▚ 3 MINUTES AT 5 METRES ▚
Safety stop
A voluntary pause — commonly three minutes around five metres — at the end of a recreational dive to give dissolved nitrogen extra time to leave slowly. It is the little plateau on every well-shaped dive profile, and the moment an end-of-dive-buoyant aluminum tank tries to float you. Your training agency’s guidance governs; a computer just counts it down.
▚ TRAINING NOTEDive within your training and certification. This is gear research, not dive instruction, and not a substitute for training from a certified instructor. Service intervals and no-fly figures cited on this site are illustrative — follow your manufacturer’s manual and your agency’s / DAN’s guidance.