General Feeling on Deep Air

[Garf]

didn't have a problem with it until I had a problem with it.

Now I won't do it.

[Garf]

dep air reminds me of LSD. wheb you do it you feel fantastic. the more you do it the more you convince yourself you can handle it.

Then you have a bad one and realise you actually were fooling yourself and you can't actually handle it at all.

and unless they've had bad one you can't explain to someone how bad it really is or that they are fooling themselves.

[MATTBIN]

Personally I doubt I would do a deep air dive. AFAIK I havent been narced (others may disagree ) but then my deepest dive is less then 40m. I know some others that dont think they have been narced to similar depths, howevere I think we all agree it happens at some point, sometimes different points on different days, so who knows when/where it will strike. Consequently it seems to make sense to me to use Trimix for a deep dive rather than air.

Matt

[Woz]

Originally Posted by Garf

dep air reminds me of LSD. wheb you do it you feel fantastic. the more you do it the more you convince yourself you can handle it.

Then you have a bad one and realise you actually were fooling yourself and you can't actually handle it at all.

and unless they've had bad one you can't explain to someone how bad it really is or that they are fooling themselves.

Are you having a Bit of a Cry again?

[Steve S]

Interesting question Brian, and one I have pondered recently as it looks like I will have to undertake ERD before I can enrol on the BSAC SMG course, and doing them back to back is not an option for me with loads of trips and family holidays coming up

I can only speak having done quite a few dives to 50m on weak nitrox [I can't tell you exactly as I don't remember ] and not having done any trimix dives I have nothing to compare them to, but TBH I am not aware of suffering any problems, and feel quite comfortable at that depth on predominantly air, I'm a bit woolly on the surface so maybe my rapture is not so pronounced but I am looking forward to eventually diving on trimix and will then edit my posts as necessary

Safe diving,
Steve

[Skiverdiver]

Originally Posted by Garf

didn't have a problem with it until I had a problem with it.

Now I won't do it.

Garf,

Could not agree more.

Each to their own - deep air - fill ya boots!.....when you get burnt you may re-think (1) your idea of what "deep" air is (2) getting a trimix ticket or (3) just not going to whatever depth it was that you were narked off ya head at.

Speak from personal experiance - just 36m - clueless (narked badly) and thinking b*ll*x to this!....

So would I do 55-60m on air ? NO.....do I have a trimix ticket? NO. Will I get a trimix ticket? - YES - now on an RB building hours and trimix will become more affordable.

Just my opinion - like I said - each to their own.

Safe diving

ATB

Roy

[Finless]

I'm not an armchair diver nor am I a proper technical diver ............. well, actually, I lie ............ I'm not doing much of anything at the moment apart from the armchair bit.

In my limited deeper experience I don't see there being a problem if people want to do deep air diving BUT I suspect it is something that you need to build up to gradually ............. perhaps like learning to 'hold your drink'.

I have only ever had one dive on a normoxic He mix (on the Lan Franc mid Channel - abt 50 mtrs) and what a difference it made to the dive. Breathing was physically easier, my head was pretty clear and I thought it was the bee's knees! I certainly raved about it afterwards.

I do have a bit of the 'cave man' about me and I still think that deep air diving as a skill is not a bad thing to practise ......... until something goes wrong, I suppose .................

FFS, what do I know, I just paid £20 OTT for a cheap copy of a plastic DPV!

One thing that I still bleat on about is that I don't really see there being that much difference in the skills for noroxic trimix diving and those required to do accelerated deco so why is it so expensive to do a normoxic course? I don't think I'd bother but I am suffering from the 'Nanny State' syndrome and am frightened to do anything without a C card in case SWMBO misses out on any insurance in the event of a Finless catastrophe!

[Scubee]

In true YD style, I am going to explain my POV, even though I don't meet Brian's criteria of having dived to 'those depths and therfore not capable of having an opinion that is valid.

The reason I haven't (yet) dived below 48m in the UK is because I will readily admit to narcosis and I won't go deeper until I can do the depth with a clear head.

I have an instructor who would quite happily do my ER course, but I am waiting until such time as I can do a trimix course. Until then, I wouldn't dive deeper than about 45m ish.

[JasonP]

I won't do much more than 40m on air in the UK. I've been completely out of my box on the President Coolidge at 45m. That was half way through a week of diving to similar depths, so building up depths didn't seem to help, and in crystal clear water.

It does mean that I don't often dive 45m wrecks as I generally go deeper to justify using the helium, or get an air top on the previous day's diving.

Jason

[chrisch]

I went from Rescue Diver to Mix in one go taking the Advanced EAN and Adv Rec Tx at the same time. My deepest air dive was (and still is) 45m. That was in the UK. I have done 40m on the Rhondo a couple of times and felt OK.

If the point of the ERD is to teach gas switching and buoyancy for stops (like the BSAC ERD) then I'm all for it as a bridge between "rec" and "deep". If the idea is to do 50+m on air then its stupid IMHO.

As best I understand it the old (and BSAC) ERD tickets qualify you to 55m on air, but surely in our modern times this should not be the objective?

Chris
(IANTD "Deep Air" diver - 40m CMAS 3* - 60m air )