Old Dog New Tricks

[Frog Dude]

For the last few years the most interaction at the LDS was to get fills or rent additional tanks. I started to notice the green and yellow labeled tanks but really didn’t think a lot about it.
When my Sucbapro STAB jacket finally died I needed a new BC. Diving for me is work and pleasure. The work part is generally in 0 vis feeling around for lost stuff or wrenching on something to remove or replace it. Then fun part is, well fun.
I ordered a BC that would work and some additional parts I needed for certain mods and then asked what the green and yellow tanks were about.
NITROX…..
What a concept. I am very familiar with HeOX in saturation diving and have worked on and in decompression chambers and the early development of Hyperbaric medicine. This was too good to be true. Extend your bottom time and hyper oxygenate your mussel tissue at the same time. The younger people might not see the bennies of this but when your over 50 it’s a big deal.
Cheap hyperbaric treatment and exercise. I’m getting my card Friday.

Frog Dude
Experience is a wonderful thing.
It allows you to recognize a mistake before you make it again.

 

[neil]

This was too good to be true. Extend your bottom time and hyper oxygenate your mussel tissue at the same time.

As I understand it, it's not possible to hyper-oxygenate your "mussels" with oxygen. Hemoblobin can only carry a finite amount of O2. Even if you were to breathe pure O2 the hemoglobin-oxygen buffer prevents the O2 from being distributed to the body's cells from the dissolved O2 in the blood (except when breathing too high partial pressure of O2).

Now, for extending bottom time, you have a winner if you can carry enough gas to make it worthwhile.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, a scientist, a physicist, etc. , but this info is easy to look up and I got this from a basic college physiology text. While my explanation may not be EXACT, it is essentially correct as far as I know, and I'm pretty smart.

Neil

 

[captain]

Nitrox has been used by the Navy and commercial divers for the last 30+ years. I am surprised you only now discovered it.

 

[jbd]

Nitrox has been used by the Navy and commercial divers for the last 30+ years. I am surprised you only now discovered it.

Thats why I suspect a troll

 

[Frog Dude]

Troll, a troll you say.
How disingenuous a welcome.
Rather than post a curriculum vita I will mention that there have been gaps of a few years between dives.
These gaps coincide with the birth of children and other, more pressing financial needs than air fills and boat trips.
If you are familiar with Saturation diving you will be familiar with Perry Oceanographics. You will know the difference between an SDC a DDC and what sodasorbe is. If you really demand proof I will post a photo to enlighten you.
I have seen a few divers from Okinawa on this board, ask them if the Reef Rover card is still required for fills. It was in 1974.
My life has been focused on rearing my kids, providing a good home and a few dive jobs on the side for a few bucks.
If one needs to be a frequent passenger on the many head boats that process divers like shrimp through a sizer to be welcomed on this board, then I am gone. I am not here to prove that I’m gods gift to diving and don’t claim to be. But I have done a lot of diving in many locations and know a lot of things that do and don’t work.

Captian,
The late 80’s is when I saturated on sport diving with the LDS. My wife was certified,
we had our own boat and the keys were 4-5 hours away. The only reason to visit the LDS was for fills. You loose touch. Air was sufficient for lobstering and the shallow reefs around Marathon. Then we discovered the Brownie. Who needs a dive shop?
You loose touch. As far as using mixed gasses again, I didn’t know they bottled it. That and a KM Super Light was way out of the budget and how do you fit a couple of K cylinders of H80 O20 on a 20 foot boat.
Hence the title “Old Dog new Tricks.”

Neil,
You are fundamentally correct. Hemoglobin as a transport mechanism is finite in the amount of oxygen it can carry until you factor in Daltons Law. Just as we breathe on the surface we consume about 6 pounds of oxygen that is used to suffuse the tissues in our bodies. Divers in saturation below 150 feet can and do exist on levels of 02 levels below 16 %. This is the level of 02 that will no longer support combustion. (FIRE) “Diving below the fire point” is below 150 FSW. Divers pressed to 400 to 500 feet exist on 02 levels in the single digits.
Just as Nitrogen is suffused into tissue so is Oxygen with the benefits to a lesser degree of that of Hyperbaric treatments where the 02 is supplied via mask at pressure. When I asked few Nitrox divers if they felt it was worth it, all the older ones said yes.

Frog Dude
Experience is a wonderful thing.

 

[SparticleBrane]

I like to eat my mussels, rather that "hyper oxygenate" them.

 

[TSandM]

You can push the hemoglobin closer to 100% saturation, and you can increase the dissolved O2, although the amount of O2 that dissolves remains fairly low. If there were no benefit to increasing the ppO2, there would not be wound care centers around the country using hyperbaric oxygen to help accelerate the healing of venous stasis and diabetic foot ulcers.

Whether there is any benefit to increased oxygen tensions in an otherwise healthy person is, to my knowledge, unknown.