After a very fun Bubble Maker class with 5 wonderful kids I discovered that one of the Dads was a Navy doctor running the base recompression chamber! After only a little pleading Dr. Rob agreed to take me on base for a visit.

We met Dr. Rob outside the base near the Navy's museum around noon. Hideko has not received her new Green Card yet and they would not let her in on the expired one (getting her finger prints done was a major reason to come to Guam). Miki, Hideko's cousin, has a US passport so they let the two of us in. We sadly left Hideko at the museum.

The chamber on the base is a RCF6500, one of seven in the Navy, and the most busy of them. The Master Diver was in his office when we arrived and he added a lot to the tour. For a mere recreational dive instructor, it was a great experience, being able to spend an hour with a diver who has 28 years of experience and a MD focusing on dive medicine.

I was particularly interested to find that the Navy is now using pure O2 for decompression at 30 feet. They have a surface supply setup that they use. This means that the divers are dealing with O2 partial pressures of almost 2.0! They have had zero problems. the new Navy tables have some interesting updates as well. The dive industry is still learning, I certainly learned a lot today.

The chamber is pretty big and has room for a patient or two and several attendants. There's a small pass through in the front of the chamber for passing food and what not in and out and there's an auxiliary chamber on the left to bring attendants up and down without surfacing the main chamber.