broncobowsher
Contributor
All 3 of the certs are seperate. But it makes sense to take them together.
Advanced Nitrox teaches you how to use O2 up to 100%. Which you can do alone, but isn't that useful.
Deco can be taught without advanced nitrox, but isn't that useful. But put the two together, and they compliment each other and you get good use out of it.
Now that you are going deeper and spending time there, go ahead and add some helium and make it a better dive. You are learning all about the gasses and what they do, and what they do to you. Doesn't take much to learn about the Helium part as well.
Personally I only did AN/DP because the people I was diving with at the time only used that. Nobody used Helium. Later I progressed to a rebreather, got new friends who were also on rebreathers, and suddenly I was behind for not having any Helium training. Had to learn all my Helium on a rebreather. That works, but I feel it would have been smoother with some up front OC Helium training prior.
Advanced Nitrox teaches you how to use O2 up to 100%. Which you can do alone, but isn't that useful.
Deco can be taught without advanced nitrox, but isn't that useful. But put the two together, and they compliment each other and you get good use out of it.
Now that you are going deeper and spending time there, go ahead and add some helium and make it a better dive. You are learning all about the gasses and what they do, and what they do to you. Doesn't take much to learn about the Helium part as well.
Personally I only did AN/DP because the people I was diving with at the time only used that. Nobody used Helium. Later I progressed to a rebreather, got new friends who were also on rebreathers, and suddenly I was behind for not having any Helium training. Had to learn all my Helium on a rebreather. That works, but I feel it would have been smoother with some up front OC Helium training prior.