What limits your bottom time?

[fresh_fish]

My buddy sucks gas like it's going out of style. Our last dive, we checked in at one point that I recall particularly well, I had 2100 and he had 1200. He had to repeat himself 3 times, cuz I didn't believe him!

 

[disccop75]

Gas Supply. I usually dont go deep enough to worry about NDL's.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

Question: What limits your bottom time?

Answer: My wife. She needs to be in the right mood (Ohhh now stop it! I am talking about diving!).

My dives (like my personality ) are typically shallow, so gas is the limiting factor these days.

Best wishes.

 

[Sas]

Should have made it a poll where you could pick multiple options

NDL limits me on most deeper dives. My buddy and I have similar air consumptions.

Also runtimes imposed by the boat can limit me to 45mins (or sometimes I am told 30mins but I have always argued that this is unreasonable and we tend to settle on 45mins). This can be unreasonable imho - a few times I have been told it is because they do not want new divers waiting on the boat. Given the cost I pay for a boat dive I do not think that this is my problem.

For shallow dives, it is the cold. In summer I can spend over two hours in the water but in winter it usually is around an hour and a half before I start really getting cold.

 

[ivobj]

I marked Air consumption, but in reality this is just one case, if recreational I worry about NDL, if tech, it is not exactly air compsumption, there should be an option for dive plan, but since by planing the dive usually the gas consumption is part of the plan, by extending further the botton time you would be loosing your safety margin on the gas, so air consumption is good enough.

 

[Stoy D Dabbs]

When I do deep dive, I use my double LP95's fill with air, However my dives is base NDL on PADI/DSAT Tables.

 

[Walter]

All of those and others have limited my bottom time. It depends on the dive. Like Bob mentioned, hunger and needing to sleep are two you left off. I once came up because my dive was 4 hours long in a very limited area. I didn't want someone ofnthe beach to think I was dead and call EMS. I've ended dives because stroms had blown in. I've even ended dives because, even though I was wearing only a swim suit, I was getting over heated. I've ended dives because someone from the boat was injured. I ended a dive once because I'd been stung (lack of attention on my part) by a Bristle worm and was starting to have trouble breathing. Once I ended a dive to stop from being eaten. I've also ended dives for no reason I could pinpoint, just a general feeling of uneasiness. There are lots of reasons to end dives.

 

[ligersandtions]

It really depends....

Most of my diving is shore diving - and most of the sites around here are shallow from the shore. So that means NDL is rarely the limiting factor. And since I dive with an HP130, gas is also rarely a limiting factor.

If my hubby's my buddy, he's usually the limiting factor, but not because he sucks through his gas quicker than I do....but because he gets bored easily (not really into the macro life we have around here for the most part).

When I dive with other buddies, temperature is generally the limiting factor (and yes, I dive dry....I still get cold).

 

[spacemanspiff1974]

On technical dives it would be my air consumption and how excess decompression can be a factor as I plan my dive and dive my plan.

On recreational dives it is usually my NDL. However it can be a buddy if the buddy is an air hog. I've also aborted a dive because I got too cold.

One other factor that is not mentioned has also shortened my dive time. I have a bit of acid reflux which can be a bit of a problem in the horizontal position. If I forget to take tums before I dive I can sometimes be in pain from heartburn. Then it becomes a balance between how cool the dive is versus how much pain I am in.

 

[Rainer]

(and yes, I dive dry....I still get cold).

Dry gloves...