An age-old question: ways to 60m.

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I'm a deep air person. That's the cheapest way but it's often frowned upon by those with more money than me. Air density and narc are the biggest issues. I'm routinely down below 150 fsw on air with an occasional 180-190. I'm working towards 210 just to do it. Nothing I really want to see is much past 170 right now.

Do more dives on air at 150 and spend time at depth. Start going to 160 once you feel comfortable there and start spending time. Bounce to 170 and then hang out at 150-160 again. And so on and so on. It all really comes down to how you react to narcocis and how your buddy reacts.

Doubles, SM, and deco bottles are almost necessary for going that deep. I've done 170 with a single 119 and a pony but it was a bounce and not worth it. Double 100s with an AL40 gives me gas for days essentially.
I do enjoy double HP100s with an AL40. When doing deeper dives using, say 18/45 I felt more comfortable with HP130s for back gas. That said, I’m becoming less comfortable carrying those things with age.
 
I do enjoy double HP100s with an AL40. When doing deeper dives using, say 18/45 I felt more comfortable with HP130s for back gas. That said, I’m becoming less comfortable carrying those things with age.
They really suck with gravity. I took a knee on gravely oyster shell beach in calf deep water to pick up a lift bag once... that experience made me question my life choices up to that point lol
 
Nitrogen "narcosis" doesn't mean you're unconscious, that happens only in extreme cases. It usually means you're mentally slow, sleepy, confused with delayed response, dizzy. Symptoms also include being euphoric, over-confident, making bad decisions; some hallucinate. The Rouses were obviously not unconscious, that doesn't mean they were not severely impaired.
The fact that they overcame all the incidents and reached the surface clearly indicates to me that they were not severely impaired. If they were severely impaired, they would have never left the inside of the sub.

Just because some of you forever tadpoles get narked out in a bathtub does not mean that everyone is the same as you.

Please show some respect for those who came before you and passed away.
 
My cousin, who had many children, siblings, and an elderly mother he supported, died last year while diving on a submarine at a depth of 70 meters using air. Sure, he often dove to 60 and 70 meters on air, but eventually, it caught up with him. Please tell his now orphaned daughters, his sick elderly mother, and his disabled brother that it is OK to dive on air to these crazy depths.

I had several fights with him to the point I didn't speak with him after the last argument about the way he dove. Another good friend had to dive down to the sub to retrieve his body. This friend was diving on air. He did it to recover the body for proper burial.
 
I'm going to refocus the debate, and I think I'm going to make you howl...
In France and Belgium (and maybe elsewhere), divers are trained to dive autonomously (without any DM) or supervised (with the equivalent of a DM) to 60m on air.
And, of course, with mandatory decompression stops

At this depth, nitrox deco tanks is not mandatory, although it's strongly recommended, and requires specific training if the diver wishes to use them.
I'm not judging whether it's good or bad, it's a fact !


Diving to 60 meters has been around for a very long time.
In France, we have a diving law (we love laws ...).
In the 80s, the law allowed diving up to 80m with air.
Since 1998, the limit has been 60m in air.
The law was amended in 2012 to maintain this depth.

Over the years, I don't know if the accident rate has been higher than in other diving schools or country.
No study to date has been able to demonstrate this.
In France, we know that most of the accidents take place in the 30-40m zone, as this is the most commonly zone practised here.
But no one knows the distribution of depth-related accidents in relation to the number of dives per depth.

For my own, I no longer use air to dive to 60m, I dived for over 10 years on trimix open circuit from 50m before using a rebreather for 6 years with trimix certification up to 120m.
But as an instructor, I and my instructor friends, always train divers to be as efficient as possible up to 60m on air. We spend a lot of time working on procedures, equipment and training underwater, explaining that depth is not a goal but a planning or limiting factor.
And we insist that divers use a nitrox deco tank when they dive beyond 40m.
Or even that they go on to trimix training.

Why do I continue to train divers at 60m with air when I don't do it myself any more?
Because this type of diving is approved in France and elsewhere (in Egypt, for example, with a nitrox deco block) and I'd rather these divers be well trained (I'd like to think they are with me) than be trained any old way by others.
 
Hello BoltSnap

My condolences on the death of your cousin.
In order to place this sad story in our topic you have to know with some certainty what part diving with air had.
The other thing is that the friend was able to cope with the psychological and probably physical stress of rescuing a dead friend even with air, for which I have the greatest respect.
 

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