Is this bad?

[shellim123]

During my OW dives, we were all comparing air. After the first dive everyone was close on their psi. On the second dive, their air ranged from 500 psi to about 1700 psi. Mine was at 2200. Am I doing something wrong? Or right? How can the range be so spread out?

 

[nolatom]

No, it's good, assuming your pressure gauge is accurate. Some divers take a long time, and many dives, to get relaxed enough to use air more slowly. You may be ahead of the rest. Either that, or they were thrashing around and moving a lot more than you were, or were a lot deeper.

Anyways, "I use air too slowly" is not typically registered as a complaint. It's a good thing.

 

[dbombtek]

Do a search for air consumption and dont judge you SAC rate on 1 dive wait until you have 20 or more dives then average to get a safer estimate. Air will be dictated by depth, how much you exert yourself, how comfortable you are, water temperature (cold water requires more energy to keep you warm so you use more fuel), and physical fitness / fatigue. look at psi and time figure your sac rate to get a true figure of air consumption.

 

[Meng_Tze]

During my OW dives, we were all comparing air. After the first dive everyone was close on their psi. On the second dive, their air ranged from 500 psi to about 1700 psi. Mine was at 2200. Am I doing something wrong? Or right? How can the range be so spread out?

You are not (inadvertedly) skip breathing are you?

 

[shellim123]

I promise, I am breathing! I feel like I am breathing very deep

 

[joe rock]

The replies to this have the potential to be very interesting. The question you are asking is about air consumption. There are many, many factors that determine air consumption; lung capacity, breathing rate, anxiety level, work load, physical conditioning, bouyancy control, proper weigthing just to name a few. If you all had the same capacity tanks, you used less air than those you dove with. It's not good nor bad but just is.

My 2 PSI

JR

 

[sEANx32]

I think that anyone asking this question is not going to know what "skip breathing" is. Nor do they need to try and figure out their SAC rate.

shellim123, my off the cuff answer would be to simply say you are doing well in consuming gas slower than your fellow students. Comfort in the water vs nervousness can greatly vary ending pressures.

I will also add that this could be to a number of factor. Are you starting with the same PSI as everyone else. Fills can vary. There might possibly be a gauge problem, I would address this first. You might have been a little shallower than the others.

Is there a reason you didn't pose this question to your instructor or DM?

To BRIEFLY explain skip breathing as I understand it. You should breathe at a normal rate deeply and fully. Skip breathing usually is breathing shallower and pausing between inhale / exhale / inhale cycles. You use less gas, but you also absorb less oxygen. I have heard that this can lead to blackouts due to hypoxia.

Hope this helps some.

 

[coachrenz]

Do you have gills?

The only issue that you may run into with having more air than a buddy is that you will be disappointed when you have to turn around and finish the dive because you are diving with a hoover.

I once dove with a lady who did two dives on an AL80 and the rest of us had to change tanks for the second dive.

I was until recently, out lasting my buddy in the air consumption. He was diving a HP119 and I was diving my AL80. He was a new diver. It wasn't until he was on dive number 80 or so, that he started to have more air left than me, so, I became the turn around pressure guy. Well, I fixed that. I got myself some HP 119 as well. Now, once again, I get to be the guy with all the air left.

Tim

 

[Tigerman]

Having air left is no problem at all, its just how it is.
Some people use a lot of air, others use less. My instructor probably has gills..
We where eight or 10 people out doing a ~100 ft. wreck dive and most of up came up with 70 bar (1000ish PSI?). He stayed at ~100 ft. twice as long as the rest of us, got himself a nice little deco (20 minutes i think?) and still had air left..

 

[ianr33]

(20 minutes i think?) and still had air left..

Yep,always good to have air left when doing deco