max depth with standard air

[padiscubapro]

Watching a TV show on Discovery a couple of days ago and they made the statement that the world is running low on helium and may run out as early as 2010. I don't recall what show and it seems a little far fetched, but what if?

I guess we have to hope they figure out who to make fusion a reliable and profitable source of energy. (He is the byproduct of fusing 2 hydrogen atoms)

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Cool... the power compnay can branch out into cheap trimix fills at the local thermonuclear powerplant.

A little off topic but the even with the occasional accident and waste storage issues, nuclear power is still far less polluting than coal powered power plants. And fusion is a hands down winner as it would eliminate the nuclear waste issues.

 

[String]

At no point did I say that anyone shouldn't dive, and I think that you took my statement to say that diving is only for the rich. I am far from rich, a standard blue collar get my hands dirty every day kind of guy, and I do not see my attitude as being snobbish. My attitude is if you are not prepared to spend the money for redundant equipment, the required training, and the associated expensive little add ons (fills) that go with deep or technical diving then don't try to half a$$ your way through it by cutting corners.
I'm not trimix certified yet and I don't dive deep air, not because I can't afford it but because I don't see a need for it. I have plenty of wrecks in the NY area above the 150' limit I feel comfortable at.
At some point I'm sure I will seek out a good trimix instructor and get my cert, but I won't walk around complaining about how much mix fills cost, or trying to do something on air because I'm short on cash this week.
Like I said before If you wanna play it is going to cost money, and if a mix fill is beyond your financial means, then technical diving isn't a viable option for you. Cut some corners and you're likely to end up bent, or worse.
I encourage every one I know to try scuba diving, and have made a few die hard divers by doing so, but I also tell people that the deeper you go the more it will cost.

Its all a matter of personal limits. I cant afford a trimix cert OR the equipment costs so dives i consider too deep for me i wont do. Simple as that. Im not going to do a 60m wreck dive on air. I wouldnt feel safe or happy.
I however WOULD do 40-50m dives on air because i understand the risks, understant my own capabilities and its an acceptable trade off.

If i had limitless money id prepare the perfect mix for every dive and so on. I dont and cant.

The law of diminishing returns also comes into play on some dives - way pay 2x as much for something thats equally effective on air and with hardly any risk (ie 35m or something)

 

[MikeFerrara]

I don't know that any one is suggesting that you need helium to do a 100 ft dive. I guess it depends where you're diving how the costs break out. Just about every one I know who dives trimix, blends their own. If I'm going to dive a wreck at 150+, I'm going to drive 14 hours (round trip) to get there and spend $80 + in gas (round trip), $50 or more on a motel and between $180 and $250 to get my wife and I on the boat. We can dive helium for an additional $50. And then there's food. I guess we could pack a cooler and bring a camp stove but the fact is that we usually socialize with the people we dive with and spend a small fortune on meals. I wouldn't get many more dives per year by diving air. I just wouldn't save that much and I would skip the meals out before I gave up the helium.

When we dive Missouri it's the same only without the charter fees. Some of those dives are at depths where no one would argue that helium is needed and without a booster I have to buy a LOT of helium to get those mixes. In that case gas costs are a REALLY big factor and when I'm short on cash I just do something else.

This brings up some other aspects of technical diving. I don't know about you folks but I have too many regs and tanks to even consider having a shop do my servicing. I could buy a scooter for what it would cost just to get our regs serviced. Before I had a compressor I had to buy a tank of $50 from the guy running the boat and it cost me $25. Logistically it would take at least an extra day and maybe two just to get fills before a tech trip if I didn't mix my own. Helium or no, I think you'd have to have lots of money to do this stuff without a lot of "do it yourself".

Once you're set up to do it at all, helium is not a big additional cost. If you're stuck going to a shop and paying $80 or $100 for a trimix fill it might make more sense to put some more money in the garage and less in the shops pocket.

It's funny how some people think. I have a compressor and all the mixing equipment. I offered free access to my fill station to some freinds who were recently mix trained when I closed the shop. All I asked was that they pay a portion of the costs. I didn't put a dollar value on it and left that open for discussion. So far no one has jumped on it, yet they don't dive mix because they say it's too expensive and too inconvenient to get. Go figure. We spend way more time getting ready to dive than we do diving. That's just technical diving I guess.

 

[WreckWriter]

I took your statement to mean you were one of those well meaning but over cautious people who denouce the use of air at depths from 100 to 150 ft. and who do not always objectively weigh all of the pros and cons of using air at those depths. For many the definition of deep air seems to be anything below 100 ft.

So you have my sincere apologies as your last post clearly indicates you have not yet gone over to the dark side.

Over cautious? How many dives on air to 150' have you done? I've done hundreds and I can tell you for certain that at 150' you are narced off your a$$, functioning at a fraction of your normal capacity.

Personally I no longer dive air. I could see a time when I would, if nothing else were available, but for normal circumstances, why?

If you think deep air (consider 150 as deep) is safe, I'll go out on the limb and guess you've never tried mix.

I guess I'm on that "dark side" that you speak of.

WW

 

[Scuba_Vixen]

To begin, my tech training is TDI, and my instructor was trained by Joe Odom ... (he actually got Joe to come here to train him, ... little working vacation thing, lol)

As you might imagine, I ended up with a liberal definition of "deep air". I have a favorite location on the wall that's a really awesome dive, I did a couple dozen dives there on air, before I could do mix and get to go there. (depth is 200 to 220')

The first time I did a mix dive there, I descended from out over the wall, instead of going down the face of the wall, when I got to where I thought I wanted to be, I went WTF, and started looking to see where I missed my favorite spot at. After a short look in both directions, I realised I *WAS* on my spot, and I Didn't Even Recognise It! It had seemed *SO* Different on air, that with a clear head, I didn't recognise it.

I came away from that dive with an *Entirely New Perspective* of how my brain functions and how insidious impairment can be.

Since that dive .... I haven't been below 120' without mix, and I have found new, never before noticed things, in my dives in the 80' to 120' range when I started doing them on 30/30, instead of Ean32, which I found better for noticing details than air.

It's truly a case of not knowing how whacked you are untill you do the same dive on mix.

It's like showing a person a video tape of himself while he was drunk, stumbling and falling and unable to talk right.

While he was drunk, he'd never think he was.

Anyway, ... that's my personal *wake up* dive recount.

Yours may be different,

Darlene

 

[chrpai]

I don't know that any one is suggesting that you need helium to do a 100 ft dive.

No, but if you do 100.000000001' dive the kool aid drinkers say you do. Standards state END shall not exceed 100'.

 

[Don Burke]

No, but if you do 100.000000001' dive the kool aid drinkers say you do. Standards state END shall not exceed 100'.

I've never seen such a "standard". Could you tell me where to find it?

 

[MikeFerrara]

No, but if you do 100.000000001' dive the kool aid drinkers say you do. Standards state END shall not exceed 100'.

I guess that's in their training standards ...so?

So, I guess if you're a sytudent in one of those classes then those standards will mean something.

The cave agencies have long suggested a max depth of 130 ft which is now normally interpreted to mean a max END of 130 ft. True, thats an overhead but we're talking about dives requireing staged decompression so it's a virtual overhead. There's not much difference between 100 and 130 so what's changed?

The difference is that not too many years ago very few were diving with helium. There weren't any easy to get tables so diving it meant paying some one like Hamilton to cut custom tables for you.

Now we have cheap and even free decompression software, tables are all over the place and helium is easy to get in many areas. Where it's available there seems to be little reasonable justification for not using it.

 

[Don Burke]

No, but if you do 100.000000001' dive the kool aid drinkers say you do. Standards state END shall not exceed 100'.

What you quoted me in a private message only applies to students in a GUE course.

Guess again.