Recreational dive poll - Nitrox

[MXGratefulDiver]

It also shows something else.

This was a very intelligent human being with an advanced education. She had obviously been taught correctly originally and understood it. She had obviously understood how her computer worked at some point in the past. She had obviously known how to input the nitrox mix into her computer at some point in the past. And at some point in the past, at some time between her annual dive trips, she had forgotten it. She had made what is really not a far-fetched error if you think about it objectively. If a nitrox analyzer can measure oxygen content, is it really so unthinkable that an air integrated computer might have that ability as well?

Think about that the next time you see a diver make a mistake and then have everyone fly off the handle about how miserable the original instruction must have been.

Given how many mistakes I've made over the years I can relate ... most of them were things I knew better, if I'd taken the time to really think about it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[scubadada]

I very frequently encounter divers who do not know how their computer works, how to set the FO2, how to use the planner, how to access the log for dive information... I have seen divers on the boat perusing the owner's manual for their computer fresh out of the box. Worse yet, I've had divers ask me what VIOLATION means. Last year I met a diver on the ascent line from a deep wreck he had dived on air, while the rest of us were diving nitrox. He pointed at his computer with a quizzical look on his face, he had nearly 30 minutes of deco and a couple hundred psi left in his cylinder. Fortunately, two of us were able to share gas with him and a third returned with a full cylinder to complete the decompression. He sat out the 2nd dive to think about it.

These are only things I was aware of, just think how frequently things like this actually happen. It is amazing that more people don't hurt or kill themselves. Maybe there's more safety margin built in than I thought.

 

[Spinal33]

Depends where you are...

In the UK, the two dive centers I use wont let you take the cylinder until it's been analysed and you sign that you have seen the results. One analyses for you (in front of you, they don't want you using their kit) and the other asks you to do it yourself.

In Switzerland, we usually get premix, so you "trust" them - and only the paranoid, like myself, analyse (unless you're getting anything other than 32 or 36)

 

[Todd Dicker]

It absolutely cracks me up that almost no one is answering the question as asked. Cracks. Me. Up.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Respond with what you see OTHERS do (not what you do).

Bill, what motivated you to do this poll?

I see OTHERS do whatever the dive op/crew suggests they do. At dive ops where divers pick up their tanks from a fill station with an analyzer, nitrox log, and labels there, I see other divers duly analyze/log/label when they pick up their tanks. At dive ops where the tanks are already on the boat and the crew comes around with an analyzer and indicates that the diver should look at the analyzer reading, I see other divers at least look at the analyzer reading. In the latter scenario, I don't recall ever seeing a diver looking elsewhere when the crew member showed the diver the analyzer reading.

 

[boulderjohn]

Bill, what motivated you to do this poll?

I see OTHERS do whatever the dive op/crew suggests they do. At dive ops where divers pick up their tanks from a fill station with an analyzer, nitrox log, and labels there, I see other divers duly analyze/log/label when they pick up their tanks. At dive ops where the tanks are already on the boat and the crew comes around with an analyzer and indicates that the diver should look at the analyzer reading, I see other divers at least look at the analyzer reading. In the latter scenario, I don't recall ever seeing a diver looking elsewhere when the crew member showed the diver the analyzer reading.

When I dive in South Florida, on pretty much every dive, you will see no one analyzing gas on the boat. That is because they already analyzed them somewhere else. i get my tanks in a shop a couple miles away and analyze them there. In the case of others, you actually don't know how it was done--or if it was done.

 

[Lorenzoid]

When I dive in South Florida, on pretty much every dive, you will see no one analyzing gas on the boat. That is because they already analyzed them somewhere else. i get my tanks in a shop a couple miles away and analyze them there. In the case of others, you actually don't know how it was done--or if it was done.

I dive with Jupiter Dive Center sometimes, and what I see are my fellow divers picking up tanks by the fill station, analyzing with JDC's analyzer, filling out the nitrox log, labeling their tanks, and marching their tanks down to the boat. I'm sure there are also some tanks on the boat that came from elsewhere. My answer to the poll is just what I see.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

It absolutely cracks me up that almost no one is answering the question as asked. Cracks. Me. Up.

It's a simple question that requires a complex answer. I've been on dive boats in many parts of the world, and seen OTHERS doing all sorts of things ... some I would do and some I definitely would not. In most parts of the world the expectation is (as we were trained) to analyze your own tank ... and that's what most people do. Some other places don't have analyzers available outside of the mixing station, so if you're getting your tanks on the boat you'd better have your own analyzer, or the practical solution is to simply take their word that the tanks are labelled properly.

So for many of us, the only correct answer to the question as asked is "it depends" ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[kelemvor]

I guess I can't say, so I didn't vote. Unless it's a really long boat ride, I'm usually too busy with my own stuff to pay much attention to what others (except my buddy) are doing.

 

[Skulmoski]

I dive with a great BSAC club and ALL club members analyze their own gas.

GJS