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Curtis Dawson
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wedivebc I am trying to plan ahead
Deeper Diving equipment
- Thread starter Curtis Dawson
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Well let's look at it this way. There are a very small handful of people on this forum who have been that deep. Myself included. Any information provided on this forum in relation to the question will either be BS or just regurgitating advertising hype found on the internet. I would not base your regulator or computer buying decision on what you read here and furthermore by the time you get to the point where you are ready to execute such a dive you will have been through so many equipment buying cycles you won't even remember what reg you are using now.
My best advice is buy a computer and reg that suits what you are doing now then when you want to go that deep buy a good solid rebreather and use your OC regs for bailout.
But please take whatever I say with a grain of salt because I probably don't know what I'm talking about either.
flots am
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I've never been to 500'. Unless I screw up and it's a one way trip, I will never go there either.
That said, I wouldn't rely on any off-the shelf computer at that kind of depth, and would much prefer a printed dive plan, timer and depth gauge, since a dead computer could easily mean "dead you".
A dive like that also requires planning, surface support and almost certainly requires surface supplied gas, and probably surface supplied warm water for your suit, since a 10 minute dive will require about a thousand cubic feet of gas (multiple gases), and more than 7 hours of deco, if nothing goes wrong. It might be possible on a rebreather, but I have no idea how you would bring that much bail-out gas with you, making a rebreather failure fatal.
I'm hoping this is just a case of curiosity and not anything you're actually considering.
flots.
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Vegan Shark
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Are there actually any sites, say wrecks, that require diving 500'+ to get to? I understand that sometimes people just want to push the limits of their abilities or their sport, but just doesn't seem worth all that planning, resources, and personal risk all to be able to brag, "Yeah, I went to 500'" in the pub afterwards. Unless there's buried treasure at 500', screw it.
The short answer is yes, there are wrecks that deep, and much deeper.
I personally have not been to 500', only to a little over half that. However, I have done a lot of deep dives that didn't involve wrecks (or really anything worth looking at) in order to practice and build up to deeper dives. I have some goals in mind to dive some 300' wrecks, none of which will be my first 300' dive.
Vegan Shark
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Realistically, how long do people actually get to spend at those depths looking at the wrecks/etc. before they have to head back up?
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What about going to a rebreather? Seems like it would make a lot more sense. Less deco and almost unlimited gas.
MalibuJerry
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until you have watched your spg needle move towards critical while swimming in a current at sub 200' you don't fully appreciate what a rebreather can do for you in very deep dives. It is definitely the right tool. So, if you are planning ahead, you are going to need a constant PO2 rebreather computer and you are going to need to know your dive table in your head as well as contingency plans -- as said before, buy what suits your current diving and don't worry about that 500' dive. When you get there, the cost of a computer will be the smallest cost you will be paying.
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