When is it not worth it anymore?

[Diver0001]

Just wondering how people feel about this.

I'm what many of you might consider a "baby" tek diver. I make about 50 deco dives a year but they're all pretty tame. I don't dive deep (never deeper than about 50m), I've never made a run longer than about 2 hours and normally I never spend more time ascending than I did on the bottom.

To my way of thinking if you're spending more time ascending than you do on the bottom then the point of the dive starts to elude me. Am I just being lazy or are there others out there who think like I do... that there are limits to how much crap they want to take with them under water?

R..

 

[rhwestfall]

I am entering the tech-lite realm to appropriately plan & execute very minor deco situations, and to possibly utilize He to take a bite out of the narcosis issues of deep(er) cold water situations....

with your statement, the term "marginal utility" from my college economics class comes to mind.... interested to see how far I take this upcoming training..

 

[Corleone]

what a fantastic thread..

im almost going to start my tec40 soon BUT when reading about other people dives and how some spent around 1 hour and sometimes it could get up to 2 or even 3 hours of deco stops !!

some people can't tolerate a 3 min safety stop at 5 meter !!

i like the idea of going deeper, explore more while being prepared for it but thinking about all those deco stops !! eeehhhh

enlighten us..

 

[flots am]

To my way of thinking if you're spending more time ascending than you do on the bottom then the point of the dive starts to elude me. Am I just being lazy or are there others out there who think like I do... that there are limits to how much crap they want to take with them under water?

Me, for sure.

I've gone the whole route from single tank BC rec gear to BP/W with 120Lbs of steel doubles and deco dives in high current, to sidemount, and have recently decided that the happiest parts of the dive were always still, warm, sunny and shallow watching the fish do their fish-things.

I no longer care if I see any more deep, cold wrecks that require 200 Lbs of gear, a printed plan and a great buddy.

Maybe I'm jaded, but it's just a sunken boat. A little bigger, a little smaller laying on it's side, upright, in pieces. Whatever. It doesn't seem to make much of a difference anymore.

I might consider a little deco if there's something really cool to see, but most of my dives are now in the 20'-80' range and the less equipment I bring, the happier I am. It's just not worth it anymore.

My very favorite dives are now solo, 20'-30' with a back mounted 45 and a 19 pony. It's like diving with pretty much nothing.

flots

 

[PfcAJ]

It all depends on the value you place on what you see at the bottom. Its quite a personal decision. Personally, I don't mind the deco in order to see neato stuff.

 

[muzikbiz22]

There's always a rebreather

 

[The Chairman]

Elena and I recently did a 495 ft dive off of Curacao. That we were on a rebreather made it doable. I have oftened admonished my students about going deeper and deeper since most of the life was above 130 ft. I was astounded during this dive at how true this was. There was amazing life at sixty feet, but by the time we got to 130 it was less than half. At two hundred feet I figured we were seeing less than %10 of the life we saw at sixty. At three hundred feet it was getting rare and really at five hundred we saw a solitary lion fish. All this work for a lion fish? Wow. I came away with a different perspective that day.

By the way, we were in a submarine. It was worth seeing that deep once and mind you: I was happy that we did not have to hump a single tank to the boat!

 

[Phil_C]

Yes - well done returner, a good and thought provoking thread. Personally I am not in the first flush of youth anymore and increasingly find myself questioning why I am doing things, I still climb a little, but no longer take the (calculated) risks I used to, and that is also true of my diving.

I do about 100 dives a year, mostly above 45m and I tend to stay within NDL's for most dives, or plan only very light deco commitments. I want to get trained for Trimix and deeper mixes, and accelerated deco, so I have the option, skills and know what I am doing, but actually I keep coming back round to thinking that if I am not going to be using it regularly and doing that sort of dive is it really worth the cost and the increased risk, especially as I am unlikely to use it all the time so may not get really proficient at it?

I like seeing the natural environment, rather than wrecks, and in my experience I tend to find more in the way of posidonia, kelp and 'wildlife' and so on in the shallower depths.

So I am really at a bit of a crossroads - the badge collector in me (there I have said it, "burn the witch!") says 'go on do it', get some more qualifications, but the sensible head says it is not worth it and won't really make me a happier diver as I won't use the skills that often, and I won't see much I can't see and enjoy just as well or better a bit shallower, and I certainly would not look forward to long deco hangs!

I would have to have a really special reason to do a dive where I spent far more time hanging in deco than I did at the bottom, but then that is just me.

Phil.

 

[kensuf]

I hope you speared the lion fish. They're invasive. But tasty.

 

[BRT]

I hope you speared the lion fish. They're invasive. But tasty.

He was going to but the submarine operator and the other passengers got all upset when he pulled out his speargun