Reason for Rec Triox?

[Adobo]

While diving >20 dives a month, adding He to the mix can get rather expensive. At the moment, I dont even pay for air, but am now going to start diving Nitrox exclusively, just for an added safety margin. Since most of my dives are ~100ft in 75-81' temps, I just don't see the need of He.

That's a little bit different than diving in Monterey, CA where KMD dives. Or diving in the PNW where TS&M dives. I can see where for you, the equation might not be as compelling. But for most of those who dive in the continental U.S. (and Canada for that matter), the idea might be more interesting.

 

[MikeFerrara]

First, this is not a troll. I'm truly interested in knowing the answer.

I've been following TSandM's thread Two HOURS??????? and it got me wondering about the purpose of this course. I did some research, visited GUE's website, downloaded the standards, etc. According to GUE, the depth limitation for Rec Triox is 120 feet. My question is why bother with helium at such a shallow depth? I used to dive in the 95-100' range on 32% but have recently gone to doing those dives on air. The deco obligation has only increased by 7 minutes for my dive profiles and I'm no more impaired.

Before the comments on that one start - I've done the same dive on 32% in September and 21% last month and during the 32% dive I couldn't turn my camera on. Later at home I realized I was pressing every button but the power button. During the 21% dive, I turned the camera on and got about 13 minutes of pretty decent video footage.

Is it worth the added disadvantages of helium to dive it at such shallow depths?

I think the questions about the class have been answered but I have a question about the opening post.

It reads as though you are questioning the value of helium for these depths but then go on to give an example of a time when you were too narced to turn on your camera?

It also reads as though you somehow expected a difference in narcosis effects between air and nitrox. I don't think there is any evidence to support the idea that nitrox reduces narcosis.

In later posts you reference your wife's desire to build up a tolorance to narcosis. The studies that I've read about suggest that there really is no such thing. To clarify, rote tasks can be overlearned to the point that they can be done without thinking (like learning to unlock your front door when your drunk). You can learn to trade speed for accuracy, for example. What can't be learned is the ability to solve novel problems while impaired...ie thinking and reasoning. Concerning these kinds of skills, I haven't seen any evidence that suggests that one can adapt or improve with practice or experience.

 

[limeyx]

I honestly don't know the answer to whether helium is worth it at 100 feet or not, but my Fundies instructor told us a very frightening story about narcosis.
...

I wish the video of day 3/4 of our tech1 class was available. Two essentially very similar dives to 90-100 feet in 59F water.

Day 3 was 32%, day 4 was 30/30. Two very different results from the dives. You can really see the difference on the video.

i will admit however, that since day 4 was similar to day 3, you'd hope to see some kind of improvement even if we did both dives on 32%. However, it was definitely enough to convince us.

 

[lamont]

MHK really answered this question, but there still seems to be some lack of understanding.

The Rec Triox class could be regarded as a "Tech 0" course where you're learning the basics of decompression diving skills without the addition of accellerated decompression but for dives where its appropriate to get off the bottom promptly and where the surface is not immediately accessable and problems must be solved underwater. Most of the course covers failures, team awareness, situational awareness, etc. Helium is just part of the tools that the class covers which are useful in the 80-120 fsw range.

I've also done a lot of rec triox diving now. I've got around 30 dives using doubles and scooters at 100 fsw. Sometimes these dives involve running line or picking up stage bottles at 100 fsw and the beneficial effects of helium are definitely appreciated since you can maintain a clear head no matter how task loaded you are getting. If you're not really doing anything at 100 fsw the benefits of helium are debatable, but as soon as you are task loaded the benefits of helium at those depths are pretty great (and all it takes is an emergency to task load you on any dive).

I still don't always dive helium to 100 fsw, but the 100 fsw dives I do on nitrox are trivial ones where we can scoot back up to 60-70 fsw fast in the event of a problem...

 

[Divin'Papaw]

It's still called Rec Triox.

Check out the latest Standards document on their website. No course called Recreational Triox, only Recreational Level 2 Diver which includes Triox. Now that may not be fully implemented yet, but they're clearly in the process of changing the name.

EDIT: Given the jist of the discussion in this thread, I think it's probably a good thing they're changing the name. It clearly sounds more like an advanced recreational diver course that includes the use of nitrox and triox instead of a purely recreational triox course.

 

[KMD]

On their website it's still Rec Triox: http://www.gue.com/Training/Recreational/triox.html

On GUE's site under diver training open up the Standards PDF. It includes the standards for Rec 1 and Rec2. Compare the course description for Rec 2 to RecTriox. You will find they are suspiciously similar.

I thought there were some studies that point toward the fact that people dont become more tolerant to narcosis over time they just feel they do. As soon as a novel task is required of them, they are still as impaired as their first dive.

 

[lamont]

I thought there were some studies that point toward the fact that people dont become more tolerant to narcosis over time they just feel they do. As soon as a novel task is required of them, they are still as impaired as their first dive.

You also learn skills and how to adapt. Since narcosis affects short term memory you need to work a little harder at remembering things which means paying more attention to what your gauge reads, for example. Plus the more you learn about breathing and CO2 retention and the better you get at breathing, the more you can avoid building up CO2 which avoids narcosis -- familiarity and comfort also probably lead to less CO2 and less narcosis as one gains experience.

What the people who claim to have built a "tolerance" to narcosis are describing is probably a real effect that after a lot of experience diving with narcosis that it affects their dives less. It isn't really tolerance though.

 

[divemaster_jim]

On their website it's still Rec Triox: http://www.gue.com/Training/Recreational/triox.html

There's the answer I was looking for.
thanks.

 

[Dive-aholic]

How about "Doing it right - Advanced Open Water"?

Better yet, "Doing it PADI right - Advanced Open Water"

KMD gave two examples that I thought were pretty compelling.

I don't think a penetration dive on the Yukon is going go be non deco unless you're only poking inside a outer area. Anything beyond that will probably require deco.

From reading Scubaboard, it's clear that it's not taught in most Open Water or even AOW courses. There is at least one agency that offers this level of gas planning (and beyond) no matter who the instructor is.

I totally agree with this statement.

think the questions about the class have been answered but I have a question about the opening post.

It reads as though you are questioning the value of helium for these depths but then go on to give an example of a time when you were too narced to turn on your camera?

True, but I was able to repeat this dive without having that problem.

It also reads as though you somehow expected a difference in narcosis effects between air and nitrox. I don't think there is any evidence to support the idea that nitrox reduces narcosis.

Less nitrogen means less narcosis, right?

In later posts you reference your wife's desire to build up a tolorance to narcosis. The studies that I've read about suggest that there really is no such thing. To clarify, rote tasks can be overlearned to the point that they can be done without thinking (like learning to unlock your front door when your drunk). You can learn to trade speed for accuracy, for example. What can't be learned is the ability to solve novel problems while impaired...ie thinking and reasoning. Concerning these kinds of skills, I haven't seen any evidence that suggests that one can adapt or improve with practice or experience.

Maybe tolerance isn't the right word, but people can condition themselves to dive deeper on air. Bret Gilliam was doing 300' air dives regularly and functioning enough to stay alive. I know about others that dive those same depths on air with minimal to no narcotic effects. So, even though the studies don't show this to be true, real life examples do. Maybe I wasn't thinking as clearly as I would be if on helium, but I'm pretty sure I could have handled any problem I was confronted with.

 

[Adobo]

I don't think a penetration dive on the Yukon is going go be non deco unless you're only poking inside a outer area. Anything beyond that will probably require deco.

I've never done it so I can't speak from experience. But, from what I know, the Yukon bottoms out at 100 ft. Based on how some of the DIR folk do their dives, if you had an average depth of 90 ft., your min deco limit would be 35 minutes assuming you are diving 32% (and from what I have heard, 30/30 uses the same limits). Seems like plenty of time to go exploring inside the wreck - 10 minutes in, 10 minutes out, 15 minutes buffer.