Ken abucs
Contributor
Question: What is the max depth of EAN 22? The reason I ask, is it is my understanding that AIR (~21%) has a diver depth limit of ~212fsw for a properly trained diver (please correct if wrong), so would the 200fsw be within the limit of EAN 22?
It depends on what PPO you want to use. I'm pretty sure all agencys are teaching PPO of 1.4 for recreational nitrox. That would be an MOD of 177fsw for 22%. If you want to run a PPO of 1.6 the MOD would be 207fsw. By the time you got to 200fsw you'd already be in deco. One could argue that advanced nitrox would qualify you for this dive, but this whole discussion was based on us being recreational divers.
All in all doing a 200' dive would violate recreational standards on 3 points;
1) Exceeding 130fsw
2) Incurring a deco obligation
3) Exceeding 1.4 PPO
While he might have been an "adequate" basic scuba instructor I'd prefer my instructor be more than adequate. It was obvious in talking with him that he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Any instructor that indicates there are ways to violate the rules they just learned in front of new students is just plain scary.