Dive Planning Articles

Published by rdevanney on 11/10/201811/10/2018

Divers learning important dive planning & procedures on land. Here, no visibility gas sharing exit. A vital skill in cave and advanced wreck diving

Dive planning articles

Dive planning and procedures are an integral part of any technical diving course. The things you factor in when planning a dive can make all the difference in how the dive pans out. Similarly, being able to efficiently and effectively undertake physical tasks as a team is vital to a successful (safe) dive. These are all taught during technical diving courses, but things get forgotten and humans are wired to make shortcuts. It’s good to refresh and learn more about these important processes.

Considerations for Dive Planning

Understanding all the factors that affect the safety of a dive is essential to good dive planning. It’s not as simple as deciding on a dive profile and punching the numbers into dive-planning software. Understanding CNS limits is vital, yet often brushed over. We now know that, especially for rebreather dives it’s important to have a buffer for the setpoint below the limit of 1.4. So for longer dives 1.3 or even 1.2 may be more appropriate.

Yes, that will give you more deco, but it’s about balancing that with increased exposure to high PO2 at depth. Ocular toxicity is an additional consideration that no one was talking about 15 years ago. These are discussed in the presentations at Rebreather Forum 4, which you can view here.

Gas density has become more prominent over the last 10 years. Professor Simon Mitchell has outlined how it can influence CO2 retention and Immersion Pulmonary Edema. Similarly, gas management is something that divers can get lazy about, especially when it comes to CCR bailout.

Considerations for Diving Procedures

Emergency procedures are something that divers train for during a course, but then sadly rarely practice again. It’s one thing to have an out-of-air diver, but what about an unconscious diver on the bottom phase of a deco dive? Some of the articles below cover these scenarios. There is a lot of good information in these articles.

Life-ending seconds by Advanced Diver Magazine was particularly eye-opening when it was first published. The article is available below. Also, the diver rescue film by TDI and IANTD is very insightful. Both videos are included in the Twinset skills and tutorials section on the website, which you can view here, but i’ve also included them below.

If you know of any useful articles that are not listed I’d be grateful if you could let me know.