Were You Introduced to Nitrox in Your Basic OW Class

[MNScuba]

Just a long hose and an air compressor?

 

[wrecNcaver]

Unfortunately nitrox was not widely used when I had OW. Back then, most organizations were still shouting how the stuff was dangerous. My how times they do change.

 

[Tavi]

Hi,
I certified in Grand Bahama (SSI). I don't remember Nitrox being mentioned.

6 months later back home in western NY. My wife and son did their classroom and poolwork. I got to sit in and play in the pool. They did NAUI OW with Nitrox. I got Nitrox certified with them. We went back to Grand Bahama for their C-dives. It's great to have the family diving together!

 

[rcohn]

Murdock325,

If your question was for me, we had tanks on plastic backpacks with safety vests and a lecture about the value of BCs as a safety device. Since I bought a horse collar BC, I've never dove the open water without one, but we weren't trained to use them, just self taught.

Ralph

 

[landlocked]

Not really mentioned untill I asked. All of the DM's and Instructors were using it. Especially the day we were learning emergency assents. They would follow us up. Since they were doing two or three assents each instead of just one like the students, they wanted the extra safety that Nitrox afforded in this situation. That's how I learned that I wanted to add EAN to my bag of tools.

 

[Walter]

Dick Rutkowski introduced nitrox to sport divers in the mid 1980's. It was several years before it became readily available outside of Key Largo. Computers were also very new at the time and there were no computers for nitrox. At the time, I was working as a DM in the upper Keys, so it was common for me to be making the same dives on air using my Edge as the few from OD on nitrox and tables. There didn't seem to be an advantage to diving with nitrox since we were getting longer bottom times using computers than they were using nitrox. Now that there are nitrox computers it's a whole new ball game. I actually first learned of nitrox through self study reading the NOAA Diving Manual. I studied Rutkowski's book in '98 and finally picked up my nitrox card in 2000 and my nitrox instructor qualification from Joel Silverstein last year. It was an experience to go through a course taught by the author of the text. I'll be diving nitrox tomorrow morning.

 

[msjones]

I was certified in 1977, the sport has gained leaps and bounds since then. There was no NITROX offered then, but then again there wasn't alot offered then. Dive safe.

 

[Garfish]

During my basic OW class, their was a brief introduction about it discussed by my intstructor in which he is under PADI. Since he was a good speaker and a few of us guys were very interested in the general topic of Nitrox, he went into a little bit more detail about it & said it was a very good course to take after certification and to get a few dives under our belts.

I waited until i got my buoyance control down pat, and now i'am NITROX certified and now enjoy using EAN 32% when diving for safety reasons. May i add they didn't call it old geasure gas for nothing. lol

One thing that i did do before i took the general PADI NITROX course was to get all the reading materal, like books ect. and sit down and go over the pros and cons ,and to use it as a study guide . Nitrox is a great breathing medium..... enjoy..... bye.

 

[Manogr]

During my OW class I received a summarized introduction to Nitrox, advantages, disadvantages and dangers together with a warning about the necessity of formal education if I want to dive nitrox...

I believe that this is a good approach during the OW class since I was informed about an important aspect of diving while knowing that I need more training in order to be able to use it !

Manogr

 

[scubatexastony]

a single hose second was "new".

tony