Posted by MikeR on November 23, 2001 at 11:00:40:
In Reply to: Re: Nitrox should be part of OW posted by finfan on November 22, 2001 at 17:52:19:
My 2 cents worth....
I'm not one of the gas guys but did get nitrox certified a number of years ago. In my typical week I spend all week at work anticipating diving on the weekend and making sure my gear is ready after work etc... I realized that having the correct gear for each given situation went a long ways towards ensuring that the weekends and dives went well. Even diving conservatively, nitrox gives me the following benefits:
More bottom time...I dive air tables typically but can dive right on their limits since at least 10% of margin is built into the gas.
More energy....It takes a lot more to wear me out on nitrox. Unproven but obviously true to me...
More awareness at depth / Less narcosis... I can think more clearly on deeper dives because the Equivalent Nitrogen Depth is much less. Nitrox increased my comfortable range to a much deeper depth. I dove at 135 or 140 this past weekend, yet felt like my depth (really my E.N.D.) was less than 120'
Also when I do dive the Nitrox tables at the intermediate depth ranges of 70-90ft with higher percentage mixes like 36%, I get almost a full hour of NDL bottom time and can maximize my time on the bottom or in some wreck. (90ft=50 min NDL)
In conclusion, I say that given the time spent on surface intervals, descending and ascending are constants (non-diving time), its worth it to spend a few more bucks to actually spend more time on the bottom. Making another dive is an option but you also incur so much non-diving time that the benefits are obviously in favor of Nitrox. All these details are what people mean when they say they don't understand why everybody doesn't dive nitrox. If it was easier to get I would dive it 100% of the time...