How to Use a Scuba Recreational Dive Planner

Knowing how to use a recreational dive planner is one of the key skills every scuba diver should know. Divers build up nitrogen in their bodies while diving. Recreational dive planners tell you how long you can dive at a certain depth, and how long it will take you to get rid of the extra nitrogen in your body without having to make a decompression stop. Follow the steps here to learn how to use a PADI dive planner.

Things You'll Need

  • Recreational dive planner
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Instructions

    • 1

      Find out your pressure group after your first dive. Take your recreational dive planner and go to table 1. Look along the top row for the maximum depth you dove at; from there, look down the column to find your bottom time. Round up if you need to. Then simply go across the column again to find the letter for your pressure group. If you dove at 50 feet for 39 minutes, you should be in the "L" pressure group.

    • 2

      Calculate your ending designation pressure group after a surface interval. The length of time you are able to stay down on your second dive will depend on your surface interval time. Once you have your pressure group from step 1, continue along the surface interval columns until you get the time that you spent on the surface, in between dives. Then simply go up the column to find the new pressure group. If you were in the "L" pressure group and you spent an hour on the boat in-between dives, your body will have released some of the excess nitrogen, putting you in a new pressure group, which would be "C."

    • 3

      Determine your safe diving limits for your second dive. Now that you have your ending designation pressure group, flip the dive planner over to table 3 and find your new pressure group along the top row. Go down the column to find the depth of the dive that you plan to go on next. You will see two numbers. The number in blue lets you know your maximum safe bottom time. If you're in pressure group "C" and you dive to 40 feet, your maximum bottom time will be 118 minutes.

    • 4

      Calculate new ending designation letter. To calculate your new ending designation letter, you will not only need to take into account nitrogen from your second dive, but also residual nitrogen from your first dive. Referring to the two numbers in table 3, the number in white tells you what your residual nitrogen levels are. For those in pressure group "C" diving to 40 feet, the residual nitrogen is 22. Add that number to the actual time that you dove on your second dive. Using the same example, if you dove to 40 feet for 40 minutes, that would mean: 22 + 40 = 62. To find your ending designation letter, flip the planner over to table 1. Go to the 40-foot column and go down to 62 minutes; you are now in pressure group O.

    • 5

      Calculate maximum bottom times and determine surface interval times for subsequent dives. To do this, simply repeat steps 3-4.