Why get Nitrox certified?

[Splitlip]

If diving air locally, you'll be cutting your dives short. Voo-doo gas is not, well, voo-doo. Most divers by far on our boats are nitrox divers.

A friend just did his OW about 6 mos ago. Did his nitrox cert at the same time. As for cost...air fill about 5 bucks. Nitrox about 10.

 

[beaverdivers]

If you can safely do the same dive on a tank of air, then the added cost of EAN makes no sense,

Unless you get bent! Then it really messes up everyone's day. Is it it really worth it to save a very small % of the cost of your trip?

But it does make $$$ for the provider;.

I actually prefer to support the nitrox provider so they can be there when I need them!

 

[Splitlip]

Oh, and for oxtox/mod....if you can't read depth on your gauge/bt, you can depend on your computer to warn you provided you program your mix.

 

[beaverdivers]

Matt,

One question: How do you know that you will be diving 21%?

 

[Absolutbill]

My wife and I just did our ow certification and only have our 4 certification dives. We will be going on a week trip to Bonaire in July. So we enrolled in our LDSs next available nitrox Clara which just happened to be the day after we were certified. It definitely seems worth it to me especially in a place like Bonaire.


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[TMHeimer]

If diving air locally, you'll be cutting your dives short. Voo-doo gas is not, well, voo-doo. Most divers by far on our boats are nitrox divers.

A friend just did his OW about 6 mos ago. Did his nitrox cert at the same time. As for cost...air fill about 5 bucks. Nitrox about 10.

Not that it's a big point, but air at our shop in NS is $8 and Nitrox $14. Here in Miss. the shop I've used is air $6.50 but Nitrox $15. So 2 nitrox tanks is $30 plus tax. I would think $10 nitrox is very cheap these days.

 

[drrich2]

It definitely seems worth it to me especially in a place like Bonaire.

It is. In Bonaire, a number of the dive op.s offer nitrox as a 'free upgrade' - basically no added charge to use it. Over the course of a week in Bonaire, you will likely make somewhere between 12 - 25 dives, depending on how much you like to dive & how driven you are (and whether your buddy is sea sickness prone, etc...).

I haven't really stopped to figure out how much benefit I get, if I do 4 50 minute dives in a day, max. depth averaging maybe 60 feet, average depths for the dives maybe 25 feet (since I tool around in the shallows to extend dive times, my average looks shallow). But then again, for really deep dives, like, say, a lap around the wreck of the Hilma Hooker, the advantage can be significant quickly, as it's easy to hit 85 or 90 feet or so swinging around the ship (you can hit 100 if you want to).

Richard.

 

[Teller]

Nitrox is a great tool to have. More bottom time, less surface interval and youll more than likely feel a bit more energized after a dive. Keep it above 1.4 PPO2 and youll be fine.

Probably meant to say keep it below 1.4 PPO2...

Oops, yes I meant to say keep it below 1.4 PPO2. Thanks for catching that.

 

[Splitlip]

Not that it's a big point, but air at our shop in NS is $8 and Nitrox $14. Here in Miss. the shop I've used is air $6.50 but Nitrox $15. So 2 nitrox tanks is $30 plus tax. I would think $10 nitrox is very cheap these days.

Probably a matter of supply and demand. I just filled one of my nitrox tanks and one of my daughter's air tanks. It was 13 USD and change after tax.
As I alluded to earlier,here in the Palm Beaches, you cut yourself short without nitrox. The ops don't plan the dives as per the lowest common denominator.

 

[fjpatrum]

I think your experience level must be greater than 0-24 then. You might want to update your profile. Because with these 2 trips alone, you've gotten in 33 at least! Oh I see, you haven't gone to Cayman Brac yet. But you're already Nitrox certified?

This reminds me, I need to start a new thread about Nitrox...

Here's a diver with 0-24 dives who's already Nitrox certified. I just wonder, I know that the reason to use Nitrox is to be able to spend longer under water. But is the advantage that great that one should consider it early in one's diving career? I think of Nitrox as kind of an advanced thing, but maybe it isn't.

Let's say you're out on a boat with 10 other divers and a DM, and the dive is to 70 fsw, and everybody is following the DM to the dive site, and surfacing together afterward. Does it spoil the dive if all but one of the divers is using nitrox, and the whole group has to surface 20 minutes early because the one guy isn't Nitrox certified?

Besides, Nitrox makes me nervous. I mean, I don't want to have a seizure. They say that isn't a concern if you don't go below the MOD, but still... It just makes me prefer to stay with EAN21.

There are several reasons to get a nitrox cert. I did it because my upcoming trip to FL will entail multiple dives per day for 7 days. I have read a lot about nitrox reducing fatigue, so I just did my cert hoping that aspect will actually be noticeable to me. I don't really care about longer NDLs and I don't dive deep enough for it to be a concern there, so for me it's all about the fatigue. I currently have less than 20 dives but I'm hoping to get that many dives in during my trip.

Nitrox isn't "advanced", per se, it's just another tool to help you do the diving you want to do.