AOW deep diving question

[k374]

I'm going to be starting my AOW next month. I have 52 dives logged (in less than a year so a good bit of recent diving!!) and have been over 100' many times without issues, my maximum being 123ft so I am already comfortable with the recreational depth limits. I have not consciously experienced narcosis and would like to experience and recognize the symptoms in a controlled environment (with the instructor) by going to 130'+ if possible... I hear that some people have sudden onset of narcosis after a particular depth. Is it reasonable to make such a request to an instructor as part of the AOW deep dive or is he going to look at me like I have a few screws loose in my head?

The AOW course material says maximum of 100ft which may be deep but doesn't present anything new for me to learn from or experience.

 

[bane51031]

Max. is a 100ft. Alot of instructors around here only go too 60-70 feet, sounds like you have experience in deeper dives but, as this is a course requirement you will have too go with the flow. Also as an instructor myself, when we do the deep dive portion of the AOW we do the color chart and still have the student perform a task on the surface then repeat at depth too show some effect of narcosis, however we do not drop in just to show the effects of sudden onset of narcosis by going deep enough to drastically affect the student, you wouldn't really remember it anyways.

 

[elan]

I'm going to be starting my AOW next month. I have 52 dives logged (in less than a year so a good bit of recent diving!!) and have been over 100' many times without issues, my maximum being 123ft so I am already comfortable with the recreational depth limits. I have not consciously experienced narcosis and would like to experience and recognize the symptoms in a controlled environment (with the instructor) by going to 130'+ if possible... I hear that some people have sudden onset of narcosis after a particular depth. Is it reasonable to make such a request to an instructor as part of the AOW deep dive or is he going to look at me like I have a few screws loose in my head?

The AOW course material says maximum of 100ft which may be deep but doesn't present anything new for me to learn from or experience.

PADI instructor will not take you past 100' ft on a course and I believe they have it set as a limit, probably for liability

You do not have to go past 130' to experience the screw up. Just ask your instructor to task load you in the 100 range, you will feel the narc,

Recently when we dove to 100 ft I felt Ok at 100 ft while once I got some task loading to do at 70 ft I immediately felt the narc, I realized that my responses were quite slow.

IF you experience it even further just buy a ticket into a hyperbaric chamber

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Going to 100 feet and just looking at your gauges, doing a combination lock, or a couple math problems doesn't really task load most people. That is why in my deep dive we start with a few quick math problems. Then I tie off a reel and do a swim of about 100 feet horizontally. Once we get there I hand the reel to the student and they need to bring us back in to the platform. Oh and it is dark, and there is 3-6 feet of silt that we are swimming 2 feet above. The student has to bring us back keeping tension on the reel, when we get to the platform they need to untie it, secure the line, and hand it to me. Then just as we start the ascent I pull an OOA and we share air horizontally to the 50 foot stop where we retrieve the stages and finish the dive as a multilevel. If someone is going to show the effects it will be during the tie off swim and return. And If they look at me goofy when I drop my reg and signal OOA or get wide-eyed and look like they are getting ready to bolt it clearly demonstrates the effects.

I consider min depth for deep 85-90 feet. 60-70 may meet standards but not in my book. That would be taking a short cut and not preparing the student for an actual deep dive.

 

[ptyx]

Narcosis is an elusive beast. I've done dives at 150ft where I felt fine (doesn't mean I was), but got noticeably narced at 100ft on at least one occasion. The question isn't 'are you?', but 'how much?'.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Or just how does it affect you. We have all known those who can drink a case and APPEAR ok. But would you trust your kids to ride with them? Then there are those who for whatever reason take one drink and are buttheads one time and perfectly ok the next. Impairment is subjective and only experience gained over time will GIVE AN IDEA of how you are affected and to what degree. It is no guarantee of that every time.

 

[seacreatures]

There are functional drunks and functional Narcs and the more you experience the effect and learn to recognize how it effects YOU. I think all deep diving should include a dive to 130ft or more so you learn the "Bogyman" will not grab you and take you down the rabbit hole. It is common practice to do a deep dive to 120 or 130ft with an instructor before doing the Blue Hole in Belize to make sure how you will react at 140ft plus or minus. I have seen some pretty strange behavior from people at 120ft plus and all of them remembered their experience and learned from it. If your an active diver you have to set YOUR limits for yourself (Within safe practices and experience) and take responsibility for your decision.

 

[Thalassamania]

The point of a deep course should not be narcosis, that's a sidelight. Focus should be on equipment, planning, deco theory, gas management, etc. I could run an excellent deep diving course that never went deeper than 30' and that used a 160 ft chamber run to teach about narcosis.

 

[spectrum]

The AOW course material says maximum of 100ft which may be deep but doesn't present anything new for me to learn from or experience.

Well hopefully your instructor can redeem himself and you will learn something. Making dives to 100' does not mean you did so with a full knowledge base. Without knowing your prior knowledge and equipment you may end the course much less comfortable about pushing the century mark.

The meat of the dive should be in the planning and execution of the plan. Second is demonstrating that at a moderately deep depth you really are impaired whether you have noticed or not. Pushing you to the limit until you are whacked out of your gourd or freaking out is not the objective.

If the instructor is less than gifted then it may help to have a list of questions to help get some value from the class. It is possible that you will be taken for a quick dive to 65 feet and given an at-a-boy. Sad but true.

Pete

 

[ktomlinson]

I have heard "taught" from both my ow and aow instructors that getting narced is a lot like drinking alcohol. I have very limited experience, but the one time I felt that I was narced it was more a feeling of paranoia similar to the feeling of consuming too much of a certain recreational drug. I was in 120' and was exerting myself due to a pretty strong current, which I was told could make narcosis more likely. I too was concerned with wanting to feel what narcosis was all about so that I could recognize it...the dive I experienced it on was during aow. I know that if an instructor wanted to call a 60-70 ft dive a deep dive I would find another instructor, 60-70 is where we were doing drills in my ow class.