Bailout planning

[jleech]

I have no training on CCR for cave, but I have OC full cave.  The planning for bailout is often quite different from openwater.  Since most of the time, your return path has to be the same way you came in, bailout can be dropped along the way with relative safety.  You only need to plan bailout to your next bottle.  Your stages/bailout should be clipped to the guideline you need to follow to exit the cave, so even in total blackness you should be able to find them.  As far as O2, it is almost always dropped near the entrance (30 ft or so).  On the CCR, you are most likely planning for worst case team OC bailout but the preferred bailout would be semiclosed.

I have only recently been trained for trimix dives on the CCR, and in training we planned for self bailout, including bottom mix, intermediate deco mix and O2.

The only deep dives I have planned on the CCR post training we each carried bottom mix, with a reliance on the team for intermediate deco mix and O2.  The intermediate mix was 50%, mostly due to convenience.  I did some alternative planning using only 2 mixes, a bottom mix and something like 80% with no O2, to see what volumes would be required.  I was planning for 180 ft for 25 min, with a potential swim at 150-170 for about 10 min to get back to the ascent line given a problem.  Using 80% meant we needed more bottom gas than we each wanted to carry.  This was in a situation with potentially lots of current, so ascending on the mooring line was a key planning point, if at all possible.

I'm sure as I get more experience, I will try several different mix combinations.  Planning tools that can help with bailout gas volumes given different scenarios are great to try to work out what mixes will work well give your dive conditions and limitations.

Jeff