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Kevin Over here in the good old UK, we tend to favour (speaking for myself and others I know) no more than 80% mixes. Why..? Basically - you get most of the benifits without the added risk! To ellaborate. I prefer not to exceed ppO2 1.6 while deco. Working out a schedule with pure O2 saves on average only a couple of minutes (dive depending - obviously) of deco time - not too huge a saving. However with pure O2 I have little depth room for error. Most of my diving is in the english channel and our idea of good sea state is a 3 to 4ft chop - and it gets far worse. Even holding onto a shot line, or bobbing about on a delayed deco buoy I can honestly say my buoyancy is not that spot on accurate that I can maintain 6m (err 18 ftish) for my full deco schedule! This means a flucuation in ppO2 that I'm not prepared to risk for the sake of a few minutes spared on deco. With 80% I have much more room for depth fluctuations (although I do endevour to stay at the correct depth!!) and can swap to this gas deeper. 9m, 6m and 3m stops (if applicable) can all then be done quite safely on this mix. In my opinion, the deeper you can swap to a deco gas the more benifit, and as such, use a 50% mix from 20m then switch to 80% for 9m and above. Although in reality this swap from 50% to 80% itself only saves 10 to 15mins - not tooooo dramatic. Depends on how many tanks I wish to sling. 80% is easily obtainable over here and cheaper than 100% - although I don't let cost get in the way of the right mix. For what we do 80%, I believe, is by far the better gas to choose - you just have to hang a few more minutes - then what's 75mins deco instead of 72mins! Insignificant - don't you agree? Just my thoughts and 2 pence (sorry cents) worth Alex -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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