Posted by Ken Kurtis on October 30, 2000 at 23:12:14:
In Reply to: Now where getting somewhere... posted by MHK on October 30, 2000 at 14:41:26:
(Gee Michael and I having a calm, rational discussion about nitrox. Maybe there's still hope in the Middle East as well.)
Like I said, my question has nothing to do with a comparative analysis of air vs. nitrox. It's strictly an air question.
The reason I posed it is that, perhaps in my biased anti-nitrox reading of things, the implication that many seem to be making is that diving the Yukon on air is dangerous so, therefore, the only logical way to dive the wreck is on nitrox.
You seem to be the first to listen to my point and even though you would not make air your first gas ogf choice, you seem to agree that, yes, the dive can be done safely on air. (And whether nitrox is a "better" choice wasn't part of my question. I wanted the discussion strictly limited to air.)
And forgetting the longer bottom times and shorter surface intervals (because once you start getting into nitrox tables you are comparing apples and oranges, and also change the parameters of the "safer-than" arguments) . . .
My point is simply that if I dive it on air and you dive it on nitrox, both of us using air tables (and we use your bottom times/pixels as an example), that if I'm not bent and you're not bent but you're more not bent than I am . . . I still don't see what you've really gained.
Because, as you say, the "safety margin" is going to vary diver to diver and even dive to dive depending on a myriad of personal differences that are impossible to calculate.
The goal of the dive (in terms of N2 management) is not to get bent. It's pass/fail so you either are, or you aren't. And if we both aren't bent, we both pass, even though you're "not bent" may be "safer" than mine.
I guess I look at it somewhat akin to air consumption. The goal is not run out. If you come back with 500psi and I come back with 1000psi, as long as we both did not run out of air, we acheived the goal.
Ken Kurtis
NAUI Instr. #5936
Co-owner, Reef Seekers Dive Co.
beverly Hills, Ca.