Salami Decompression Theory Revisited

PSquared

I got back from Boesmansgat (Bushmans' Hole for you that have Anglicized it) a few weeks ago. As you will, camping in the middle of no-where either out gassing before or after a deep dive (two of us did an unsupported 125m), you tend to talk a fair amount nonsense in between reading, doing nothing, hauling gear, checking profiles and snoozing.

I had taken along the mandatory salami as part of our deco buffer planning and hung same in a tree next to our DAN and medical aid cards. Francois was not familiar with the theory so I enlightened him, as I intend to do to you poor unsuspecting reader now as well.

It started in the bad old days of deep open circuit heliair dives at Boesmans (altitude 1600m) using DrX and some home grown deco software (something may well have been lost in translating Doc Buhlman's German). We were supporting a 250m dive at the time and were, once again sitting about out gassing. Craig and Craig came up with a marvelous idea whilst snacking on a piece of salami that was hanging in a tree for ease of access (same tree as 14 years later). The salami was fairly fatty and they posulated that after eating a fair portion, you would have a nice chunck of fatty stuff in your stomach, creating an extra, extremely fast tissue / compartment in Haldanian theory. You do the dive, this extra tissue absorbs a lot of He and N2. You then bust your 3m stops, get out of your gear, grab a roll of toilet paper and a spade (Boesmans' toilet has a 360 degree view of stunning African bushveld sunsets and sunrises) and go and get rid of the salami letting it fizz and bubble to it's heart's content, now safely out of your system. Damn, what a great theory. We never tested it but a few of us have taught it since then and have yet to get willing crash test dummies. The salami as a snack has since become a standard part of some of our deep diving planning.

Francois was, surprisingly, not willing to take my word on the effectiveness of the theory but conceded that there MIGHT be merit after a few beers after the dive trip.

Should anyone give this a try and it doesn't work ..... don't even contact me. As Rich Pyle said "don't take deco advice from a fish nerd" (in my case builder) - yeah, yeah, I know the quote isn't 100% but you get the idea. Only in his case his theory on Pyle stops turned out to be right.

The salami and view from the bathroom below.

Attached Images

	Salami deco.JPG (153.0 KB, 151 views)
	View from bathroom.JPG (211.4 KB, 152 views)

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P2
The voices say I wasn't really diving solo