davidbaraff
Contributor
I just picked up a Spare Air and want to practice with it in a pool to get familiar with it. The dive-shop owner cautioned me and said, "Breathe from it going down. It's not safe to dive down 10 to 12 feet (feet, not meters) and then start breathing it."
Said a different way, the owner was saying if you free dive down, you can't then start breathing compressed air.
Q1. Is that really true? Obviously, once I breathe from it, all normal scuba rules about safe ascents apply.
Q2. If it really is true, why when I am scuba diving is it safe to breate *out* all the compressed air, at depth, so that my lungs are empty, and then take a breath of compressed air? Because once my lungs are empty, how is that different then a free diver who dived down, and then breathed out? (Assume I only just got in the water, so I've had no significant time to run up on a nitrogen load.)
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Possibilities: It's known that offering compressed air to a free diver is dangerous because they might not know the rules for safe scuba ascents. Could this be why the owner said "free diving and then breathing compressed air is dangerous."
Thanks. (And whatever your views on Spare Air are, that's not the topic du jour. )
Said a different way, the owner was saying if you free dive down, you can't then start breathing compressed air.
Q1. Is that really true? Obviously, once I breathe from it, all normal scuba rules about safe ascents apply.
Q2. If it really is true, why when I am scuba diving is it safe to breate *out* all the compressed air, at depth, so that my lungs are empty, and then take a breath of compressed air? Because once my lungs are empty, how is that different then a free diver who dived down, and then breathed out? (Assume I only just got in the water, so I've had no significant time to run up on a nitrogen load.)
---------------------------
Possibilities: It's known that offering compressed air to a free diver is dangerous because they might not know the rules for safe scuba ascents. Could this be why the owner said "free diving and then breathing compressed air is dangerous."
Thanks. (And whatever your views on Spare Air are, that's not the topic du jour. )