AOW Deep dive yesterday....

[cummings66]

What she said.

I was trying to give you a different outlook, either way you did fine and congrats on actually setting a turn pressure and sticking to it. That's actually not as common as it should be.

 

[Kevrumbo]

The shallow breathing at depth causes CO2 retention and contributed to your dark narc. And it's difficult to slow it down once it starts. For me, bad viz creates anxiety and I have to watch myself lest I get caught up in the cycle. It's important to remember that as you ascend, you're air consumption will drop. You'll be breathing half as much at 50 feet than at 100. All you need to do is keep in mind your rock bottom, which was 1500 psi on your dive, and as soon as you start ascending, your gas consumption will look more reasonable. The next time is going to be a lot easier.

RH, I wouldn't wish this effect on any Diver: It took me a full 20 minutes to slow my breathing rate down; desperately hanging onto a support column on an Oil Rig in a full bore current; 150 feet down in mid-50's deg F water temperature with 10 foot viz. Was the first and absolutely last time I'll ever do Deep Air here in cold So. Calif. waters.

 

[ClayJar]

It's important to remember that as you ascend, you're air consumption will drop. You'll be breathing half as much at 50 feet than at 100.

Not that I'm one to pick nits, but since everyone seems to be taking their AOW, it's probably worth it to point out that you'll be breathing half as much at 33 feet as at 100 feet. (33 fsw = 2 ata, 100 fsw = 4 ata.)

(I remember my first 100' dive. Other than having to pop a few more bursts of air in my BC to compensate for neoprene compression and feeling the additional chill of cold water combined with decreased insulation, it was a perfectly normal dive for me. I suppose I was just well prepared for it, or maybe it was that the visibility that far down was *outstanding*.)

((Incidentally, regarding the dark narc, I encountered that in a deep, cold quarry dive once. It was not a pleasant feeling, but I concentrated on normalizing my breathing for a couple minutes. I *quite* appreciated it when I felt normal again a few minutes and vertical feet later.))

 

[TheRedHead]

Not that I'm one to pick nits, but since everyone seems to be taking their AOW, it's probably worth it to point out that you'll be breathing half as much at 33 feet as at 100 feet. (33 fsw = 2 ata, 100 fsw = 4 ata.)

If you are breathing hard because of a dark narc, you'll be consuming less than 1/2 at 50 feet than panting at 100 feet because you'll start to relax.

Kevrumbo, I "overbreathed" my Zeagle Envoy once as 120 feet and it scared me so bad that as soon as I got home from my trip, I went out an bought an Apex ATX 200 with a flow adjustment, even though there is no reason why the Zeagle couldn't deliver air, I just wanted a knob! It was so hard to stop panting for air. I know what you mean.

 

[gmcalea]

I dive lake Travis almost every weekend. If you can dive in Travis you can dive anywhere

 

[TheRedHead]

I dive lake Travis almost every weekend. If you can dive in Travis you can dive anywhere

I used to believe that if you could dive a cold, dark body of water like a quarry or lake you could dive anywhere - until I encountered the same conditions plus ripping currents and waves.

 

[Steele]

crap im down 100 ft and if things go bad, I'm dead.

This statement/thought caught my eye. By 'bad', I assume (since the rest of your post discusses it) you mean breathing your tank down to zero and finding yourself OOA.

You are NOT dead if this happens. You are merely placed into an undesirable position. Granted, it's pretty stressful to go OOA, but that doesn't you are automatically dead. You know what to do. Implement the correct course of action as you have been trained to do.

Remember, there are several options available to you rather than closing your eyes and sucking in a lung-full of water.

If you are apprehensive about the depth, try to visualize on the surface just how far it really is. Mark off part of your back yard and study it. Look at that tree on the side of the road and measure off 100'. Lay out imaginary 10' tall men in a row. Cool, only 10 people long!

Trivialize the fear of depth by associating everyday objects into lengths of measure.

Granted you probably won't see too many 10' men around stacked head to foot on the ground, so you may want to substitute twenty 5' frenchmen.


Now that the depth of 100' is a little less stressful you can focus on other things, like not getting tangled up in all that invisible monofilament line that kills 300-400 divers a year.

 

[nolatom]

Those of you who do your deep air dives in that cold, dark water are better divers because of it. Folks like me who did this stuff off Destin in 79F, or who went down to 98' at the Flower Gardens as a very rookie diver, don't appreciate how easy that is compared to the North Atlantic or PNW.

I mostly dive warm, but once a year get up north (Cape, Mass. Bay) for some cold dark dives. Looking at my log, I started there at 30-40 feet, which was plenty, and only in my 6th year of diving up there have I gotten anywhere near 100' (this month, on the CHESTER POLING, a super wreck dive). I'm glad I waited and did this in stages rather than in a big scary bite in my first or second year. Warm water divers don't always fully appreciate that the practical difficulty of a 40' New England dive is greater than a 90' tropical one.

So, well done. Wait'll you try it down south, it's relaxing.

 

[mobster75]

nolatom:

I recall doing my first dives as Discover Dives in the Bahamas and my instructors brought me down to 50' (including one shark dive - way cool!) and I had no problems with that. Coming home and taking a class and seeing how different diving is up here almost got me to consider dropping the sport. But like most things, we get past the difficulties and find we actually like what we thought we wouldn't.

It's funny that you describe diving to 30-40ft up here as "cold dark dives". Heh. Because I consider those to be the opposite: Theres plenty of light, viz is great if its at least 12'-15', and I'm toasty warm since I've got a full 7mm w/ 3mm hooded vest and gloves on.. I'm really learning to love New England diving (which must sound kinda crazy to the warm water divers)! I dive 30-40ft a lot up here as I do a lot more shore dives since its cheaper.

I'm scheduled to do a couple 70'-90' wall dives on my trip to St. Croix in 10 days and I know I will have no problems with it because the temp and viz is soo much nicer. Aside from getting "dark narc'd" on my first deep dive up here, it kinda felt to me like we were diving in a cave because it almost does feel like having a ceiling overhead as looking up above 12', its just solid dark green. I was surprised how much light did filter down that far because I didn't need my dive light even though I had brought it.

Speaking of the USS Poling, the 2nd dive that I skipped because I was sick was a dive on the USS Poling (to be my AOW Wreck dive and wrap it up). But I didn't want to go back down to 95' feeling sick.

 

[RiverRat]

nolatom:
I recall doing my first dives as Discover Dives in the Bahamas and my instructors brought me down to 50' (including one shark dive - way cool!) and I had no problems with that. Coming home and taking a class and seeing how different diving is up here almost got me to consider dropping the sport. But like most things, we get past the difficulties and find we actually like what we thought we wouldn't.

Good job man! I did the same, Discover Scuba in St. Maarten then did my OW-AOW up here in the NE. Boy did that humble me! I only went to 60 ffw for my AOW deep but it was in a little pocket in a cold, dark quarry. Might as well been in a cave with a light failure I remember the numbing cold (48 I think) and barley making out the boulders we were next to. Our lights looked like candlelight down there. But I really learned alot on that dive. Cold water diving is great for skills, even if it's just in a local quarry or lake. For me, diving in as many different environments, fresh/salt/lake/quarry/ocean/tropical/cold/current/wreck/deep-wall/night etc. really helped me gain broad experience. Just keep diving and take it one step at a time.
You'll start to drop lead, your bouyancy control and SAC rate will improve, and diving will become easier and more enjoyable.