How Deep?

[Hocky]

Hi

Just a question for you.

I am interested to hear how deep you have gone on air and did you have spare tanks waiting just in case of complications?
Did you have a buddy with you?
Lastly,did you inform the boat or someone other than a diver that you were going deep?
I am doing a study for an underwater research group here in Australia and I'd be interested to compare your experience's
with those that we find here.
Whatever your experience please reply.
Many thanks

 

[Kevin]

I did a deep dive to 35m during my PADI advanced course with an instructor. We did a safety stop as was required but did not have any spare air. In all of the diving which I have done since I have never gone below 30m and do not intend to do so.

Kevin

 

[DeepSeaDan]

Mr. Hocky...

I reckon there are two types of divers going deep on air: Diver #1 falls over the side & just kinda ends up deep, didn't really mean to but gee...HERE I AM!! This type of diver may stay deep for all eternity if luck is in short supply, then again he might just survive it to try & die/dive another day. You can find the same types doing all sorts of risky things; these are the people without proper training, equipment, level of experience etc. etc.. who all too often end up as statistics. These people support one of our other member's philosophy that evolution of human-kind continues & these sort of antics are simply part of the "weeding process".

Diver #2 can be found many rungs up the evolutionary ladder. He/she is a creature of common sense, of rational, logical thought, whose zeal for adventure is tempered with wisdom. They look at underwater adventuring in terms of goals. They build upon their experience with ongoing education so that every milestone they reach for can be achieved with optimum skill & minimal risk.

The deepest I've been on air is 210'. I was diving surface-supplied hard-hat with a recompression chamber on site. I had a stand-by diver waiting at the ready to assist me if needed. I had communications, full redundancy & a diving stage to transport me there & back. I had also been diving in ever increasing depth increments so that I could perform at that depth productively & coherently. For me, that was a safe deep air dive.

A buddy asked me the other day if I wanted to dive a deep wreck ( 170' ) this summer. I told him for me to do that dive would require significant preparation personally as my diving on scuba has been comparatively shallow in recent years. I would need to "build up" to that depth. Aquire more equipment. Develop a thorough dive plan. Yes, things are getting technical...weeks of planning for :20 or so on bottom. Fact is I am THINKING, and thinking divers outlive non-thinking divers.

I hope your Australian study group are type #2 divers.

While not procedure-specific, I hope this "sermon-on-the-soapbox" is of some assistance to you.

D.S.D.



Diver #

 

[Mario S Caner]

Hello Hocky,
Deep diving requires an incredible amount of maturity, experience, preperation, training and gear. It's best done with another diver of equal or greater capability. It also requires 'work-up's' with small increments in depth. In working upto a *** foot air dive, I had to dive for weeks slowly increasing my tolerance and comfort. Once you build tolerance to depth, it doesn't stay with you. It's lost just as quickly as it's gained. So most will say that it's a waste of time.

Remeber to always dive with the rule of thirds: One third of your air for descent and time at depth, one third for ascent and deco, one third for emergencies. You should also know the spot you are doing work-up's. Emergency evaquation procedures for the area. People not diving with you should know what you're upto. You should have the right gear, like adequate exposure protection, cylinders, B.C., guages, lift bags, reels, emergency signaling equipment etc.

I highly recommend you research thoroughy before you hit the water, regardless of how experienced you are right now. Two great books to read are:

1) Bernie Chowdhury's The Last Dive
2) Brett Gilliam's Deep Diving, an Advanced Guide to Phsiology, Procedures and Systems.

When deep diving, I use a hand held sonar so I know how far below me the bottom is. Hit depth at 60-100 fpm, blow a bag, and them ascend at 30 fpm at deeper depths, and 10-20 fpm to deco stops. Remember: Anyone can go deep, the trick is coming back Regardess of how prepared, equipped and experienced you are, there are absolutely no guarentee's of coming back at all.

Take my advice here and DO NOT attempt to deep dive with air. Get trimix certified and dive with it beyond recreational limits!

 

[zman]

Hi Hockey:

My deepest air dive is 150' with a buddy and with computers. Although we did not enter any decompression obligation. Looking back on it know, there is no need to dive "deep air". Like Mario's last comment, there is better gas mixes for deep diving. Obtain the training and use this route, it's much safer. I should never have done the 150' dive, not that my abilities are not there, there is just no need. I now consider myself a DIR diver, check out the GUE website. Global Underwater Explorers. It makes sense.

 

[scubabunny]

The deepest I have ever been is 159', and I was overweighted and "narced" out of my mind! (actually, that part was pretty cool!) Luckily, I was with my boyfriend who has been diving for 15 years, and he watched me until he realized I had no concept of what I was doing. Then he grabbed my tank valve, and started yelling at me thru his reg (which, at 159', struck me as pretty funny!). Now, that I know better, I start to get paranoid when I hit that 3 digit mark. I'm going to take the TDI advanced nitrox and decompression classes, just so I will feel more comfortable and more prepared "going deep".

 

[Rick Murchison]

Too deep.
Just glad to be here.
Rick

 

[MrMrEZG]

at 130ft~ i shot a fish that was below me and then he went down(with me in tow) when i started up i was at 154ft. yes i did have my pony and a buddy.

 

[turnerjd]

53m (174ft)

Planned decompression dive, done with buddy, carefully planned, twin tanks, and two tanks suspended below the boat for our decompression stops. Boat skipper was cool about deco diving, as it is quite common here. We also had more oxygen on the boat than normal as well (enough for 4 people breathing for 3*journey time to nearest recompression chamber, plus a portable set since UK ambulances carry entonox, not always medical O2)

There is not much point in going to this depth, unless you have a specific target (eg a particular wreck) as you are not in much of a state to get much done (even if you have worked up slowly!) Whilst I was just thinking VERY slowly my buddy descibed the wreck as a colidescope of lovely colours (I remember it is dull, cold, dark and just a rusty hulk of metal with some of the plates fallen away so you could look inside a bit) and he had significantly more deep experience than me.

Going this deep is normal in UK diving, but right on the edge, Without my log, I think that for about 12 or 15 minutes down there we had to do about 45 minutes of stops. It wasn't that interesting.

This was before I did a Nitrox course, and now I have done that, I will probably do an extened range course to then do accelerated deco. diving. Then after that I MIGHT go and do a trimix course, but, there is too much good diving in less than 40m (132 ft) that I haven't yet done that that might have to wait!

Deep requires lots of planning etc... Why do it when there is lots else to see shallower? I'll go deeper again when I have runout of nice dives in the <40m range! This way I can still get my nitrogen fix, and not have too far to go if I want to get back upto >50m dives.

Jon T

 

[mattiedread]

136 feet. It was about my 7th dive, with an instructor I was doing 3 dives with that day, and taking an AOW class on a 16 dive liveaboard... where he spent at least 10 of the dives training principles in addition to a lot of on board discussion. From what little I have witnessed and from what I have been told, he is an exceptional instructor... he was definately very into it, a Frenchman who was naming his child Jacques (actually, he has been born by now).

On the liveaboard our first dive of the day was routinely below 120 feet. In this setting, I was comfortable; plus the diving kinda demanded it (Similan Islands, Thailand).

I just got back from a week in Mexico, two days of it in Cozumel (which is known for deep diving) and my deepest was 93 feet (if you only have 6 dives in Coz, there is plenty see below 100 feet).

I'm going to take the Nitrox course, maybe before I go away next, but, I don't think I'll be going too deep too soon without very good reason. It is more of a 'why bother/take unnessary risk at this phase in the game?' than pure safety. Plus, I like bottom time.. it is all new to me right now.

I'd be interested to see how many dives, or years experience people have before going deep on a somewhat regular basis. If you gather good data, please share.