AOW Deep dive yesterday....

[mobster75]

"felt like I was diving in a light syrup"

That sound like narcosis.

Hmmm. Point taken.

Post-dive, I had time to think about it and realized a large part of my anxiety was I was worried I would hoover my AL80 dry and not make the ascent w/ safety stop at 15ft. Silly really since both the DM and the instructor had ponies and ample reserves. It's just another litle step towards getting more experienced and getting past some fears.

I'll definitely dive deep again, and so it will get a lot easier with practice. But I will want to make sure I'm with a good DM or Instructor for extra comfort (Deep specialty? hmm).

Back when I was doing OW checkout dives 3 years ago, I hated the 4 ft viz and thought 20 ft was dangerously deep and I was really hating diving at that point (My discover dives were in the Caribbean, came home and signed up for a class). Now I just dove that same site yesterday after the boat w/ the OW checkout dives and its funny to see how nervous the people doing their first dives were, seeing it now from the other side. Underwater you could see they were nervous and trying to get used to everything and doing skills and it made me chuckle because the viz was the same pretty much, 4'-5' @ 20ft down and I thought it was pretty good, enough I could focus on the marine life while tagging along w/ the DM keeping an eye out on the newbies, make sure they were ok. I thought the 20ft depth was real shallow and a cakewalk.

So.. its all about exposure and experience and learning.

I'm in this for the long run!

 

[tparrent]

When I took my OW dives I was absolutely certain that I did not want to ever do a deep dive. 30 feet was fine for me. On my second dive after certification I found I was at 85 feet (with a great divemaster and two good buddies right near by) as we swam down a small wall. no big deal.

A couple weeks later a dive master led me on a dive over the wall at Grand Cayman. I looked at my guage and we were at 101 fsw. Again no big deal.

Now in both cases the visibility was PERFECT, the water was warm and there were lots of things to look at. However, I am convinced that the biggest factor in making the depths "no big deal" was that I had not thought about it for weeks and worried and studied and all that. there was no real anticpiation - it was suddenly just THERE.

I find the same thing is true when it comes to doing skills. In OW, I worried about lots of things. On real dives when I have had to take care of some problem it was no big deal: breathe, think, act. Much better than : anticpate, worry, fluster.

BTW, on both deep dives, the DMs were right there and watching VERY closely. In fact, that's the closest I have ever been to a buddy in the water. They did say in the briefings we would go "a little deeper" if everyone looked good. It wasn't like "Hey look! A newbie - let's get him narced!" I flet very safe with these guys on those dives.

 

[SteveFass]

I have to stop reading this thread. I was fine about doing my AOW this upcoming weekend, but all this talk about being nervous is starting to get to me.

 

[JdLag1]

What other dives did you do and how did they all go? I'm going to Lake Travis this weekend for my AOW...

NAV,DPV, Non-Penetration Wreck, Night, Underwater Naturalist (Counted Fish). Lake Travis is a cool place to dive but there were so many people. Ran into several divers, literaly, on the Nav dive and the DPV dive which made it difficult. Almost seemed like the North Texas Tollway during rush hour. Visibility got steadily worse over the course of the weekend. All in all it was still a good class, night dive was great, went down on one of the platforms turned our lights off and our instructor cut a glo stick apart, that was pretty cool watching all the glowing particles floating around in pitch black. Camped at Windy Point for the weekend great place, set up was nice. One more thing, everyone had on at least a 5mil something for the deep dive, 69 degrees at 89 feet. I had a full 3mill with a 3mil shorty over that and it was bearable for the 3 minutes we stayed down there.

 

[cfelliot]

Ironically my wife and I did our deep dives for our AOW this weekend too. We went off of White Bull in Casco Bay!

We’ve been deep before, but in the tropics.

The bad part was the first 30’. Visibility was < 5’. After that it opened up to about 15-20’ and it got colder. Lower 60’s at surface / lower 50’s at 60’.

Like you I was surprised at the air I used. We did vector across a stiff current on the return, but I think nerves are what used up the air.

My apprehension was the night dive on Saturday. That turned out to be easy. We had practiced our navigation over several dives by ourselves before going. There ends up being very little difference between poor daytime visibility and diving at night as long as you know where you are going and learn to use your compass.

The biggest change for us has been learning to dive here in Maine vs the tropics. It’s a much different sport! The trip on Labor Day to Key Largo is going to feel like skinny dipping!!

 

[underachiever]

The Ms. and I are headed down to Key Largo this weekend to complete our AOW. We also have new regs and comp. that we havn't had in the water yet. Plan to do a fun dive Friday just to get wet again (been a couple of months since we were in the big pool) and hope to do our first night dive Friday night. Then to the deeper parts Sat. or Sunday.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Deep Air with increased Gas Density & Work-of-Breathing; then throw in Physical Exertion or a Stress Condition, resulting in overbreathing the regulator --all leading to the Vicious Cycle of CO2 Retention and sudden Narcosis. Can result in severe cognitive impairment at depth or worst case, stupor and ultimately unconsciousness. . .
http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=248750&postcount=56

 

[cummings66]

Reading this thread on the divers doing AOW I noticed one factor. They assumed they hoovered or will do so, but I wonder if you realized that instead of 2 or 3 ATA you're now at 4 ATA and that by itself makes your air supply diminish very quickly.

The dive times you've reported sounded fine, and if you left did your entire 15 minutes or most of it at 100 feet and left with 1500 PSI I'd say you did good enough. Better than a lot of people I've dove with. Congratulations on the aow course.

 

[mobster75]

cummings66:

Trust me, I was hoovering! Heh. Part of the reason I got real worried was because I realized we were at 4 ata and would suck down 4x the volume of air... Normally when I dive my breathing is pretty relaxed and big deep breaths in and slowly exhale for 4-5 seconds. During the Deep dive @ 100', I was doing more of the fast in-out, in-out. Not quite hypoventilating, just a rhythmic suck-in, push-out.

Although now I know that my regulator is good at depth because it delivered as much as I wanted on each breath down there with the same amount of effort as at 35'. I suppose its the balanced first stage at work.

When I got back on the boat someone pulled a sock out of my mouth that had gotten jammed in there while I was hoovering..... (ok, I know... bad joke... )

 

[TheRedHead]

Trust me, I was hoovering! Heh. Part of the reason I got real worried was because I realized we were at 4 ata and would suck down 4x the volume of air... Normally when I dive my breathing is pretty relaxed and big deep breaths in and slowly exhale for 4-5 seconds. During the Deep dive @ 100', I was doing more of the fast in-out, in-out. Not quite hypoventilating, just a rhythmic suck-in, push-out.

The shallow breathing at depth causes CO2 retention and contributed to your dark narc. And it's difficult to slow it down once it starts. For me, bad viz creates anxiety and I have to watch myself lest I get caught up in the cycle. It's important to remember that as you ascend, you're air consumption will drop. You'll be breathing half as much at 50 feet than at 100. All you need to do is keep in mind your rock bottom, which was 1500 psi on your dive, and as soon as you start ascending, your gas consumption will look more reasonable. The next time is going to be a lot easier.