How Deep is Too Deep for You?

[TheRedHead]

150 is a physcological barrier for me.

Why psychological, Brutus?

 

[Diver0001]

What's your personal limit on depth? We need a lively debate to break in the new puppy.

Deep enough to make DIR divers pee in their pants but not deep enough to make my commute to work seem 'risk free'.

R..

 

[phoenix09]

The deepest I want to go for right now is 90-95'. I've only been down to 85' at the moment, and while I felt comfortable there, I don't want to push it and suddenly start going a lot deeper. Eventually I think I'll put my limit at about 100-110 ft, but I want to ease into that gradually.

 

[TheRedHead]

Deep enough to make DIR divers pee in their pants but not deep enough to make my commute to work seem 'risk free'.

I thought you were a DIR diver?

 

[jepuskar]

My personal limit is 130ft, but I rarely go beneath 100ft. I went to 132ft in the Blue Hole in Belize and after that waste of gas and a dive I haven't been beneath a 100. I think within the next 5 years I will either get a CCR or go into light deco diving....depends on where I am living at that time.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Deep enough to make DIR divers pee in their pants but not deep enough to make my commute to work seem 'risk free'.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

I thought you were a DIR diver?

The Dutch DIR crowd would call me a heretic and a stroke because instead of black and white I see the world in shades a grey.....context and intention as opposed to rules and regulations....

I think part of it is because I've been diving since before we had computers and before Nitrox and Trimix. We routinely made dives to what today would be considered dumb-a.s,s, depths because most of us (a) didn't know any better (b) didn't have 10 grand of equipment or (c) did'nt have access to computers and/or gasses to do it any other way.

Today I'll still make (with the right buddy) dives to 165ft/50m on air because I've done a lot of those dives and I have some idea of what my limits are. In my mind, there are few DIR divers who really know what their limits are because they've been conditioned to avoid them. Some people think I'm crazy because they would pee themselves at that depth. It's like children who reject eating certain foods because they they think it's "gross" without having ever tasted it....

Even young children can understand that it's pointless saying that something is gross without tasting it.....

but ok...

It's uncomfortable saying this on the basic forum because I don't want anyone to see this as permission to do what is "not-done". In this day and age DIR is probably the voice of reason....i don't claim to be that.... I've definitely come to some of the same conclusions but in my case they're based on experience as opposed to being told what foods are 'gross' and which are 'delicious' without ever tasting....

R..

 

[TheRedHead]

Thank you for that insight, Robert. I have to agree that simply forbidding doesn't work on the most basic level. Same problem with the stance of the recreational agencies. So we have a large (I believe) group of experienced divers making deep air dives they don't talk about, basicaly because they don't want to condone it and give new divers the impression that it safe for them to do so. We hear very few true accounts of narcosis and what deep air is like.

 

[Thalassamania]

I second Robert's post.

You'd hear more about it if the intermediate divers on the board would show some respect for the folks who've been there rather than just condem that which they know nothing more about that what their instructors (who likely have no first hand experience) have told them to believe.

 

[Diver Dennis]

I posted once about deep air when I first joined the board. My butt is still smoldering and I don't need a lecture. To argue about it goes nowhere, so I'll just keep on diving the way I always have.

I dive with divers from this board who feel the same way. We don't need the aggravation.