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When is it not worth it anymore?
- Thread starter Diver0001
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I've done many dives to a maximum depth of 200 fsw on air in the past. Fortunately here on Catalina, the offshore slopes are very steep and one gets to these depths quickly... and my ascents are along the bottom, so I have plenty opf things to see as I work my way back up to my last deco stop. However, in the past 2-3 years I'd had no reason to do these deep dives (I was doing a specific film project then) and go for bottom time so I can maximize the video footage I shoot on every dive.
If I were doing deep square profiles, I'd be bored out of my gourd unless there were plenty of pelagics to see on my deco stops!
If I were doing deep square profiles, I'd be bored out of my gourd unless there were plenty of pelagics to see on my deco stops!
DevonDiver
N/A
For me, it's simple cost versus reward.
Deco obligation is one of many costs (I don't enjoy deco for its own sake - rarely many 'pretty fish to see')... so, other than training dives, the attraction at the bottom has to be worth it.
Deco obligation is one of many costs (I don't enjoy deco for its own sake - rarely many 'pretty fish to see')... so, other than training dives, the attraction at the bottom has to be worth it.
While it is obviously a very personal choice: what you want to see, how much fun it is for you, how much hassle (equipment & deco time) it's worth, etc., the points you make are among the reasons I do only recreational dives. I like to see the corals and the pretty fishes, and they are at their best well within recreational limits. Wrecks do not interest me. I've been on (outside of) some shallow wrecks, and the appeal for me was that they had become artificial reefs, with corals and pretty fishes.
So, yes, I agree with you that (for me) the hassle of added equipment and deco time is not worth what I'd get out of a deep dive.
P.S. Tech diving fascinates me, the same way that climbing mountains into the death zone fascinates me: I love reading about it but I have no interest in doing it myself.
How much crap do I want to take underwater? As much as I need to get back to the surface safely. Is it pleasant, carrying all that gear? Not particularly. Is it worth it? Only sometimes... and you usually won't know until you've already committed to the deco 
A couple of months ago, I gave a presentation about underwater photography Socal's "shallow" (above 200') technical wrecks to the Whalers Dive Club. In my talk, I addressed some of the questions I'm commonly asked about tech diving:
1. Is it cold? Yep! Usually its colder at these more extreme depths by at least a few degrees. And thats not taking into consideration how cold you can get when youre sitting on the line doing nothing during your decompression. It can get pretty miserable.
2. Is it dark? Usually! In fact one of the biggest challenges with underwater photography at these depths is the lack of ambient light.
3. Is it scary? Sometimes! Responsible tech diving requires quite a lot of safety equipment and contingency planning, but at the end of the day, its a sobering realization when you think about just how far away you are from home when youre at 200.
4. What is there to see? Sometimes theres quite a bit to see... But theres always the risk that youll get down there and wont find the wreck, or conditions will be bad, and youll still have to do most or all of that decompression for nothing. And even if you do get there, you usually dont get a lot of time before the amount of decompression becomes unmanageable. 20 minutes of bottom time and another 60 (or more) of decompression stops is not uncommon.
So really theres a lot of good reasoning behind the recreational dive limit of 130. You really have to have a damn good reason to dive below that, because its a lot of work, and there isnt always a lot of reward.
I completed my CCR advanced trimix certification late last year and to date my deepest dive is around 290' on a destroyer wreck off San Clemente Island. It was an absolutely incredible dive, one of my all-time favorites. Conditions were excellent, the wreck was amazing, and that "cool factor" of getting to see something that most people don't is of always there. But I'm not going to sugar-coat it: deco, at least on square profiles like these wreck dives, is awful. It's cold. You're likely to get tossed around by current and swell. You might get lucky and see some pelagics like salps or jellies (although this is usually a silver lining of a ripping current). But mostly it's cold. And boring. Did I mention it's cold?
It's still worth it to me. I amass an ever-growing collection of dive gear to make these long runtimes safer and more comfortable. It's expensive and a lot of work, but it's worth it to me. I realize it's not for everyone--or pretty much anyone, for that matter--so I take photographs, and I share them.
A couple of months ago, I gave a presentation about underwater photography Socal's "shallow" (above 200') technical wrecks to the Whalers Dive Club. In my talk, I addressed some of the questions I'm commonly asked about tech diving:
1. Is it cold? Yep! Usually its colder at these more extreme depths by at least a few degrees. And thats not taking into consideration how cold you can get when youre sitting on the line doing nothing during your decompression. It can get pretty miserable.
2. Is it dark? Usually! In fact one of the biggest challenges with underwater photography at these depths is the lack of ambient light.
3. Is it scary? Sometimes! Responsible tech diving requires quite a lot of safety equipment and contingency planning, but at the end of the day, its a sobering realization when you think about just how far away you are from home when youre at 200.
4. What is there to see? Sometimes theres quite a bit to see... But theres always the risk that youll get down there and wont find the wreck, or conditions will be bad, and youll still have to do most or all of that decompression for nothing. And even if you do get there, you usually dont get a lot of time before the amount of decompression becomes unmanageable. 20 minutes of bottom time and another 60 (or more) of decompression stops is not uncommon.
So really theres a lot of good reasoning behind the recreational dive limit of 130. You really have to have a damn good reason to dive below that, because its a lot of work, and there isnt always a lot of reward.
I completed my CCR advanced trimix certification late last year and to date my deepest dive is around 290' on a destroyer wreck off San Clemente Island. It was an absolutely incredible dive, one of my all-time favorites. Conditions were excellent, the wreck was amazing, and that "cool factor" of getting to see something that most people don't is of always there. But I'm not going to sugar-coat it: deco, at least on square profiles like these wreck dives, is awful. It's cold. You're likely to get tossed around by current and swell. You might get lucky and see some pelagics like salps or jellies (although this is usually a silver lining of a ripping current). But mostly it's cold. And boring. Did I mention it's cold?
It's still worth it to me. I amass an ever-growing collection of dive gear to make these long runtimes safer and more comfortable. It's expensive and a lot of work, but it's worth it to me. I realize it's not for everyone--or pretty much anyone, for that matter--so I take photographs, and I share them.
Dhboner
Contributor
The issue here in Ontario is not so much actual depth but time at depth. We have some spectacular wrecks in the 100' - 150' range and to truly explore them and photograph them generally leads to a deco obligation. I personally like to stay within NDL's but I understand the attraction of spending a little more time on these incredible wrecks
The issue here in Ontario is not so much actual depth but time at depth. We have some spectacular wrecks in the 100' - 150' range and to truly explore them and photograph them generally leads to a deco obligation. I personally like to stay within NDL's but I understand the attraction of spending a little more time on these incredible wrecks
That's an excellent point. I should point out that I didn't get into tech diving because I wanted to dive deep--I just wanted to spend more time at 100'. The rest was just a slippery slope
The issue here in Ontario is not so much actual depth but time at depth. We have some spectacular wrecks in the 100' - 150' range and to truly explore them and photograph them generally leads to a deco obligation. I personally like to stay within NDL's but I understand the attraction of spending a little more time on these incredible wrecks
the lake just "up-river" has a whole bunch of "cool stuff" in that 130'-200' range. Getting there, and back, is what becomes some daunting tasks. There is nothing fun to see once you leave the bottom and head for the surface.... so, to do it you have to "suffer"...
It depends on the objective of the dive. If your objective is to look at all the pretty fish, you are probably right. However, if the objective is to retrieve the expensive fishing pole you dropped off the side of the boat, then it might be worth a little boring dive.
We went and did one of our infrequent technical dives in Monterey two days ago. It was planned for an average depth of 150, although it turned out, because of where we were dropped, that the average was a bit shallower than that.
Monterey is one of the places where I think staged decompression diving just plain old makes sense. Just offshore, in the 150 to 200 foot range, are areas of spectacular structure, with huge boulders and pinnacles of granite, covered in coralline algae and corynactis anemones in every known shade of pink, as well as orange cup coral, California hydrocoral, and other colorful animals. When the visibility in Monterey Bay is awful, the water around the offshore pinnacles may be quite clear (as it was this weekend). When conditions are a bit better, you can scooter from the boat landing at Lobos out to some of the inshore pinnacles, and enjoy much the same thing. If I lived in Monterey, I would do far more technical diving than I do in Puget Sound.
Monterey is one of the places where I think staged decompression diving just plain old makes sense. Just offshore, in the 150 to 200 foot range, are areas of spectacular structure, with huge boulders and pinnacles of granite, covered in coralline algae and corynactis anemones in every known shade of pink, as well as orange cup coral, California hydrocoral, and other colorful animals. When the visibility in Monterey Bay is awful, the water around the offshore pinnacles may be quite clear (as it was this weekend). When conditions are a bit better, you can scooter from the boat landing at Lobos out to some of the inshore pinnacles, and enjoy much the same thing. If I lived in Monterey, I would do far more technical diving than I do in Puget Sound.
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