new to diving and want to know if i should get nitrox cert

[azchipka]

For me I would say do it as a part of your Advanced Open Water course. Many locations will allow you to do it as an add-on to AOW with a lower course cost as a result. For example here at Silent World you can add 1/2 day of class time to your AOW to do your Nitrox and get it for $79.99 plus course materials.

Any time you are doing double dips on deeper sites Nitrox becomes almost needed to not hit your NDL when your doing the second of the two dives.

 

[azchipka]

I would finish AOW first then get some more diving in.

The deep diving portions of AOW could possibly put you in danger of pushing your depth limits on EAN.

The maximum depth limit for any recreational training dive is 100' in the PADI system with the exception of Deep Speciality course. Max depth for the AOW deep dive is 100' which is well with in the limits of EAN30.

What you may find is some shops are unable to do anything other then 32% mixes as they are using banked nitrox instead of individual blending.

If you AOW Instructor is telling you that you can't use nitrox on the deep training dive of the AOW course find a new instructor.

 

[pnw_diver]

I have not found a reason to use it (EAN) in many years... at least not a good enough reason to spend the extra money on it.

Multiple days of repetitive deep dives.

Recently, I spent a long weekend diving out of town - with travel, lodging and charter costs, it made sense to maximize bottom times. Those of us that weren't deco diving were all diving 28% EAN, up to 3 dives a day with maximum depths between 80 and 125 feet. Diving EAN allowed significantly longer bottom times - granted, at the deeper depths, we're only talking 10 or so minutes more bottom time, but in the scheme of things, ten bucks extra for a tank of EAN was nothing in terms of per-dive costs.

 

[DaMaDo]

I'm 4 dives past my OW cert and plan on taking the nitrox class this weekend then do my first nitrox dives during AOW. That way I can have an instructor with me for several dives while getting comfy with nitrox.

That's my personal strategy

 

[richdrogpa]

I say get it And if not now, then at least before you start doing 3 or more dives per day, i.e. like in Bonaire shore diving 4-5 a day or on liveaboards.

Just recently, I got my OW and AOW (the SSI's version: "Advanced Adventurer") and then added the SSI Nitrox & Deep Diving (130ft) specialties. Yeah, in the beginning it doesn't make much sense. It's probably better to work on air consumption and practice buoyancy. But I just did it as I had some time and will definitely use it in future when available.

BTW, as my Nitrox specialty included 2 dives (on EAN32), I really felt the difference in not feeling as tired as when diving on air.

 

[Meggie66]

Hi, doing it at pro dive in manly, you?

 

[Meggie66]

where are you doing your DM?

Hi, doing it at pro dive in manly, you?

 

[tin_the_fatty]

I have just gotten my SDI nitrox cert this summer. Learning the tables was compulsory. Using a PDC was demoed.

Correction: having checked my C-card, it was actually TDI "Nitrox Diver".

 

[Herk_Man]

Relatively new diver here so my comments are limited to my experience with Nitrox. During OW training and during a two tank/day/for three days dive trip earlier this year, I was using Air and felt pretty tired after the second dive. By comparison, I just came back from a week in Bonaire, using Nitrox 32-33, where I was diving three and sometimes four times a day for six consecutive days without being tired. Although the Nitrox was more expensive to use, did not necessarily increase my bottom because of my skills level, I found the $100/week unlimited Nitrox premium that I paid was worth every dime for how much better I felt at the end of 3-4 dives, at the end of the day and the beginning of the next day. Since I am a geezer, I may have benefited more than you would have, but I am not diving Air again unless Nitrox is not available, or unless I am only doing one dive.

This will inevitably start a fight on this board but I am a firm believer in the ability of voodoo gas decreasing the fatigue felt after an air dive. I can't say that I've done a double blind study but I have dove before where I forgot that I was on air instead of nitrox and later found myself wondering why I couldn't stay awake past 7pm. Then I remembered. Oh ya...

 

[MRobertson]

I just got my Nitrox certification this week and I'm glad I did. If anything, it just re-enforces the stuff learned in open water certification and perhaps more importantly, prepares you for technical diving (which is something I might get into later on). I just figured "Why Not?"...the more training the better..