max depth?

[Genesis]

In general, your cert should be good for at least as good of conditions as you were certified in - if the cert was worth anything.

Unfortunately, it often is worth little or nothing.

If you were certified right to 60', in moderately-bad vis (say, 10-20') and reasonably-warm water, then you should be competent to dive in those conditions WITHOUT a DM, but WITH a buddy of equal or better experience and competence.

With a few dives of experience, you should be able to push ONE of those limits somewhat, provided that the others are at least as good (and preferrably better!) than your cert.

This is how you learn; you will only gain comfort by challenging, to a SMALL extent, your current comfort level. The key is SMALL STEPS.

Now if your instruction was inadequate, and you were issued a "puppy mill" C-card, then you've got trouble. But if that happened your ire should be directed at the shop that certified you.... because you were sold something that was not delivered.

 

[jbd]

I agree that the instructor did the right thing by recommending staying above 60 feet until more experience is gained. I do think that its incorrect to say that its boring below 60 feet and theres nothing to see. Its also a very poor and subjective reason for not going deeper than 60 feet.

A much better line of reasoning would be to explain to the students the kind of stuff that is being explained in this thread.

 

[ScubaRon]

I never stated it was boring. Although my personal experience is that there is very little correlation between going deeper and seeing more.
ScubaRon

 

[jbd]

in the NAUI textbook there is mention of the concept that for all practical purposes there is no NDL for dives to 20 feet or shallower.

The book referenced by ew1usnr was written in the '50's. It could be that at that point in time that was accurate information. Today it may not be accurate. None the less, it does provide some historical perspective.

 

[DeepTechScuba]

Since youre in Chicago, you are probably thinking about cold lake water diving. With a wetsuit on, and about 30 lbs of lead, you need to make sure your B/C can lift all that weight, plus another 10 lbs or so to account for your tank filled with compressed air.

It is tricky when you dive deeper than about 50 ft. The buoyancy from your suit goes to zero, since the bubbles in the material are being squeezed almost solid.

It gets even trickier when you dive deeper than 80 ft. Now the nitrogen in your air will start to have a narcotic effect on you. That affects your judgment and dexterity.

Deeper than 100 ft and your time at depth becomes severly limited to 20 mins or less, probably much less, depending on the dive tables you are fond of using. An 80 cu ft tank only lasts about 20 mins at 100 ft, assuming you are breathing slow enough.

The margin for error becomes less and less as you dive deeper. Thats why you should do all your trial-and-error diving in the 25 to 50 ft range. As you get better, you can dive deeper safely. But not at first. Too risky at first.

The dive shops want you to live long and buy a lot of their gear!

 

[jbd]

sorry for being a bit unclear. The comment about being boring is from the 3 reasons given by the instructor. In my experience also there is more to see above 60 feet especially when it comes to aquatic life. Then again some of the most interesting stuff I have seen both in the realm of aquatic life and shipwrecks has been at or deeper than 100 feet.

I just think that the instructor would have done better by staying away from subjective reasons. A stronger message would be to stay with the physics and safety issues based on the physics.

 

[hantzu701]

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. When I did my AOW cert, I went to 70'. There is a dive platform at the Haige Quarry (near Chicago) expressly for this purpose. The "hole" goes down to 100', so it's great for training.

As for PADI recommended depth limits(according to the Open Water Diver Manual), 60 ft is recommended for Novice, 100 ft recommended for those with greater training, and 130ft is the max depth limit for rec diving.

I haven't gone below 80', but I'd like to when my buddy is ready for it. I think our instructors have scared us so much about the dangers of depth that even 85' will be a huge accomplishment for us.

 

[Albion]

two issues come to mind
1) many new divers are not so ggod with bouyancy control, i have seen at least two clearing masks, look up clear mask start ascending by the time mask is clear they are floating on the top. do that form depth and your going to have problems.


2) most new divers are usuallu havey on air consumption and going below 60feet is going to mean shorter dives, so makes sence to stay shallow until you get the swing of it

 

[Diver0001]

Boogie711 once bubbled...
that says if you stay above 33 feet, you won't get bent?

The current thinking in deco theory is that you can make a direct ascent with a pressure gradient of 1.6 without getting clinical symptoms of DCS.

Stated differently you could directly ascend after any amount of time in the watre from 1.6 ATA or 20ft.

Haldane (one of the fathers of modern deco theory) used a pressure gradient of 2 (or 33ft) but that would appear to be too much.

His findings and the findings of others (Workman, Bhulman et al) were scientifically proven by the age old and animal friendly technique of empirical study involving the bending of goats and rats.

hth

R..

 

[Diver0001]

hantzu701 once bubbled...
Sorry, I wasn't very clear. When I did my AOW cert, I went to 70'. There is a dive platform at the Haige Quarry (near Chicago) expressly for this purpose. The "hole" goes down to 100', so it's great for training.

As for PADI recommended depth limits(according to the Open Water Diver Manual), 60 ft is recommended for Novice, 100 ft recommended for those with greater training, and 130ft is the max depth limit for rec diving.

I haven't gone below 80', but I'd like to when my buddy is ready for it. I think our instructors have scared us so much about the dangers of depth that even 85' will be a huge accomplishment for us.

What are you scared about?

R..