Deep Air Poll. Well, Someone Has To Put Their Head Over The Parapet...

[Dirty-Dog]

I've dove to a max of 155FW on air without being significantly narced (in Cenote Angelita, with a single AL100 and an AL40 pony) but I don't think I'd make a habit of it, nor do I think I'd care to go deeper than that on air. That particular dive was done to see the gas cloud from underneath, which doesn't take long so there's no need to incur any deco unless you just want to.

 

[eternaljonah]

i used to dive air but as my instructor told me it for my bike tire's only. I only dive nitrox now, deep or not

 

[Doppler]

i used to dive air but as my instructor told me it for my bike tire's only. I only dive nitrox now, deep or not

Wonder who that was?!

 

[Lorenzoid]

I have felt the narc at as little as 90 feet, and at 100 I almost always feel it. After 30 years (and 100,000+ miles) of DRIVING I would feel safe driving on the highway after chugging a single beer, but after 10 years or so (and 200+ dives) of DIVING I do not feel safe at 100 feet with the same feeling of having just chugged a beer. When I heard it described as "Martini's Law," I said "YES, that's it in a nutshell."

 

[Akimbo]

I have always been comfortable in the 180-200’ range on air. 220-230 is workable but requires more concentration unless I have made a number of these dives within a few days. The weird thing is I haven’t noticed any change as I get older, which I fully expected.

 

[Jared0425]

I have done 213' in Lake Huron, and I don't think I will do that again. Usually I will stay above 200 with a 15 minute runtime. Narcosis has set in at 100ft one day, then felt fine at 180' the next. It affects people in different ways on different days.

 

[tracydr]

I've done up to 135' on air, but nowadays I pretty much limit myself to 100' or less. I find that for me, in the environment that I dive, (cold dark water), narcosis tends to bring on feelings of panic and impending doom and I don't like it at all. I've never actually panicked and bolted for the surface, but I have been freaked out to the extent that I believe I wasn't thinking rationally and could easily have become a liability to my buddy.

I may do it again in the future, but anything over 120' I'd like to work up to in a series of dives. That panicky dark nark sensation is something that I need to overcome first and I don't think I'll ever be one of those divers that goes beyond 165' on air.

Clear warm water might change my perspective on things though.

exactly how I feel and I really dislike the feeling. I've had it as shallow as 125 feet in cold water. I hate the feeling and also find I'm not good at making decisions or handling my buoyancy of my drysuit as I ascend to get out of it. Especially if something bad happens, like the vertigo I experienced on on dive, from cold water entering my ill-fitting hood.
I'll stay shallow from now on, until I'm trained with trimix. No more dives greater than 100 feet on air.

 

[Superlyte27]

I used to dive deep on air. But it's a much better experience on Helium. You get to see more, you get to relax more, you get to remember more. There's more detail to every feeling you're taking in visually.

Thankfully (maybe), over the last few years, I was only doing a handful of deep 200'+ dives per year. So to scrounge up a few hundred bucks a year on helium wasn't that big of a deal. Recently I started diving my rebreather 250+. I can make an entire week of diving to 300' on less than $20 bucks worth of helium. Deep Air is a thing of the past for me. Unless Helium becomes completely unavailable, I'll never be forced to do it again.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I used to dive deep on air. But it's a much better experience on Helium. You get to see more, you get to relax more, you get to remember more. There's more detail to every feeling you're taking in visually.

Thankfully (maybe), over the last few years, I was only doing a handful of deep 200'+ dives per year. So to scrounge up a few hundred bucks a year on helium wasn't that big of a deal. Recently I started diving my rebreather 250+. I can make an entire week of diving to 300' on less than $20 bucks worth of helium. Deep Air is a thing of the past for me. Unless Helium becomes completely unavailable, I'll never be forced to do it again.

So a re-breather is safer than deep air.. or are you using that gear because you are too cheap to buy a tank of helium?

 

[Superlyte27]

So a re-breather is safer than deep air.. or are you using that gear because you are too cheap to buy a tank of helium?

Both. A rebreather is safer than deep air for the dives I do, and I'm too cheap to buy a tank of helium.