Brian Huff
Contributor
Yes.
Nitrox - Is it "worth it"?
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Yes.
markmud
Self Reliant Diver--On All Dives.
As others have posted, get the cert. $150 isn't really that much money. Take your spouse or partner to a really nice restaurant for dinner and you will spend that in a heartbeat.
We like EANx because when we are diving with air divers, we don't have to watch our NDL as closely. The air divers will go shallow before us, especially on our 2nd and 3rd dive. You will notice the air divers continuously working up the reef and watching their DC to make sure they don't enter staged decompression. Usually at that point, our bar graphs have not reached the yellow.
EANx gives us a little bigger margin for error and piece-of-mind knowing that we won't NDL out before the others in our group.
My wife and I always come aboard with lots of gas. So why limit our diving by depth and time because of NDL.
We already spend thousands going to Bonaire, and other places, what's another $50 or $100 dollars.
Loading less nitrogen can be a good thing. Priceless!
markm
We like EANx because when we are diving with air divers, we don't have to watch our NDL as closely. The air divers will go shallow before us, especially on our 2nd and 3rd dive. You will notice the air divers continuously working up the reef and watching their DC to make sure they don't enter staged decompression. Usually at that point, our bar graphs have not reached the yellow.
EANx gives us a little bigger margin for error and piece-of-mind knowing that we won't NDL out before the others in our group.
My wife and I always come aboard with lots of gas. So why limit our diving by depth and time because of NDL.
We already spend thousands going to Bonaire, and other places, what's another $50 or $100 dollars.
Loading less nitrogen can be a good thing. Priceless!
markm
Yes
Jay
Jay
I have a hard time understanding why anybody would want to get closer to their NDL than necessary. To each their own.
FWIW, I got my Nitrox certification shortly after OW almost a year ago, and only used it twice; the shop in Mexico that sold me the course offered "free" (same price as air) Nitrox, so I did my last two dives with it. Didn't notice a difference; as a noob, I was limited by gas consumption rather than NDL. When shore diving locally, I only ever do one shallow dive per day (too much of a schlep to the car and back to swap tanks, plus I only have one), and on boats we always have to do a really long surface interval anyway.
BUT...I still feel it was worth it. I'm doing a liveaboard in January and definitely plan to use Nitrox then, and it's nice that I already have the cert. But I also feel like the course really enhanced my understanding of diving physiology, and caused me to notice and think about things I might not have otherwise. Knowing what I know now about how seldom I'd use it, I'd still go back and take it when I did. YMMV.
BUT...I still feel it was worth it. I'm doing a liveaboard in January and definitely plan to use Nitrox then, and it's nice that I already have the cert. But I also feel like the course really enhanced my understanding of diving physiology, and caused me to notice and think about things I might not have otherwise. Knowing what I know now about how seldom I'd use it, I'd still go back and take it when I did. YMMV.
I used it on my one overseas trip so far. Doing 4 or 5 dives a day I never hit NDL but ad others have said I was not super tired doing that much repetitive diving. To me worth it.
drainaps
Registered
My 2 cents, as a technical diver (all depths in METERS):
1) If you're going to be Rec diving regularly, getting Nx certified is a must, as understanding enriched air will make you a better (and hopefully safer) diver. It might also extend your range and add some other benefits (keep reading
).
2) In 90% of Rec dives, the main benefit of Nx is a lighter head between dives / at the end of the day. Above / at 30m narcosis is negligible for most divers: in my case, it kicks seriously in at around 43-44m (warm water), but I know people who start to feel funny at 35m.
The current status quo among most dive physiologists is that oxygen is as narcotic as nitrogen, so breathing more of one or less of the other will not affect how you feel at depth greatly. However, it will influence how "gassed" you feel when you're back in the surface.
3) As others have said, in the end your NDL / range / time under water is limited by what others in your dive group do. Your buddy-for-the-day diving on air and you're on Nx? No difference in bottom time / NDL unless you want to stay alone (and you don't). Your suck rate is great but somebody else's is not? You'll end the dive with more gas than you should at the same time as everybody else. If you're diving with a "pick of the day" group there's little benefit to Nx.
4) If you're doing 5+ dives a day it will definitely help you max out your bottom time and stretch bottom time in the last dives of the day. This is IMHO the only underwater tangible benefit for the average Rec diver, and also the reason why many Divemasters and Instructors dive Nx: do 5-8 dives a day in high season.
5) For regular Rec divers, I can only think of very very few Rec dive sites (in Asia, where I live) where Nx can make a difference in terms of bottom time and not hitting NDLs: blue dive, dive profile going straight to 25-30 m and coming back straight up. The Coron wrecks in the Philippines sitting at around 27-30 meters come to mind.
As an example, if you dive Nx 32% to 30m and stay 18 minutes (run time 20 minutes, including descent straight down to 30m) you'd need 3 minutes of deco @ 6m (you can do your regular 3 minute stop @ 5m instead, it will not kill you). The same 20 minutes on air would need 11 minutes of deco @ 6m. A Rec diver would be OK diving Nx, but you would need a Tec license to do air on this dive. (For the technically oriented, I've estimated this using MultiDeco with GF 40/70 which is very conservative, just to prove the point. I'm aware that Rec algorithms are more in the GF 45/95 territory).
6) As a Tec diver, I never use Nx in a typical Rec dive: always air (MOD 56 meters). Nx is not a usual choice among the Tec population when we go single bottle. Air is cheaper and if you went beyond the limits of NDL, you just do your deco. I would exceptionally use Nx 32% for the dive I described in #5.
7) Don't forget Nx is a money printing machine for many dive centers. Just boosts their revenue without too many complications. There's going to be a lot of people around you (instructors, Divemasters, Dive Center owners) telling you that Nx is the diving equivalent of snake oil, because they have an economic interest in telling you so. Listen to them but think critically and openly.
Bottom line: Do it, and use wisely. it's not a silver bullet.
Safe dives.
1) If you're going to be Rec diving regularly, getting Nx certified is a must, as understanding enriched air will make you a better (and hopefully safer) diver. It might also extend your range and add some other benefits (keep reading
).2) In 90% of Rec dives, the main benefit of Nx is a lighter head between dives / at the end of the day. Above / at 30m narcosis is negligible for most divers: in my case, it kicks seriously in at around 43-44m (warm water), but I know people who start to feel funny at 35m.
The current status quo among most dive physiologists is that oxygen is as narcotic as nitrogen, so breathing more of one or less of the other will not affect how you feel at depth greatly. However, it will influence how "gassed" you feel when you're back in the surface.
3) As others have said, in the end your NDL / range / time under water is limited by what others in your dive group do. Your buddy-for-the-day diving on air and you're on Nx? No difference in bottom time / NDL unless you want to stay alone (and you don't). Your suck rate is great but somebody else's is not? You'll end the dive with more gas than you should at the same time as everybody else. If you're diving with a "pick of the day" group there's little benefit to Nx.
4) If you're doing 5+ dives a day it will definitely help you max out your bottom time and stretch bottom time in the last dives of the day. This is IMHO the only underwater tangible benefit for the average Rec diver, and also the reason why many Divemasters and Instructors dive Nx: do 5-8 dives a day in high season.
5) For regular Rec divers, I can only think of very very few Rec dive sites (in Asia, where I live) where Nx can make a difference in terms of bottom time and not hitting NDLs: blue dive, dive profile going straight to 25-30 m and coming back straight up. The Coron wrecks in the Philippines sitting at around 27-30 meters come to mind.
As an example, if you dive Nx 32% to 30m and stay 18 minutes (run time 20 minutes, including descent straight down to 30m) you'd need 3 minutes of deco @ 6m (you can do your regular 3 minute stop @ 5m instead, it will not kill you). The same 20 minutes on air would need 11 minutes of deco @ 6m. A Rec diver would be OK diving Nx, but you would need a Tec license to do air on this dive. (For the technically oriented
, I've estimated this using MultiDeco with GF 40/70 which is very conservative, just to prove the point. I'm aware that Rec algorithms are more in the GF 45/95 territory).6) As a Tec diver, I never use Nx in a typical Rec dive: always air (MOD 56 meters). Nx is not a usual choice among the Tec population when we go single bottle. Air is cheaper and if you went beyond the limits of NDL, you just do your deco. I would exceptionally use Nx 32% for the dive I described in #5.
7) Don't forget Nx is a money printing machine for many dive centers. Just boosts their revenue without too many complications. There's going to be a lot of people around you (instructors, Divemasters, Dive Center owners) telling you that Nx is the diving equivalent of snake oil, because they have an economic interest in telling you so. Listen to them but think critically and openly.
Bottom line: Do it, and use wisely. it's not a silver bullet.
Safe dives.
Skulmoski
Contributor
Nitrox opens up opportunities; one of those "must have" certifications.
GJS
GJS
CodeS
Registered
I'm just going to grumble about having to pay someone to be allowed to dive it. The course holds bugger all value, pretty clearly a money grab. It should be part of being taught to dive to begin with.
Just do it, you'll use it, it's an invaluable tool and there isn't any way around it.
continues to grumble...
Just do it, you'll use it, it's an invaluable tool and there isn't any way around it.
continues to grumble...
Who were you diving with in Grenada please?
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