squidster:
I am thinking about taking a nitrox class ,
I have heard its Great stuff.
Please provide some info + and --:mooner:
I basically agree with the ShakeyBrainDude!
But I'll give you a real world example. If you are diving Jupiter FL, the reefs are a flat profile at about 80fsw. There is no additional risk of O2 Toxicity because there is a bottom. One can do three tanks dives at approx 45 mintues using EANX36 with standard 1 hour surface intravals. In fact this is Exactly the diving I've done at Jupiter, and on one boat there was ONE diver diving air. He missed out on a LOT of stuff, and I think was rather unhappy about the situation. He also sat around on the boat waiting for us to surface. But even with his longer surface intervals, his BT NDL was still in the 20 minute range for every dive.
If diving air, one get's three twenty five minute dives at Jupiter.
So you are playing over $100 to dive these reefs. Everyone on board has Nikrox but you. You accumulate 75 minutes of BT while the rest of the divers are down for 135 minutes total or almost twice the time. They come up with stories of seeing things, cool things like Huge Jewfish, Nurse sharks, spotted eagle rays, and interesting ledges and formations that you missed because you were doing a SS after just 20 minutes.
This is the real advantage of Nitrox. However I believe I feel less tired vs. diving air, but there has been no study confirming that belief.
If you are doing 30~40fsw reefs, than the NDL is hours, and no boat OP is going to give you much over 1 hours. During the invasion one Op did give us 80 minutes on Molassas Reef, but that is definatley outside the norm as we basically had the boat chartered by SB folks, and if we left a bit late for the PM dive, well, we were all already on the boat during the AM dive so no problem.