Advanced open water?

[skip]

That seems a lot more reasonable than saying 60ft limit in my opinion and from my observation....I've yet to hear what dangers are present at 80ft that are not present at 60ft. I still kind of find it funny that 130ft is the safe recreational limit on air (ppo2 of 1.037), and their safe limit on ean36 is 94ft (ppo2 of 1.39). I'll admit to being a n00b with this stuff, but it seems random to say the least. Overhead training limits make sense to me, but OW have always left me wondering "why". If an instructor could fill us in, I'd be interested to hear the explanation.

there are 20 feet worth of more danger. if no feet is 1 unit of danger, then 33 is 2 units of danger, 66 is 3 units of danger, 99 is 4 units of danger. Danger multiples with depth, it changes nature too, but just the fact that depth = pressure = danger should be enough to clue you in.

ppo2 is not the only consideration. it is not random. don't do the dives if they make you wonder why.

-skip

[jimmy herbert]

You weren't a bad student, most OW instructors don't cover narcosis because it simply isn't a factor when diving within OW training limits. Since the onset of narcosis typically takes place for the majority of divers at 100' or greater depths, it is typically included in AOW training.

Maybe I'm missing something or I have a short memory having taken both classes more than 15 years ago, but I'm sure narcosis wasn't heavily covered in OW.

Take the classes and take your time. You can't rush experience.

[Gary]

It doesn't say that anywhere in my SSI OW manual.

I took my SSI OW from Hal Watts shop in Orlando in '87. I don't remember any depth limits being taught or in the book (except my deco charts only showed to 190'). As far as I knew the certification series started with OW, Deep 1, Deep 2, Deep 3, Deep 4, Deep 5, Deep 6, Deep 7 - all on air of course. I'm not sure if AOW was included on the menu or not.

Well at least I was never taught to fear the depth/narcosis.

[SuPrBuGmAn]

But my manual is only from '03, I wouldn't think things would have changed that much since then? *shrugs*

[jj1987]

As far as I knew the certification series started with OW, Deep 1, Deep 2, Deep 3, Deep 4, Deep 5, Deep 6, Deep 7

ROFL!

[Line Squirrel]

ROFL!

You laugh...He's being serious.

[tmcdonal]

Maybe I missed something here - JJ, how many dives have you had since your OW? More importantly, how many of those were in less than ideal conditions? (i.e. At night at the least. Even better would be in mud lake-viz that may not be too deep, but where you have to learn to trust your gauges.) Those were all stepping stones. Do you feel you have nothing else to learn? Eighty dollars is a small price to pay. Especially small if you think caving is the way to go.

By your handle, I'm going to guess you're 21-ish. Remember when you first learned to drive a car? Have you learned anything in the last 5 years just by being on the road? (Remember that time when... ) *Nothing* beats experience.

I remember my AOW instructor as someone there to be impressed with my skills after just 8 post OW dives. You know, the stuff we know intuitively, like knowing how to navigate blindly by compass alone, dropping deep out of the sun light (mud lake) without any increase in my breathing rate, and doing flawless math problems at depth. That's because narcosis doesn't affect me.

-Tom

[jj1987]

Maybe I missed something here - JJ, how many dives have you had since your OW? More importantly, how many of those were in less than ideal conditions? (i.e. At night at the least. Even better would be in mud lake-viz that may not be too deep, but where you have to learn to trust your gauges.)

I have 4 dives in Kingsley lake to the helicopter that's sunk, that's about 10ft vis at the bottom there, and we do a night dive every time we go to Ginnie, 10 would be a very low guess, and I've done a few in the keys. I have a few 100 cavern dives to go along with those, but I'd consider those most all ideal conditions.

I think I'm ready for Intro to cave, or I wouldn't be buying gear and saving up for it, but I've also read too many newspaper articles about cave accidents to continue forward with training if those who are already cave diving are convinced I shouldn't, hence why I asked the question.


On a positive note, I'm now Nitrox certified as of a few hours ago !
After reading this link (click) and the SSI manual, the SSI test was a breeeeeze that took about 15 minutes to finish. Big thanks to those of you that PM'ed me with the link and suggestions on what to pay attention to when going through the course materials. I found it really odd that you never have to know a single bit of the math behind the tables to pass the test, basically if you can calculate 2 dives (switching gas mixture on each), and know how to calculate your CNS clock time and MOD with the tables, you've passed the test. I'm anxious to get a few real world situations under my belt now.

[RN]

I found it really odd that you never have to know a single bit of the math behind the tables to pass the test

That's an agency thing. There are some agencies that not only present the equations but also include them in the test. You just chose the wrong agency/instructor.

[Sludge]

When I was working full-time at a shop I noticed something I disagreed with. There were fifty questions on the open water test, and you had to make an 80 to pass, so you could miss ten questions. But there were only eight questions where you had to do the tables to arrive at the answer. So you could miss EVERY question on the tables and still pass.

If I were in charge, you would have to make an 80 on the tables section, plus an 80 on the other part.