Overheard a surface guy on the radio tell his dive buddy to 'just ignore the deco stop if you feel fine' last week in the Gulf

I sat there for a second wondering if I should pipe up, then remembered the guy has 20 years in the water while I've only got 4, but has anyone ever actually had to talk a senior diver out of skipping stops?

3 comments

3 Comments

nina_taylor4d ago

Jumped into a convo about this exact thing a few months back. Four years is still a solid amount of time to know deco stops exist for a reason. I get that the old timers have been lucky, but luck isn't a plan. My buddy's dad did 30 years in the water and never bothered with stops, said he was fine. Ended up with a permanent ache in his shoulder and some brain fog nobody can explain. I'd rather sit there bored for a few minutes than find out if I'm the one who gets bent.

max_cooper214d ago

Had a dive master in Cozumel once tell me he never bothered with safety stops because "the fish don't do them and they're fine." Watched him surface fast on the next dive and spend the rest of the day with his head in his hands complaining about a killer headache. Could've been anything, but I'll take my three minutes at 15 feet over a headache on vacation any day.

casey8184d ago

So you're really supposed to just trust a guy's gut over a computer that's been tested for decades? I've met plenty of senior divers who got away with stuff for years but that doesn't mean it's safe. The whole point of a deco stop is to let off gas so your body doesn't turn into a soda can when you hit the surface. If someone told me to skip it I'd ask if they were covering my chamber bill or my funeral costs.