You can drown just as easily at 50 feet as 100. As you go deeper you'll notice that clearing your ears starts getting easier beyond about 30 feet. At least it does for me. A little deeper and I can do it without touching my nose. I did the Speigle Grove on my tenth dive with an instructor so I pretty much broke in on deep water. After a lot of dives to around 120-130 feet I get pretty much bored with an hour long shallow reef dive. You might feel the same. As one poster said, watch your pressure gauge. Your air will go fast especially if you are a new diver and use a lot of air anyway. Since you will be taking a course you'll surely be accompanied by an instructor. He/she will be watching you air supply.
Going to 100' for the 1st time (little nervous lol)
- Thread starter USVet96
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Three things come to mind, which you probably have already heard / will hear from your instructor. 1) As noted in another post, watch your pressure gauge regularly. You will use your air more rapidly at depth, and possibly a little more rapidly simply because you are descending toward 'the unknown', and it is easy to get distracted by what you are seeing, and by the thought of being at depth, and forget to monitor your SPG. The goal is not only to know what your pressure is at a particular moment, but to evaluate how rapidly you are using air during the dive (which requires several checks at fairly regular time intervals) to anticipate when you will want to turn the dive and begin your ascent. Since you are doing the dive as part of a Deep speciality, I suspect you will have 'help' remembering to check it, however. 2) Depending on the visibility on the particular day and site you are diving, you may not see your 'destination' (I presume it is a wreck - real or 'artificial') until you get below 60-70 feet. It can be unnerving the first time that you dive into the green abyss, and have only the descent line as a reference while you drop into darker, featureless water. Turn the descent into a learning experience by watching your depth gauge as you descend, and note when you first actually see the wreck. 3) I presume you will be actively coached on maintaining a safe ascent rate at the end of the dive. It is also useful to keep your buoyancy under control on the descent as well. While you don't want to descend so slowly that you use most of your air before reaching to wreck, you also don't want to build up such a rapid descent rate in the last 20 ft that you either smack the wreck or add so much air to your BCD in a very short period (to avoid smacking the wreck) that you actually become positive, and immediately begin ascending. If you add enough air to your BCD during the descent to allow you to easily slow your descent as you approach the bottom, you will only have to add a puff or two at depth to achieve neutrality.
Out of curiosity, at what site will you do the dive? There are several good (artificial reef) wrecks just north of Miami, such as the Capt. Dan, that come to mind when you mention a 100' dive.
Thanks for ALL the feedback. There are some comments I want to address.
In an overexcited state of mind I omitted a few particulars. As to the AOW course, I am taking the Deep specialty in conjunction WITH the AOW; as well as EAN. So it breaks down this way:
Dive 1 (100' - really dive 2 of Deep specialty)
Dive 2 (75' - dive 1 of Deep specialty and ALSO deep dive 1 for AOW)
*** These 2 dives are same day boat
Dive 3 (Nav - dive 2 of AOW)
Dive 4 (Wreck - dive 3 of AOW)
Dive 5 (Recovery - dive 4 of AOW)
Dive 6 (Night - dive 5 of AOW)
Then Dive 7 and Dive 8 (don't know depth yet) for Deep specialty completion.
All dives will be using EAN.
Early in the post I meant NARCOSIS not TOXICITY so thanks for catching that.
And EVERY ONE of the comments, as usual from the members (thanks), has been full of insight and knowledge.
I will surely use almost every bit of it.
PS - 90% of this is still in the planning stage so if there is a better way to get all this accomplished that I am not seeing please let me know.
USVet
In an overexcited state of mind I omitted a few particulars. As to the AOW course, I am taking the Deep specialty in conjunction WITH the AOW; as well as EAN. So it breaks down this way:
Dive 1 (100' - really dive 2 of Deep specialty)
Dive 2 (75' - dive 1 of Deep specialty and ALSO deep dive 1 for AOW)
*** These 2 dives are same day boat
Dive 3 (Nav - dive 2 of AOW)
Dive 4 (Wreck - dive 3 of AOW)
Dive 5 (Recovery - dive 4 of AOW)
Dive 6 (Night - dive 5 of AOW)
Then Dive 7 and Dive 8 (don't know depth yet) for Deep specialty completion.
All dives will be using EAN.
Early in the post I meant NARCOSIS not TOXICITY so thanks for catching that.
And EVERY ONE of the comments, as usual from the members (thanks), has been full of insight and knowledge.
I will surely use almost every bit of it.
PS - 90% of this is still in the planning stage so if there is a better way to get all this accomplished that I am not seeing please let me know.
USVet
Good work guys, he should really be ****ting his pants by now 
Good work guys, he should really be ****ting his pants by now
Haha. Nah it's all in good fun. I look forward to the challenge and the excitement.
After all, I learned in life that "whatever doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, and if it does, well at least you went out fighting"
Pork Chop
Registered
Trust your instructor, I am sure you will be well taken cared for...............Fear is fun......♠ Sometimes!:cool2:
reefvagabond
Contributor
I just did a deep specialty so that I would know what it's like past 100 feet with an instructor. To be honest, I did not feel any different. I probably thought slower but I couldn't really tell. I paid attention to how much No Decompression Time I had left, how much air I had left, and how deep I was. I think focusing on that didn't really let the narcosis have anything to take a hold of, or at least that's what I was taught.
It was cold for me past 100 feet, but then I was in 52 degree F water. I also had add a TON of air to my BC at past 100 feet, just a ton. I was surprised at how much I had to add. All in all though, it wasn't a scary or as a big a deal as I thought. Have fun!
It was cold for me past 100 feet, but then I was in 52 degree F water. I also had add a TON of air to my BC at past 100 feet, just a ton. I was surprised at how much I had to add. All in all though, it wasn't a scary or as a big a deal as I thought. Have fun!
KY_BOB
Contributor
USV, if your comfortable at 50', you'll be comfortable at 100'. Don't worry about it, just think about what you were instructed about depth. I won't go into everything previously mentioned. The water temp in south FL shouldn't be an issue. Just keep you head screwed on straight. You may or may not feel slight signs of narcosis but it will not be debilitating. You may have to put a bit more thought into you actions but it's no big deal (at that depth).
My SSI deep class dives were done at 130' in warm clear water (Bonaire) and I had no signs of narcosis. I have since been narked at 110' in a cold dark cave. Even then, it just required more thought to do the same task.
Depth is and isn't not just a #. There is increased risk but your brain is you you most important tool, use it. You'll do fine.
My SSI deep class dives were done at 130' in warm clear water (Bonaire) and I had no signs of narcosis. I have since been narked at 110' in a cold dark cave. Even then, it just required more thought to do the same task.
Depth is and isn't not just a #. There is increased risk but your brain is you you most important tool, use it. You'll do fine.
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