Why Recreational Triox ??

[-hh]

...

Great question.

Most excellent.

-hh

 

[MHK]

MHK:

Lets face it, eating hotdogs, second hand smoke, and living itself is destruction in the works, as a cellular processes go.

If I had to weight the cost of He fills for me in my location (Please don't forget, in some places it is prohibitively expensive) I don't get it for "cost" as you do. And even if I did, my "cost" is more than your "cost".

Given that, combined with the marginal clear headedness it may argueably give at such shallow depths (We're talking 100ft or less don't forget). Would you argue a person is fundamentally flawed if he chose to weigh the cost/benefit of his situation (which is different than yours) and he found that diving without the benefit of He was quite acceptable?

I hope I have articulately and respectfully posed a real world question to a real world problem.

DS

Thanks for the question(s). I agree that for many cost and availability of helium are a concern. But what I keep trying to express to everyone is that this class is sooooooooo much more then the introduction of helium. This class is all about a true recreational deep diving class, helium is but one of the tools that we recommend to do the dive in the safest and most efficient manner possible. I think you raise a fair point(s) that in the real world Helium isn't always cost prohibitive and/or available, but as educators we try to start from the premise of teaching the how's and the why's are the most efficient. Once a diver has information and they leave the class we don't police them around like scuba cops and take away their certs if they don't use helium on a 100' dive..

When we put this class together it was with the mindset that we don't want to compromise or dillute our class to accomodate the masses, and we fully expected that many would aggresively argue that using helium for dives in the 100'-120' range is overkill, but our core belief is a mindset of approaching every dive with the greatest possible advantages to safely completing the dive. While for sure divers can do dives in that range on air, or nitrox [ they've been doing it for decades], but what we try to teach is proactive thinking and we believe divers are very capable of understanding pretty basic concepts when provided the opportunity. The trend in the dive industry has been for educators to spend less time with students, all of your academics can now be done via telephone and/or internet and a student need never meet with an instructor for the academics. Our feeling is that in order to make classes appealing to the masses, corners were cut in favor of selling con ed classes. In other words, get the students in the door, get them excited because they are "certified" and then sell them class after class. That is a business model we specifically wanted to avoid. We take the approach that we fully recognize that many divers are comfortable with that model, but we also firmly believe that there is a segment of the diving population that wants and demands more from their training. That is the diver we are interested in training. If you look at the first sentance of our mission statement is speaks to a "discriminating diver".. I'm confident many other agencies started out well intended, but at some point bowed to market pressure and compromised because as you say, " there's a cost analysis".. Our goal isn't to bend to make compromising sacrafices to core beliefs, it's too stand up and educate divers and hopefully impact the dive industry taken as a whole. The industry is nothing if not resourceful, as soon as the industry see's a benefit they'll mimick us, therefore we want to lead, not follow. You're already seeing agencies such as IANTD & NAUI quickly respond to our Triox program with one of their own. I attended a TDI " DIR Demo" a while back, you see Tom Mount from IANTD writing articles called Doing It Correctly.. So we are having the intended impact because the more divers that we teach, and the more we stay true to our core ideological belief's, even in the face of public pressure to change, the more the discriminating diver will appreciate that there is an agency that doesn't sell out or cave to increase market share at the expense of compromising core beliefs.

I hope that answers your question(s), but if not let me know..

Later

 

[ERP]

I agree with Mike, having taken the course last year, the Rec Triox course is about a lot more than diving with He.

Infact since everyone in our course was already Nitrox certified it was a relatively minor part of the course.

Unlike DIRF, The diving portion of our course concentrated on managing failures, rather than teaching specific skills, the lecture time was very much about basic decompression theory and gas planning.

IMO it's a great next step after DIRF, whether you have intentions to move into technical diving later or not.

 

[Big-t-2538]

I'm just waiting for them to offer it at Gilboa so I can escape from the house for a few days again !

 

[MHK]

All of those items are quite appropriate for the stated objective (diving in 80-120fsw) and are not being questioned.




If a free exchange of actual info is what you want, here is your chance:

I question the logic and justification to also include/apply Triox, for I do not see it being particularly of meritorious benefit for the stated dive range of 80-120fsw. Please explain, with actual information.


-hh

hh,

First off, as I'm confident we've discussed in the past, we are not recommending Triox for dives in the 80' range, so if you really want to have an intellectual discussion based on the merits of the facts, let's try to be true to the facts.. This class covers a range of depths starting at 70' and then at it's maximum to 130'. In that range a diver will be taught about the use of Nitrox and the use of Triox. Our stated position, that I'm confident that you've seen, is that from 0' - 100' we recommend Nitrox 32% and from 80'-120' we recommend Triox 30/30. In that overlapping range from the 80'-100' range we expect that a student has the ability to evaluate conditions and make judgements based on the information in the class.. For example, if a diver were doing a dive in Cayman-like condition with a hard bottom of 90' or 100' it might very well be prudent to use a 32%. Now juxtapose that against a diver that may be diving in colder waters, drysuit, swimming against currents, steel tank or working hard for whatever reason, perhaps salvage, in the 100' range that diver may well opt for a Triox 30/30 to reduce the potential for hypercapnia or reduce the narcosis level.. You are looking for a definite bright line in the sand that says 32% to 80' and then from 81' Triox 30/30 and that just isn't real world. It's all about education and providing divers with the information they need to make their own judgement based on conditions and environment. Every dive and every diver isn't the same just because they happen to occur at the same depth. We teach divers to turn their brain on underwater and to think and evaluate, we don't want to train them to be robots adhering to a mythical line in the sand that is too subjective to produce.

You started your initial post in this thread summarily concluding that Triox isn't for you so I don't mean to be critical of you asking questions, but given that you've already made up your mind one must ask why does any of this matter to you??? We all know that many on various scuba forums like to posture and I hope you haven't fallen into that catagory..

Regards

 

[kalvyn]

is that it will also Nitrox certify you if you're not already. I do plan on taking the course this year. I doubt I'll dive trimix very often, but I'll certainly start diving 32% Nitrox pretty much all the time afterwards as a result.

I want to take the class for the continuing education aspect. As MHK mentioned in his posts, the class is truly about skills and concepts. Trimix is just an added bonus.. or in my case I get two birds with one stone (Nitrox, trimix and added training).

Jimmie

 

[Snowbear]

...
2. Lower CO2 level potential, due to lighter average gas molarity.
...
One of my concerns is that if the CO2 reduction were indeed significant, how does this not then represent a Hypocapnia risk? Hypocapnia is the condition of an insufficient amount of CO2 (ppCO2 < 35mmHg) and is one of the primary causes of shallow water blackout. I don't believe this to be the case, but the implication here is that it must then be a faux 'benefit'.

Interesting observation, but as long as a diver is metabolizing, gas exchanging (at the cellular level) and breathing normally, hypocapnia should not happen. Respiratory drive in healthy people is primarily CO2 driven - when CO2 levels go up, we have the urge to breathe. The harder we work, the more we metabolize and the more CO2 we produce. I *think* the idea behind the benefit of a lighter gas vs heavier N2 (besides the much discussed narcotic potential) is the reduced work of breathing in the hyperbaric environment. The next breath will still be triggered by the increased CO2 level in the blood, it may just take a little longer to get there because the work load is reduced.

Hmm - this brings up another question for a newbie to the concept - do you trimix users find you have lower SAC rates at those depths than when you used to use air?

 

[DeepScuba]

Thanks for the question(s). I agree that for many cost and availability of helium are a concern. But what I keep trying to express to everyone is that this class is sooooooooo much more then the introduction of helium. This class is all about a true recreational deep diving class, helium is but one of the tools that we recommend to do the dive in the safest and most efficient manner possible. I think you raise a fair point(s) that in the real world Helium isn't always cost prohibitive and/or available, but as educators we try to start from the premise of teaching the how's and the why's are the most efficient. Once a diver has information and they leave the class we don't police them around like scuba cops and take away their certs if they don't use helium on a 100' dive..

When we put this class together it was with the mindset that we don't want to compromise or dillute our class to accomodate the masses, and we fully expected that many would aggresively argue that using helium for dives in the 100'-120' range is overkill, but our core belief is a mindset of approaching every dive with the greatest possible advantages to safely completing the dive. While for sure divers can do dives in that range on air, or nitrox [ they've been doing it for decades], but what we try to teach is proactive thinking and we believe divers are very capable of understanding pretty basic concepts when provided the opportunity. The trend in the dive industry has been for educators to spend less time with students, all of your academics can now be done via telephone and/or internet and a student need never meet with an instructor for the academics. Our feeling is that in order to make classes appealing to the masses, corners were cut in favor of selling con ed classes. In other words, get the students in the door, get them excited because they are "certified" and then sell them class after class. That is a business model we specifically wanted to avoid. We take the approach that we fully recognize that many divers are comfortable with that model, but we also firmly believe that there is a segment of the diving population that wants and demands more from their training. That is the diver we are interested in training. If you look at the first sentance of our mission statement is speaks to a "discriminating diver".. I'm confident many other agencies started out well intended, but at some point bowed to market pressure and compromised because as you say, " there's a cost analysis".. Our goal isn't to bend to make compromising sacrafices to core beliefs, it's too stand up and educate divers and hopefully impact the dive industry taken as a whole. The industry is nothing if not resourceful, as soon as the industry see's a benefit they'll mimick us, therefore we want to lead, not follow. You're already seeing agencies such as IANTD & NAUI quickly respond to our Triox program with one of their own. I attended a TDI " DIR Demo" a while back, you see Tom Mount from IANTD writing articles called Doing It Correctly.. So we are having the intended impact because the more divers that we teach, and the more we stay true to our core ideological belief's, even in the face of public pressure to change, the more the discriminating diver will appreciate that there is an agency that doesn't sell out or cave to increase market share at the expense of compromising core beliefs.

I hope that answers your question(s), but if not let me know..

Later

Yes and no.

My question isn't about the class. I knwo you have that mindset going into it. The class aside is what I'm refering to. We can get the same/similar "class" work out od other GUE courses. What I specifically asked (Please re-read to refresh the question) is the He question ONLY, as it pertains to cost/benefit to less than 100ft for those without access to anything but horendous costs of He.

 

[MHK]

Yes and no.

My question isn't about the class. I knwo you have that mindset going into it. The class aside is what I'm refering to. We can get the same/similar "class" work out od other GUE courses. What I specifically asked (Please re-read to refresh the question) is the He question ONLY, as it pertains to cost/benefit to less than 100ft for those without access to anything but horendous costs of He.

The answer is that in a perfect world I'd use Triox whenever available for dives 100'+, in the 80' to 100' range more often then not Nitrox 32% is sufficient but if I were planning a dive in strong currents, cold water with a steel tank(s), drysuit and working harder I'd opt for the benefits that helium provide under adverse conditions.

Hope that helps.

 

[DeepScuba]

I might add MHK, this isn't a "gotcha" question. It's not trolling.

I'm sure you see knives everywhere, but this ain't one.

I have been unapologetically "down" on certain GUE concepts, I'm sure your mom doesn't agree with everything you've ever said either. So thats that.

What I have come to believe and respect is quite simple. GUE and it's belief system is your pony, and if we/I/anyone don't like it, we are welcomed to not let the door hit us on the a$$ on the way out. It's your pony, and you can ride it anyway you want to.

I am asking you this as a level headed diver, and not a GUE instructor. I'm giving you leave, to PM me privately with your simple one word answer to my single question posed, without the worry of the "gotcha", or the worry of you answering as a GUE instructor.

It's really that simple and innocent of a question. The answer I'm looking for is not to be the following, which is spoken as a GUE instructor.........your quote....


When we put this class together it was with the mindset that we don't want to compromise or dillute our class to accomodate the masses, and we fully expected that many would aggresively argue that using helium for dives in the 100'-120' range is overkill, but our core belief is a mindset of approaching every dive with the greatest possible advantages to safely completing the dive.......

Yes I know this already, it's been said and understood as the official GUE answer.

My question is far simpler to you, as a diver GIVEN THE SITUATION as described......(Horendous costs of He as it pertains to cost/benefit of dives in the less than 100ft range). Would you feel a diver is putting himself at more risk than is REASONABLE by not diving He.


Thanks for the time man! Hope there's no bill at the end of this course!