how deep can you dive?

[teknitroxdiver]

As deep as you are equipped for and feel comfortable going to. The general rule is about 60 feet for a while after you get certified, and after you get comfortable with everything you could venture on deeper.

 

[Mick_O]

Rec limit is 130 ft, but experienced tek divers go way below there. As an example, the recently deceased aussie diver David Shaw successfully went to 885 ffw twice. Unfortunately he only ascended from one of those dives.

I think the record for open circuit is just over 1000 fsw. Shaw was using a rebreather.

 

[Hank49]

I'm very surprised at the many responses that say, "as deep as you feel comfortable with". Where as if he had asked, "I just passed open water and did a dive to 200 feet on air and felt very comfortable. Is this a wise thing to do"?, he would have been boiled in cyber oil. ??

 

[DA Aquamaster]

My thoughts exactly Hank. A lot of how a thread develops seems to depend on the first few posts and how the mood gets set.

Personally, I think the "recommendation" of 60 ft for an OW diver is a good one. It's true that not much changes from 60 to 100 ft. but things do accellerate a bit. The NDL's are shorter, the air goes faster and the surface is a lot farther away if something goes wrong both due to greater depth and due to the greater need to make a safety stop.

Once you get at least a couple dozen dives, and more importantly get your basic skills to the point where they are second nature, and not something you have to focus on, you are ready to move below 60 ft.

When the basics of bouyancy control, monitoring depth and tank pressure, dive planning, navigation, etc. become second nature, you are going to be able to focus more on the task at hand and nitorgen narcosis is going to have a reduced potential to debilitate you as you go incrementally deeper.

At depths of 100-130', in my opinion, you need AOW training in addition to solid basic skills.

Below 130' you are into the tech diving realm as the risks get greater and deco diving becomes the rule. You need to be looking at courses like advanced nitrox, deco procedures, and perhaps an entry level trimix course at that point.

 

[H2Andy]

At depths of 100-130', in my opinion, you need AOW training in addition to solid basic skills.

i respectfully do not agree.... but barely

slow, progressive dives across the 100-foot barrier can be accomplished in
5 to 10 dives, which will build up on your skills. you don't need an AOW card for that.

prior to this, i could see 5-10 dives in the 60 to 100 foot range to build up on
the OW skills further.

and still prior, 5-10 dives above 60 to cement the OW basic skills.

so, in about 15-30 dives, i can see someone easily going to 130 feet without
an AOW card.

i did it just so i could see what it was like, sort of test the edges. that way, i felt
much more comfortable doing the more usual 100-110 foot dives.

and i haven't really been back that deep too often. the best diving is much,
much shallower (imho)

 

[Buoyant1]

As someone said, there are no scuba police that sit and wait at 130ft to make you show them your card and send you back up to 60 feet if it only says "OW".

I think the original question may have been asking if it was OK to go 10 feet deeper (than 60) reading his second posting.

As someone who hasn't breached the 40 ft depth yet, I would hesitate to do THAT particular dive as the first of the trip. I'm planning on a trip to the Keys at the end of March. First few are going to be easy depths, then I'm going to see if we can get progressively deeper on each trip after.

If I can get down to Joe's Tug by the end of the trip, which is at 65ft, (and feel comfortable about it) I'll consider it a reached goal! IF I don't...there's always next time. I'm in no hurry!

It's all in your comfort zone...

 

[Everest]

Then you have to look at the insurance side of things. If you have OW insurance and you have an accident after going deeper than you're qualified, are you going to be left with a hefty bill because the ins company says it is nullified?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

i respectfully do not agree.... but barely

slow, progressive dives across the 100-foot barrier can be accomplished in
5 to 10 dives, which will build up on your skills. you don't need an AOW card for that.

prior to this, i could see 5-10 dives in the 60 to 100 foot range to build up on
the OW skills further.

and still prior, 5-10 dives above 60 to cement the OW basic skills.

so, in about 15-30 dives, i can see someone easily going to 130 feet without
an AOW card.

i did it just so i could see what it was like, sort of test the edges. that way, i felt
much more comfortable doing the more usual 100-110 foot dives.

and i haven't really been back that deep too often. the best diving is much,
much shallower (imho)

I think what you are saying is certainly possible for a diver with good innate skills and consequently a not so steep learning curve. Some divers though just are not very good in the water and they are not going to reach a higher standard of performance without more instruction (if ever).

Frequency of diving is also a factor. If the person dives every week, or better yet 2-3 times per week, they are going to increase their skills faster as a smaller percentage of each dive is spent reviewng and refreshing old skills. On the other hand, if someone dives only infrequently, every month or so for example, each successive dive is going to be largely wasted reviewing and restoring skills that are essentially perishable and they are never going to make any significant progression. A good example of this are the divers you see on boats who's only diving consists of 1 or 2 tropical trips per year. Usually, while they may have been diving for 10 years, their skills are still pretty minimal and are often worse than a recently minted OW diver with far fewer total dives.

The agency doing the AOW cert probably also makes a difference in how you view it, as some agencies will let you do AOW right out of OW while others want 25 dives before you can get the AOW cert.

 

[Dive Junky]

Have the divemaster sign off on your dives as you go deeper and you should'nt have a problem on future charters.

A word to the wise though. Just because you have completed your OW training does not mean you have all the knowledge you need. Diving is an ongoing learning experience. As you have the desire to progress with your diving, take more classes and see what else their is to learn.

 

[del_mo]

Isn't there some rule of thumb that suggests for every atmosphere you dive, it is like having one drink (in attempting to explain narcosis)? So 66 fsw is like having two drinks and 99 is like having three? And being a newbie and being told it's okay to dive as deep as you like is like telling someone to have have as many drinks as they feel comfortable with before driving?

While you have included the caveat about diving within your limits and corfort level, it can be easily misinterpreted by anyone not experienced at deep diving.