Dive Tables

When you actually start to learn diving, you come to know about a lot of new terms related to diving. In the beginning, you won’t understand those terms, but once you know you yourself start using the terms quite commonly in your routine. Not only new terms but you also get a chance to learn about the new equipments that you may just have seen in a movie or a documentary on diving. Similarly, there is Dive Table, the Decompression Table or Tables that are actually on a printed card or a booklet that allow divers to determine for a particular dive profile and breathing gas, the decompression stops required for that dive in order to avoid decompression sickness. The Dive Profile according to one of the encyclopedia of internet is a square dive, meaning that the diver descends to maximum depth immediately and stays at the same depth until resurfacing.

The first Dive Table for the Recreational Divers is the recreation dive planner RDP. It has three types and the first and original one was introduced in the year 1988. The RDP is great for short-term divers like students who are undergoing training of diving. They later use the Dive Computers for the same purpose.

The most common Decompression Tables include US Navy Tables, Buhlmann Tables, BSAC 88 Table, PADI Dive Table is the Recreational Dive Planner RDP and “the wheel”, DCIEM Plans, and French Navy 90 Tables. The NAUI tables are different from the PADI tables. You find many other Dive Tables on the net.

For a layman, a dive table is actually a chart which determines for how long a diver can stay safely under water at a particular depth. The table looks complicated and the reason is that most of the people are not familiar with the terms of diving. It is important for all the students who get certified to the scuba diving open water course to understand the table before passing out. They get the certification with a card that contains a thousand of numbers on both sides of a small 5x7 inch plastic card.

How to use recreational dive tables? That’s what most of the divers ask in the beginning. There are many sites that have explained the use of these tables in detail. Today, the Dive Computers have replaced the Dive Tables as the Dive Computers are convenient and easy to use. In fact, Dive Computers have additional features.

There is no limit of content and material that is available on net on the Dive Tables. You can get the details of who formulated a particular Dive Table, when and how one can use it while diving. It is better to start with the Dive Tables rather than Dive Computers especially when you are under training. You can ask your instructor and must make all the concepts clear in your mind regarding the Dive Tables, as it is made for you divers.