That deeper deco stop rule caught me off guard last week

I was reading through my old dive tables from the training days a few days ago, just for kicks. And I found a note I made about the 15-foot stop for decompression. I always thought it was just a standard safety thing they teach you. But then I looked up the real reason online from some NOAA records. It turns out that extra time at shallow depths helps your body off-gas nitrogen way faster than I ever realized. I felt kind of dumb for not digging into the science sooner after 8 years in the Gulf. Has anyone else found a piece of dive theory that surprised them way later in their career?

2 comments

2 Comments

angela6871mo ago

Lol that 15 foot stop rule caught me off guard too when I first really thought about it. I was like wait, all that time we just sit there staring at a reef and it's actually doing some serious science work? I felt so dumb for years thinking it was just some old timer superstition they kept around for fun. Makes you wonder what other basic stuff we just blindly follow without questioning, right? The body is basically a soda can fizzing away and we're just sitting there waiting for the bubbles to calm down.

milessmith1mo ago

Yeah @angela687 you just made me realize I've been doing that safety stop for years without actually understanding why.