Nitrox for 20 dives in 5 days?

[Mason Gierke]

I am heading to the Keys next month, hopefully, and we will be doing 20 dives over 5 days, mostly reef with 1 or 2 wrecks. As shallow as most of the diving is would you use nitrox? I ask cause we are not nitrox certified so we would need to take the class before our trip.

 

[tursiops]

I am heading to the Keys next month, hopefully, and we will be doing 20 dives over 5 days, mostly reef with 1 or 2 wrecks. As shallow as most of the diving is would you use nitrox? I ask cause we are not nitrox certified so we would need to take the class before our trip.

For the wrecks, which are a little deeper, a little extra bottom time is valuable. For the reefs, not so much.
Go ahead, do the certification; you don't have to use Nitrox on all your dives! And the card is good forever.

 

[gamon]

For any dives shallower than around 50' you're wasting your money using Nitrox.

If you're diving the deeper reefs and wrecks at depths greater than 60' then the longer dive times and/or shorter surface intervals make Nitrox well worth it especially given the time, effort and expense to get there.

If you're going to be diving for years to come then there's little doubt that the Nitrox certification is going to be a good thing to have even if you don't get much out of it on your upcoming trip to the Keys.

Example. There's a difference in spending 19 minutes vs 26 minutes on the Duane. Those 7 minutes might not sound like much but believe me, it's huge.

 

[Streydog]

Check with the dive shop you are using there to see about taking the course through them. You could do the online portion prior then review and analyze there. Then you could use nitrox later in the week needed.

 

[TMHeimer]

Agree with all. How deep are the reefs?

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

Would I use Nitrox? Yes...absolutely.

Safe travels,
Jay

 

[rongoodman]

Certainly. There is absolutely no reason not too.

 

[Vitesse2l]

I'd be interested to see how cns o2 tracks with that schedule, even if it is quite shallow.

 

[Rechno]

As others have stated, I would use this as an early opportunity to get the Nitrox cert for the future dives.

Whether I would use Nitrox for the dives in the Keys would depend on the price. If there is no/ not much difference I would choose to use it for all dives. Especially when you plan on doing 4 dives a day the lower nitrogen loading / residual nitrogen for the repetitive dives might be good.

 

[David Novo]

Certainly. There is absolutely no reason not too.

+1