Before nitrox, I just wanted to sleep all day after diving. Now, my wife doesn’t know how to handle my appetite after three tanks! *looks and smiles at the camera* THANKS NITROX!
I have used nitrox since it became widely used --
approved of, by the powers that be -- in the early 1990s, though still primarily dive on air. I have yet to experience
any difference from air use, in terms of increased energy or subsequent lack of fatigue -- though have frequently heard that claim.
To the OP, I would take the nitrox class at your leisure -- which can be completed, in some cases, over the course of an afternoon. I had lost some C-cards some time ago; and NAUI, to their chagrin, had no record of my nitrox certification on their books, since it was, they claimed, before any widespread computer use or the interwebs. They opted to put me through an online test that very day, which a counting horse from a local county fair could pass, with flying colors.
They FEDEX'd me a bright, shiny card within days.
Nitrox certainly came in handy a couple of years back, while visiting a friend in Jupiter, FLA. All of those dives, off that Inlet, were at 20 to 30 meters of depth. Had I been simply using air, there would have been far less time for sight-seeing -- and too much concern of exceeding the NDL . . .