Is this bad?

[dkktsunami]

Were the other divers males? Women can, generally speaking, outbreathe men by a considerable margin.

 

[Skeeter1097]

No I would say that youare doing it right. If the avarage was 800 and had 2200. Verrygood. Welcome to the board.

 

[shellim123]

There were 2 women, the other woman had 500 psi left

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I have found that I breathe at about the same rate as my two primary dive buddies, we almost always have the same pressure. That's nice, because both of them have about twice as many dives as Ido. I also found that in OW class, the two girls that were the other people in the class (three person class) typically ended with 300 or so psi less than me. One girl who had more trouble used more air than her sister, and I used less air than both of them. I think comfort in the water runs in the family. I let my brothers try on the gear in the pool, without any training or anything I suddenly watch as my little brother sinks ot the bottomof the pool.....5 minutes later he'd figured out how to adjust air in the BC and he was tooling around having a blast. It took my padi classmates about 15-20 minutes to get down, stay down, etc, and my brother had it down in 5 minutes What can I say, we arne't rednecks but it wouldn't suprise me if one of us died after saying "hey, watch this!"

But, we'll die with plenty of air in our tanks!

 

[FunkyDiver]

My brother was telling me that he had heard that women typically use much less air than men do. I do with a lady right after he told me that, and sure enough she came up with enough air to do her 2nd dive on the same tank, while everybody else had to change tanks. I don't know if it is a fact, but she did the same dive as everyone else and used far less air than everyone else. It would be interesting to hear if there is some reason why women would use less than men. Physical mass is less than men, so less air needed to support life for them? Just guessing.

 

[Tigerman]

Yep,always good to have air left when doing deco

O RLY? I thought the idea was to run out of air after the first 10 seconds of deco and then rush to the surface to get DCI.. Maybe I should not be doing deco dives?

(I shouldnt, I dont have the proper training)

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

One question --- what did you all start with? On a recent dive where everyone on the boat was given an al80 tank, the initial pressure of my tank was 3600 psi and of my buddy's tank only 2800 psi (the divemaster said anything over 2700 was to be considered "full"). It was a shallow dive and after 55 minutes diving most people still came on board with over 1000 psi, so it wasn't a big deal that some people had more air than others for the dive profile. Nevertheless, there can be a big difference in initial pressure in aluminum high pressure tanks and that will obviously affect your endpoint.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

My brother was telling me that he had heard that women typically use much less air than men do. I do with a lady right after he told me that, and sure enough she came up with enough air to do her 2nd dive on the same tank, while everybody else had to change tanks. I don't know if it is a fact, but she did the same dive as everyone else and used far less air than everyone else. It would be interesting to hear if there is some reason why women would use less than men. Physical mass is less than men, so less air needed to support life for them? Just guessing.

Where were you diving? I dove in the keys last May and when others were getting back on the boat after a one hour dive on the reef (max depth around 35 ft) with 500-800 lbs from an al80 with 3000 to start I was consistently coming back with 1500-1800. It's not unusual for me to get 2-2 1/2 hours dive time out of one of my E-7 80's(3442psi) when I fill em to 3600 or so. I've gotten a 53 minute dive out of a steel lp72 starting with 2800 with a max depth of 127 ft and still had 800 left(enough for a two hour ow pool session). I don't buy the generalization that women consume less air. It's about how comfortable you are, breathing rate, trim, and experience. I know 2 guys that seem to put air back in the tank. One of em is my instructor, the other is 6'3" 225 or so but uses so little air I wonder if he's even breathing.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

generalizations are VERY hard to make. So...you say women use less air than men? How about a 500 pound behomoth of a woman, more out of shape than a square peg in a round hole, compared to a 5'5" man who runs a triathalon every morning before he even drinks his coffee and routinely bikes 35 miles and back during his lunch break, just because he doesn't want to use his car and he likes this one deli. Hm....



Just wanted to point out that you should never say every.

 

[spectrum]

shellim123

You sound like you are very comfortable n the water and off to a great start. As long as you are breathing freely you should be all set. If you find yourself ending dives with headaches you may want to modify your breathing to be a little deeper and more frequent. This would be the result of carbon dioxide retention. Other than that you are good to go.

Smaller people (which tend to be the females) by vitrue of smaller lung volume and having less flesh to keep alive will generally use less air. Diver who are unfit, less than comfortable or struggling with gear will use more. How you pace a dive can help a lot too, slow and gentle. It sounds like you were diving in a pack so pace was a level playing field. Sometimes it has no rhyme or reason and folks use what they use.

Keep it up!

Pete