These are not physiological changes based on depth
A shark in 15' of water is just as amazing as at 80'.
Agreed. Though I would say I'm more relaxed with the shark at 80, I'm willing to concede that it may be the structure I'm close to or the feeding habits of sharks that offer that security. I'm open-minded on the subject.
It'd take hours on hours to get hypothermia in the waters I dive shorts in...
But you are in fact spending that much time underwater because it's so shallow and you have so much bottom time
Diving deep? You're cutting your dive short, with increased gas consumption, possibly also by staying within NDL times if your not trained for decompression diving. I like to dive, cutting my dives shorter to reach some magic number is counterproductive. Especially if its something I can view shallower.
I don't disagree. The lighting is better for photography as well, though in our area viz is usually crappier closer in.
We don't negate it completely, but we do the best we can to cut narcosis back as much as possible. Its damn sure not the reason we dive to depth
Agreed. But I'm saying
all else equal, most people will chose deep.
My point is... after burning an AL80 for two hours on the 30' dive. I'm going to have A MUCH better understanding of what I was looking at than the diver at 90'.
I totally agree!
I think you're making an incredibly incorrect generalization about 'most folks'. I think people would much more likely take 3x the bottom time, 3x the experience, rather than 3x the depth.
I'm open to the fact that my view of the general dive population may be dim on the subject, but I'm including all divers, not just the ones that dive regularly. I know I was all about hitting 130 when I first got started, but I learned, well before I passed 100ft that depth was, pretty much a number, and that the extra planning and resources for deeper dives made them best reserved for special circumstances.
I'm not saying there's no reason to go deep. Sometimes what you want to see IS deep(and I'm not talking about the numbers ticking by on your depth gauge). Depth for the sake of depth, is stupid <--no doubt about it.
I agree again. Your original question was about why depth for depth's sake was attractive. I think I offered a reasonably good answer for that: 1. Physiological feedback. 2. People want to press limits (even imagined ones). How many divers have died in pursuit of depth or penetration records? Even the man who wrote the cave bible himself died going deep did he not?
There is no therapeutic value to diving recreational nitrox mixes to their maximum operating depth.
Personally I believe there is a therapeutic, physiological value to diving recreational depths and mixes well within the established safety limits.
But I want to be clear that I never suggested, hinted, advocated, or thought about meeting or exceeding nitrox mixes to their maximum operating depth. Same goes for no decompression limits. If someone got that idea then I apologize.