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>My concern with Nitrox for the masses is: What, exactly, are they [the >cert agencies] going to teach the masses? Are they going to teach >PO2's, O2 toxicity, convulsions, the dangers of CO2 buildup, O2 >exposure limits, Pulmonary O2 toxicity, etc? Are >they going to teach that depth limits should be scalled back under >exertion? Are they going to teach the reality that straying 20 fsw >too deep on a wall dive now carries the potential punishment of death? >(Afterall, if they are saying MOD for NOAA I is 130 fsw (1.6 PO2), >that's already pushing it.) This brings up a point. Each diver must *always* learn their own limits. This is taught from day one in the basic openwater course. Some people start getting narc'ed at 60 ft and can't handle going much deeper. Others can dive to well over 100 feet before they feel anything. Even in OWI we teach that the tables should be scaled back when you're tired, work hard, etc. so I just don't see a problem teaching the same type of thing to a presumably much more advanced diver. For those people that do get narc'ed easily, Nitrox *will* help them dive deeper safer (bet many people never thought of this one!). MOD for NOAA I is 130 fsw as taught, however, the 1.6 PPO2 has been broken by many people who are still alive to tell about it so it isn't the same as "you cross this line, you die" of the previous poster's tone. The danger with Nitrox is that you are already at an elevated PP02. There is some speculation going around that the body is more easily able to take a "spike" in the PPO2 level if the gas being breathed prior to the spike isn't near the limit (i.e. it's at 1.2 PPO2 or less). This would seem to support the statement that it is *much* more important for Nitrox divers to respect their depth limits than air divers who bounce deep. I just recently saw advertisements in Skin Diver about a dive shop teaching deep air diving in *6* increments, the deepest of which was *300* feet!!! 297 feet (or 10 ata) is 2.1 ata PP02... I might ask - what is this guy trying to prove?! Is there *any* reason to teach such a course? There was also the recent discussion on this mailing list about the new world record on air (525 ft) which is over 4 atm PPO2 !!! I'm suprised that no one has commented on just how stupid this seems. IMO, recreational Nitrox is just around the corner. There are at least *two* local shops now that teach and sell nitrox and I'm personally going to start diving exclusively on nitrox (for dives < 130 feet) for all but the most trivial of diving. Of course, it will be nice to do custom blends for diving deeper than 130 ft too. -Carl-
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