when to 100'?

[Ice9]

Just a quick story:

On my AOW training dives, we wennt down to ~ 90 ft in the quarry to demonstrate the effects of narcosis. The plan was to hang out at 60 ft and then we would drop down in pairs and do a quick puzzel. Well, we completed this dive, and afterwards I thought I knew the effects of narcosis and felt prepared to deal with it. I'm ready to go deep!

Wrong.

Some time later, while diving a wreck in the DomRep I got a much more realistic taste of the effects of narcosis. While it didn't freak me out (quite the opposite), it was startling to consider that this was my first real exposure to it. As a result I made some poor judgement calls down there - like "its ok to go OOA. DM has plenty. He told me so!"

Lucky that worked out fine, but I'd certainly never in my right mind agree to go OOA on a wreck around 120 ft. The difference between the training dive and the wreck dive was in the level of exertion - the more you exert yourself, the more pronounced the effects become. Of course, I read that before, but nothing beats experiencing it

The moral of the story is that although I took the AOW class and did the "deep dive" to experience the narsosis effects, I was really not ready to be messing around that deep. The more proper thing to do would have been to ease into that depth over time, increasing experience along the way.

 

[Jason Ooi]

For my OW certifications the cards are good to 130ft. The 60ft limitations are for the first 4 training dives

is beyond your limit :no

 

[magnifica]

...with a DM ( couldn't it go to AOW - deep dive?)

DMs aren't certified to conduct deep dive courses. If you did a deep dive with a DM, it would NOT count towards AOW Deep.

Generally speaking you shold dive within your training. If you want to dive deeper than 18-20m, get the deep portion of your AOW.

Useful info on the deep course includes:

*Experiencing the effects of nitrogen narcosis under supervision
*Effectively deploying and the use of hang tanks
*The effect of increased pressure on air consumption
*Safe ascent and descent techniques
*Planning a safe dive, emergency decompression and learning new table limits.

I recommend that you do a deep dive with an instructor. It's not expensive and can be credited towards the AOW.

 

[Walter]

is beyond your limit :no

Why do you think that's beyond Joe's limit?

 

[sharkattack]

Funny, new divers just love to see those triple digits on thier computers. New open water divers want to hit that 60' mark too

 

[jon m]

wow! came back today for 3 pages of reading-
look, i'm not fascinated with depth as some are , i could care less if i ever see 100' .
i was reading the posts about the diver who went 200' (vancouver or seattle area) and passed away. i was thinking " how stupid, i would never do that!" and then i thought about my hawaii trip where the boat WAS going to dive 85-95' , but DIDN'T... how ever, i WOULD have done that dive , and i was no more qualified to do that dive then , than i am now. i've always told the wife- be careful and don't go beyond limits- but, put in that situation, i would go beyond MY limit (and hers) - and , thinking about it now, i didn't even CONSIDER the fact that it was beyond my limit... pretty scary!
so, iguess that's why i posted the original post (trying to justify it?!?!?)
that being said- we both have good control of bouyancy , never hit the reef! wife did scull her hands one time and cloud up some shrimp we were looking at (came in for a look too fast) but that ain't bad for 6 dives! i think because we had a private instructor with whom we spent ALOT of time with in the water , and although he was liscenced by P@^* , went WELL beyond the scope of the manual. we have also made fast friends with him, and will be diving with him again (alot) so , i'm thinking we'll get "deep" soon enough.
thanks for all the help/opinions! LOVE THIS BOARD!!!!!
-me

 

[talonraid]

So, I would like to recommend a good article I just read in this month's Scuba Magazine on working up to deep diving. I also, recently saw a blurb on Scuba Diving Magazine's website that talked about recreational limits being 130 feet. I know it's a magazine and not the certifying agency, but I couldn't find recreatonal limits on the PADI or SSI websites. The NAUI site didn't mention depth limits for basic SCUBA diver, but did mention 130' training during Advanced SCUBA.

The "traditional" limit for OW certification is 130 feet. I'm not suggesting it's safe to do that for your first dive after class, so flame off! I'm just mentioning it because I read the threads above and was confused by people saying their limits were 40' or 60'. 60' was the maximum depth that my OW certification class was allowed to go to during training (although we did several planning exercises for deep dives), but if I had felt so inclined I could have dropped to 130' right after completing my last checkout dive. Once more, flame off, i'm just saying I could, not that I would.

I have read that some dive shop operators will place a limit on their students in order to be more conservative. My understanding is the LDS or dive shop can be more conservative, but cannot be more liberal than their certifying agency. Perhaps that's where some of the confusion about 40' or 60' limits comes from.

Cheers.

 

[ClayJar]

100 feet down, at 50 degrees, in Pelham Blue Water quarry is *not* one of my favorite dives, and I probably won't do it again without some compelling reason

The "Pelham Keys" (*sigh*) was where I hit the century depth. Went to the sailboat and eased down the slope just past 100' (at which point I'd set my computer to start nagging me). It wasn't bad, but it wasn't nearly as fun as the toys around 80-85'. I returned this fall with a buddy of mine who had been in the 90+ foot range several times, but never to 100', and we went down the same place to about 107' so she could see how she handled it.

Her performance on a couple little tests was not noticeably impeded. She *did* say after the dive that it was *COLD* down there.

If I did not have experience to those depths, or I didn't consider her fully competent to perform the dive, or if she had any reservations whatsoever, we wouldn't have planned and done the dive. As it was, we planned it and executed the plan with precision far in excess of our "normal" dives, as any time you're expanding your envelope, caution is certainly called for.

 

[EastEndDiver]

If I did not have experience to those depths, or I didn't consider her fully competent to perform the dive, or if she had any reservations whatsoever, we wouldn't have planned and done the dive. As it was, we planned it and executed the plan with precision far in excess of our "normal" dives, as any time you're expanding your envelope, caution is certainly called for.

This is scary.

 

[lamont]

There's nothing magical about 100' or 60' for that matter. Your OW card does not limit you to 60' and an AOW card does not qualify you for 100'. Some charter boats operate that way, but it's simply not so.

The two major problems with that concept is first, it's quite easy to get an AOW card without being qualified to dive to 100'. It's possible to get an OW card with 4 dives to 60'. It's also possible to get an AOW card with 1 dive to 60'. Theoretically, you can have two divers with 9 logged dives each. Diver A has an OW cert with 9 dives all to 60'. Diver B has an AOW cert with 9 dives, 1 to 60' and 8 to 20'. Which one is qualified to dive to 100'? Neither. Diver A is farther along to being qualified, but neither is. Some charters would refuse the better qualified diver and accept the other. That's plain silly.

I don't have an AOW cert. All I have is a Rescue cert. I don't even have a Deep card or technical card (yet).

But I've done 150 dives to 90+ fsw including 30 dives with scooters, 150 dives with doubles, a pile of dives with 30/30 helium mix, and with the most complexity being 30 min bottom times at average depths at 100-110 fsw using scooters and either running line or picking up bottles and scooters -- and that in cold water using a drysuit.

I haven't actually run across the dive op that would want to see that AOW card or refuse to let me go to 90 fsw, but I know they exist..

And for the OP, when I started diving deeper I started progressively. So it was 5 mins @ 90 fsw and then turn around and scoot shallower. Gradually I built up to the point where I was bumping up against the NDLs at 100 fsw. I also got much better at open water ascents, trim, buoyancy, air shares and mask clearing. I was not ready to be at 90-100 fsw the first times that I went there, but I gradually got okay with it. Then I added nitrox and started doing 30-35 mins at those kinds of depths.

If you don't ever practice air shares, mask clearing, open water ascents, and don't have good buddy skills, you probably should not be diving to 100 fsw. If you don't understand boyle's law and can't run some numbers to estimate how much gas you'd need on a dive you probably shouldn't be at 100 fsw. If you're diving an Al80 and are a newer diver you probably shouldn't be at 100 fsw. If you don't know what your turn around pressure should be to leave depth and reserve enough gas to get you and your buddy back to the surface then you shouldn't be at 100 fsw.

And its not theoretical. There was a recent incident here where a diver in an Al80 went to 100 fsw, went low on air, aborted the dive, ran out of gas at only 10 fsw on their blue water ascent, failed to make an air share, ascended with a closed airway and embolized and died.