SPECIAL
DIVE TABLE AND COMPUTER PROCEDURES
Altitude
Diving, Flying After Diving, and cold/Strenuous
Dives
Altitude
Diving. Thinking back to Section One,
you recall that as you ascend in air,
pressure decreases. Dive tables and
most computers give you their no decompression
limits based on a dive ending at sea
level: if you're under less pressure
at altitude, nitrogen comes out of solution
more following a given dive, making
decompression sickness more likely.
You
can use the Recreational Dive Planner
for diving to altitudes as high as 300
metres/1000 feet. Above 300 metres/1000
feet, you need special conversion tables
and procedures to account for the decreased
atmospheric pressure or you can run
an unacceptable risk of DCI.
The
procedures for diving at altitude with
a dive computer vary with the computer.
Some automatically compensate for altitude,
where as with others You'll need to
tell the computer your altitude. There
are a few older models that you can't
use at altitude.
You
also need to think about lowered atmospheric
pressure if you plan to fly after diving.
While this concern is similar to altitude
diving, it's not identical. When you
dive at altitude, you dive and return
to reduced atmospheric pressure. When
you fly after diving, you dive and return
to normal atmospheric pressure, then
expose yourself to further pressure
reduction.
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