Diving the Deep Depths

[PerroneFord]

PF, I've got too much respect for you than to argue with you but if you hold your breath and ascend from 15' you will have the same lung expansion injury that you will get from 80 ft. A minor change in depth will cause your lungs to expand more with a decrease in depth while shallow than the same depth change will while deep.

Of course the same injury will occur, and that is exactly my point. 10ft can kill just as easily as 60' or 80' or 200'. So saying 80' is "not that deep', might imply that there isn't that much danger involved. When in fact there can be many. Popping to the surface after an hour at 40ft is somewhat different than doing the same thing at 60ft, and certainly 80.

An OOA at 60' is not very different than a OOA at 80' in the situation you describe. The best thing to do is to avoid them.

The physical difference are few. The psychological difference can be great. At 80ft of clear open water, I feel very comfortable. When I hit 80ft 1200ft back in a cave, I felt like I was VERY deep indeed. Perception is often more important than reality.

When you are diving tropical waters like Roatan, the Bahamas, Keys, Caymans, Cozumel, Belize, etc. there is not a whole lot of difference between 60 and 80 feet. He just has to keep a closer watch on his air and plan and extra 2 minutes for ascent. There is no bogey man at 60 feet. It seems that we spend more time scaring new divers about not diving below 60 feet than we spend teaching them to dive. That's why I suggested he see if they can start the first day at shallower depths and discuss his anxiety with the DM and his buddy. I'll bet by the third days diving that 60' anxiety barrier will dissolve like a puff of smoke.

I am lucky enough to dive very clear waters most of the time. 80ft is still quite deep for a newbie diver who might not have good control of buoyancy. I remember what I felt like with 10 dives, and quite frankly 60ft was deeper than I wanted to be. Maybe I'm just a chicken.

I totally agree with your last paragraph he should dive at a comfortable depth for all of his dives. Most of us gradually expanded our comfort levels and skills. I'll bet by the third day he is very comfortable diving where he's going. Wish I could go too.

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I'll agree here. If he works up to it, 80ft may not seem like that big a deal. In any event, he should have a BLAST on this trip!

 

[EvaL]

Hi Amadeus023,
If you dive in Chicago (cold FW, low vis), psychologically Roatan diving will be easy [good vis (>70 ft?), warm water, no thick, constricting wetsuits and hood to don etc]. Heck, you can probably see the bottom from your diveboat.
As for deep diving, I would find out more about it before I decide. Read the AOW manual on deep diving, talk to your more experienced buddies/instructor or look up deeper diving online (I'm not referring to tech or deco dives, just diving deeper than 60ft). There are some things you should be aware of in diving deeper - I can't recall everything from my AOW, but they include - you'll use up air faster (so you'll need to watch your gauge more), having good/properly-maintained equipment (so it doesn't fail you), awareness that you'll have a longer distance to the surface in an emergency (so stay close to your buddy), you'll need more air in your BCD to achieve neutral buoyancy as you descend and vent more as you ascend, perhaps having a dive light as it will be darker, know how nitrogen narcosis makes you feel and how to deal with it (getting narced usually happens below 90ft, but you never know). If you think you're up for it, I'd second what some folks here said and advise you to let the DM know that you haven't gone deep as ask him/her to stay close/keep an eye on you during the dive (and you be sure to shadow him/her during the dive), or you can opt to do an AOW there and get your credentials for deeper diving. I personally prefer to do my training dives at home, in more challenging conditions (I live in the Northeast - cold, low vis) but this is up to you.
Enjoy your trip, dive safely and do let us know how you fared after you get back!

 

[Deleted member 546628]

Alright, I can't resist. Back in the day when I got ow with the Air Force guys by the Seals, the 60' idea was that you could just about throw your tables over your shoulder. The idea was simple: Use air (21%) at 60, stay out of trouble, your out of air before you need to worry about deco.

And, no, I don't think I'm that old... just don't move as fast as I used to.

Just dive at your comfortable limit. Go below 60' if you're comfortable, but GOTTA CHECK THE TABLES!

 

[plot]

I got my OW certification through SSI, and according to them I'm good to go for up to 100 feet. When I get my AOW through SSI, I'll be good for 130'.

Different certifying agencies, but I'd imagine the training is very similar... so you should be good at 80'. You'll probably be to excited to even worry about the depth anyways.

At any time if you feel uncomfortable, call the dive. That's all there is to it, and make sure your buddy is prepared for that.

 

[plot]

Just dive at your comfortable limit. Go below 60' if you're comfortable, but GOTTA CHECK THE TABLES!

Or break down and get a computer. Makes for a much safer and more pleasureable dive experience IMHO. I gave up on the tables before I got out of pool training and went ahead and got a computer. Little sucker tells me everything I need to know, where I'm safe at, where to take safety stops and for how long, etc. Plus if I'm verying the depths of my dives, it recalculates and gives me more bottom time.

I'm not trying to push computers or anything... but there's about a 1000 advantages to getting one and throwing your tables away... safety being a major one. My computers math is alot better than mine.

 

[TSandM]

Amadeus, nothing horrible will likely happen to you if you go below the 60 foot limit. A lot of people do, and I did 130 feet on my 10th dive.

But would I do it again, knowing what I now know? Absolutely not.

It's not depth per se. It's the fact that, the deeper you go, the further away the surface becomes as a solution to a problem. And depth brings its own complications . . . do a search on this board for the concept of "rock bottom". Do you know how much gas you need to have to get you and your buddy back to the surface in a safe and controlled fashion from 90 feet? It's a lot. If somebody kicked your mask off at 90 feet and you couldn't catch it, could you and your buddy orchestrate a controlled exit from the dive? (BTW, when I put this question to one of the divers diving 600 foot walls with me last week, she wasn't at all sure she could do that.)

An uneventful dive to 100 feet in warm, clear water is a no-brainer. But we are never guaranteed that any dive will be uneventful, and it's an awfully good idea to have some good problem-solving skills in case Murphy comes to visit.

 

[lamont]

80 feet isn't really that deep.

I gotta agree with Perrone Ford.

I've hit the point now where 120 feet doesn't feel too deep, its just a normal dive (I still respect it like its 120 feet, but I know how to get home safely from there...).

But at the beginning, diving with an Al80 and an elevated SAC rate to 80 feet is definitely deep. The problem is that you don't have alot of time down there before your gas runs out and you really don't know what you're dong... You're likely to make bad choices that make a situation get worse... There's also the risk of panic and other really bad accident snowballs that could occur with a new diver at 80 feet.

Its much better to plan on going to 80 feet when you feel ready for it, and to make your stays at deeper depths relatively short to begin with.

Having said that, though, a lot of people push their training limits and everything works out fine. I went to 90+ fsw with no deep/advanced training on an Al80 with very little experience and lived to tell about it -- but i did have more advanced divers telling me to turn at 1800 psi and we only stayed at depth for a few minutes and I built up my comfort in the >60 fsw depths gradually...

If you do find yourself at 80 fsw without adequate training, its not a time to panic, but to simply cut the dive a little short...

 

[JeffG]

Amadeus, nothing horrible will likely happen to you if you go below the 60 foot limit. A lot of people do, and I did 130 feet on my 10th dive.

Wouldn't a person implode?

 

[PerroneFord]

Or break down and get a computer. Makes for a much safer and more pleasureable dive experience IMHO. I gave up on the tables before I got out of pool training and went ahead and got a computer. Little sucker tells me everything I need to know, where I'm safe at, where to take safety stops and for how long, etc. Plus if I'm verying the depths of my dives, it recalculates and gives me more bottom time.

I'm not trying to push computers or anything... but there's about a 1000 advantages to getting one and throwing your tables away... safety being a major one. My computers math is alot better than mine.

This may be some of the worst advice I've read on Scubaboard in a very long time.

Truely frightenting.

 

[halocline]

This may be some of the worst advice I've read on Scubaboard in a very long time.

Truely frightenting.

No offense dude, but that's pretty harsh. I honestly don't know how you can bear to get in the water with all those helpless computer divers thrashing around cluelessly on their way to certain death because they're not using tables.

Since 99% of recreational divers use computers and we're not all keeling over after every dive, maybe it's not THAT terrifying to think of divers relying on them.