New Diver: 3000' Altitude dive as first post certification dive?

[filmguy123]

Great! Thanks all. Excited to get out there!

And yes, BreeAbyss is correct. Of course I will change my salinity. It's like 5 button presses. Why would I *NOT*? If you really don't care though, set it to the European standard that splits the difference. For me, accurate is accurate, not is not. I'll take accurate for the 5 second trade off it takes to switch it

 

[TMHeimer]

I really can't recall anything much about Altitude diving and have no experience with it, but figure if you do the computer/tables math it works out the same. If you are with good pros, you should be OK. Don't think I'd also add diving dry for the first time (though I also have never dived dry), as it may seem a bit much too soon for me. But, enjoy.

 

[DoubleAA]

It does adjust the altitude automatically, and it is indeed very easy to to change the salinity.

It will take care of your decompression just fine, but it will not give you an accurate depth reading. The same is true of altitude. Before they made a change to the firmware, Shearwater computers would always start with an assumption of sea level until they were turned on and read the pressure to change the altitude. that means if you started the dive with the computer turned off and let it turn itself on with water contact, it would think it was at sea level throughout the dive. At the altitude at which I do most of my diving, the depth reading difference would be 5 feet or more.

I was referencing salinity not altitude in my post. The salinity difference would be negligible.

 

[boulderjohn]

I was referencing salinity not altitude in my post. The salinity difference would be negligible.

Four atmospheres of pressure in salt water occurs at a depth of 99 feet. Four atmospheres of pressure in fresh water occurs at a depth of 102 feet. It is not all that much, but it is not negligible.

 

[filmguy123]

One thing that's been focused on here is the elevation. To be fair that was the title of the thread.

However there were some other details in the thread. Besides it being the apparently no big deal elevation dive, it would also be my first "real" dive after OWW. I would take the drysuit cert before, but I will basically be moving straight to drysuit and straight to BP/W for this. I will have 2 pool sessions (1 for BP/W only, 1 for Drysuit and BP/W), 2 for drysuit open water cert dives, and then the group dive.

Any concerns on being task loaded? The way my OWW weekend turned out, I only had about 30 minutes of underwater dive time. I felt "fine", but that's not much.

 

[Bob DBF]

As for task loading, just don't add any more than you already have to deal with. When I'm diving, I get more carefull when I add a new task, with two I focus on survival and don't try anything fancy, but that's just me. Have fun and realize you can have two things go wrong that you are not used to correcting, mostly the drysuit as a BP/W is just a BC, but being less farmiliar than your old rig.



Bob

 

[SCRedWolf]

but it is not negligible.

New Diver: 3000' Altitude dive as first post certification dive?

Especially if you're running Nitrox. PPO2 increases by 0.05/0.06 ATA for every 5 feet for EAN36. It just depends on how close to the edge of the envelope you like to fly on how much difference this might make.

 

[boulderjohn]

One thing that's been focused on here is the elevation. To be fair that was the title of the thread.

However there were some other details in the thread. Besides it being the apparently no big deal elevation dive, it would also be my first "real" dive after OWW. I would take the drysuit cert before, but I will basically be moving straight to drysuit and straight to BP/W for this. I will have 2 pool sessions (1 for BP/W only, 1 for Drysuit and BP/W), 2 for drysuit open water cert dives, and then the group dive.

Any concerns on being task loaded? The way my OWW weekend turned out, I only had about 30 minutes of underwater dive time. I felt "fine", but that's not much.

New OW students in colder climates do their OW dives in dry suits after one training session in the pool.

IMO, diving in a BP/W is easier than a jacket BCD. You will have no trouble adjusting to it. In my experience, the people in shops who tell you it is for advanced diving only have never dived in a BP/W and are just repeating what they have heard from someone else.

 

[tursiops]

The way my OWW weekend turned out, I only had about 30 minutes of underwater dive time. I felt "fine", but that's not much.

Wait....you only spent 30 minutes total underwater for your four certification dives?

 

[boulderjohn]

Wait....you only spent 30 minutes total underwater for your four certification dives?

I missed that at first. Are you really saying you averaged 7.5 minutes per dive for your OW training?