Air strategy for 4-5 tank dive days?

[JohnnyC]

Nitrox does nothing to prevent any sort of narcosis. O2 is narcotic, and may be even more so than N2 (due to lipid solubility). If you want a clear head, use helium.

The NOAA manual even specifically points out that the narcotic potential should be considered the same.

 

[northernone]

We're talking 20 dives over 5 days, so that's an extra $200+.

I'd stay 15% shallower on all dives and pocket the 200$. The wall is beautiful at all depths. If you feel the need to approach NDL aggressively maybe switch to nitrox? For only 4 dives a day it's less of an issue than trying to do 5 (unless a 15ft night dive as the 5th)

My 2c.
Cameron

 

[Johnoly]

...Thoughts?

Are you going to get nitrox certified when in Cozumel?

 

[horn34]

Are you going to get nitrox certified when in Cozumel?

I'm certified. Most of my Cozumel diving has been with Aldora and long steel tank dives. Never felt the need to add nitrox.

 

[Ryan Mcshane]

Maybe no safety benefit in Cozumel where its not deep enough but it does prevent nitrogen narcosis (for the newer divers in case they get misinformed)

Do you what you want of course, I don’t have the experience you have, but my preference would always be to spend an extra few $ to be safer and more clear headed. Or maybe you like being woozy headed?


Isn’t the MOD for 32 34 m off the top of my head? That doesn’t leave much of a safety margin.

Nitrox does nothing to prevent narcosis mate, thats trimix

 

[CajunDiva]

Maybe no safety benefit in Cozumel where its not deep enough but it does prevent nitrogen narcosis (for the newer divers in case they get misinformed)

Huh? According to Wikipedia:

Nitrogen narcosis
Controlled tests have not shown breathing nitrox to reduce the effects of nitrogen narcosis

If you have different information, I'd love to learn something...

 

[nodakdive]

We're talking 20 dives over 5 days, so that's an extra $200+.

I don't mind spending it if necessary...but that's why I'm soliciting opinions.

I've already given my opinion, but I'd say split the cost difference. No MOD worries. No NDL worries. Last trip we backed off near the end but it was still 42 dives in 13 dive days. I don't push NDLs in the middle or end of dives and I never need to. I don't worry about being a moment anywhere near a 1.6 PPO2. No need to worry about daily O2 exposure. No need to do a different profile than the rest of the group.

This is just a guess, but if you were diving air only with Aldora and didn't run into NDL problems daily or over your stay, your computer probably isn't super conservative. Maybe you could do a 36 on dive 2 and not have an NDL issue on dives 3 and 4 over a multi day/multi dive trip. Now you're down to $50.

 

[drrich2]

During a recent Cozumel trip, 4 dives/day except 2 the last day, I used EAN 32%. Cozumel diving has a reputation for leaning toward the deep side (though that wasn't my experience; yeah, it's not shallow, but I didn't find it averaging unusually deep). That said, drift diving it's been recommended to me to try to be roughly level with the guide so the current velocity is the same (I didn't always do that, live & learn), so helicoptering isn't quite as convenient an option as no current diving. A fellow diver doing 4/day on air kept his average depths shallower, and advocated for shallower sites at times. With Tres Pelicanos, some of the deeper dives were at the Palancar sites, all 4 out of our 26 dives were 1st dive of the day. Some people dive a mix of nitrox & air; if I were hedging my bets, I might make nitrox my 1st tank of the day.

In St. Croix, doing 4 dives/day, I dove air to save money, but kept an eye on my 4th dive NDL; never cut me short, but got close enough to bear watching depth that 4th dive.

In Key Largo, 4 dives/day, dove air because that was all I could get (2013) with 100-cf tanks, most of the dives were shallow reef (& the deep wreck dive times were rather short), it wasn't a problem.

Live-aboards aiming for 5 dives/day, I pay the $100 uncharge for nitrox. Pretty cheap.

Bonaire aiming for 5 dives/day, EAN 32% nitrox was a free upgrade, so why not if not diving over 111 feet?

Richard.

 

[Manatee Diver]

The cost of nitrox is one of the reasons I chose to dive with Pro Dive again for my up coming trip.

 

[AfterDark]

Do you what you want of course, I don’t have the experience you have, but my preference would always be to spend an extra few $ to be safer and more clear headed. Or maybe you like being woozy headed? .

As I posted nitrox does nothing for me, a big nothing. I use up my air before my NDL, it doesn't affect my mental clarity, my diving is always well within limits of the dive.
I've never been bent, I do get narked when diving deep but nitrox doesn't help that. What I do are safety stops. I've been doing SS since before they were called safety stops.
Ninety nine percent of my diving is shore diving so when my air gets close to rock bottom I go shallow 15-10' and finish the last 10 min. of my dive at those depths. When I started doing that in the 1970's it wasn't called a safety stop, it wasn't called anything, it was just blowing bubbles in the shallows.

I do like being woozy headed and like others I pay good money to get that way, but not when I'm diving.