New Diver!

[Prostardiver]

Welcome to the pond.

 

[arthurmnev]

Welcome to the money sink hobby. The only worse thing is gambling and owning a boat....

 

[Colliam7]

I am already in big trouble as far as air consumption, I am apparently a big air hog!

Many divers find that they use A LOT of gas early in their diving, and that settles down as they gain experience and confidence. Don't worry about it for now. With your obvious enthusisam for diving, if you get in the water on a regular basis, you will find that your air consumption goes down.

I was the limiting factor during our 2nd and 4th dives where we were using the second half of the tanks. I would start with 1600-1700 psi and we would end the dive when I was down near 500 and the other two newbies had 700 and 1200 psi respectively.

Hmm, this statement prompts three reactions:

1. If you were down to 500, and another diver was at 700, I wouldn't say you were a 'big air hog', relative to the other diver. OK, another diver was down to 1200 - what did they start with?

2. For a logged OW certification dive, you used a grand total of 1100-1200 psi? How long was the dive, out of curiousity? (I presume that you spent the majority of time at 15 feet or greater, and breathed at least 50 cubic feet of compressed gas or remained submerged for at least 20 minutes).

3. But, my primary reaction is, BOO, HISS to the instructor, for having students use the first tank for a second dive. This bothers me in a number of ways, not the least of which is that it teaches bad habits from the very beginning. A new OW diver, completing a certification dive in water with 10-12 feet of visibility, and starting that OW dive with 1600 psi? Maybe, you were diving HP130s, although I suspect you were using AL80s. OK, if it happens once, and the situation is extraordinary - you drive 50 miles to the dive site, with two tanks for each student, and you find that the valve cracked open on a single tank and air was lost, and the choice is to bag the second dive, or try to make it work with the tank from dive 1, I can see going ahead, for the sake of expediency. But, you said it was the case for dives 2 and 4, so it was the practice on both days. And, it sounds like it was the practice for all students. Unless I am really missing something here, I have concerns about that practice.

For the (your) future, an observation: In aviation we have a saying that there are 3 things that are completely useless - 1) altitude above you, 2) runway behind you, and 3) fuel on the ground. In diving, the equivalent of item 3. would be 'gas on the surface', or 'gas on shore'. Start your dive with the maximum amount of gas available. If you don't use it, fine. But, if you need it, at least you have it.