A question and some thoughts

[icantdive55]

I've looked through a few of the previous threads and decided to post this question. If it's been asked before, sorry for the repeat.

One day I decided that since I'm doing so much solo diving that I would see what depth I could do an ESA. Not a big deal. Then I decided to take an 80 cu/ft cylinder with 300 psi in it to a depth of 60 feet. Breathing off my back gas I then switched regulators and consumed all the air that the tank and regulator would give me. When I took my last breath I then switched back to my back gas and ascended to 30 feet. I pressed the purge on the out of air regulator and it worked. I then took 3 breaths before it ran out again. At 10 feet I did the same thing and after 4 breaths I simply ascended to the surface still breathing lightly off the out of air regulator. Have any of you done a similar expiriment? What were your results? And yes when I got home and removed the tank valve it did have a couple of tablespoons of water in it.

 

[randy54]

Back when diving was for real men, and they beat you damn near to death to make sure you could survive, learning to assend on a single breath was a norm, not really taught today. I did an open water in 1970, and had to do an accent from 80fsw with no reg in my mouth. after a 20+ yr layoff, I went through another open water, and the requirement was try not to breath off the reg from 40fsw. We were also taught back then. that in general, you should be able to accend from almost any depth on one breath, provided you exhaled nice and slow, but not so slow you blew your lungs up.

 

[redacted]

Interesting experiment and I am surprised at the results. I would not have expected that many more breaths.

But you might want to post this in the basic scuba forum as it may be more interesting to other divers who might not have a readily available alternate air source.