Learned that a bounce dive to 200 feet only gives you about 12 minutes of bottom time

Joel Thompson · 2026-10-02T13:50:03.288365+00:00

I was reading through an old US Navy diving manual that a retired diver in Morgan City let me borrow, and the dive tables in the back stopped me cold. A bounce dive to 200 feet gives you roughly 12 minutes of bottom time before you have to start your ascent, and that number hit me harder than I expected. I always knew deep air work was short, but seeing it laid out in a table made me think about how fast things go wrong that far down. Did the math on a sat dive I did off Port Fourchon and realized the decompression alone ran longer than the actual work window at depth. The whole thing made me a lot more careful about my pre-dive planning on anything past 100 feet. Anyone else here keep an old set of tables around just to remind themselves how unforgiving the numbers get?

🎙️Chatter Central

Loading…

Learned that a bounce dive to 200 feet only gives you about 12 minutes of bottom time | Commercial Divers - Chatter Central