappiness with that arrangement

I did the dive. It seemed like the lesser of two evils

Can't imagine doing eight a day - I'd be out for the count.

H

[John N]

The most I ever did in 1 day was 5 dives. Max 30m, 1 hour, EANx32

On a liveaboard in some areas you can start at 06:30 and finish at 20:30 so you can easily get 1+ hour surface intervals between 5 or 6 dives.

I wouldn't fancy doing that every day though and 8 just sounds stupid.
Perhaps they were on an all inclusive 'as much shore diving as you want and free chamber time if required' and they were getting their moneys worth.

The nitrox definitely makes a difference though. On trips where I couldn't usually use it because of the depth I was definitely more tired at the end of the day.