Talked with an old saturation diver in Louisiana and he flipped my whole view on decompression

I met this guy at a bar in Houma last weekend, been doing sat dives since the 80s. He told me he never trusted the fancy tables and just used his gut on timing for decades. Said he saw too many guys get bent because they relied on computers that glitched out 300 feet down. He showed me this beat up notebook with hand written schedules he'd been using since before I was born. It hit me that maybe I lean too hard on my dive computer without really understanding the math behind it. I asked him if he ever had a close call and he just laughed and pointed to a scar on his elbow. Made me want to go back and actually study the old decompression theory instead of just trusting the screen. Any of you guys still run manual tables on the regular?

3 comments

3 Comments

carr.luna8h agoTop Commenter

Yeah, I read something similar about old Navy tables never glitching.

the_laura18h ago

...so I had this dive buddy back in the late 90s who swore by the old US Navy tables, kept a laminated card taped inside his mask strap so he could check it underwater. He used to say computers were great until they weren't, and he'd tell this story about a guy who got a DCS hit because his computer froze and reset mid-dive. I still run manual tables for my deep deco stops just to keep the math fresh in my head, and honestly it's kind of calming to do the numbers while you're hanging there. That notebook the guy had sounds priceless, wish I had something like that to pass down.

martinez.paul16h ago

Computers were great until they weren't" - I heard a similar story from an old instructor about a dive computer dying on a wreck.