Bill Mee and I did that Liberty ship one time with the "Drifter" ( Nigel
Clark, our home grown Brit)about 12 years ago. The bottom there is actually
more like 400 feet, but the whole top is cut off of the wreck, so just to
get to the deck is a real pain in the ass. When we did it, the current was
screaming on the top, but dead after about 150 , and below the 300 area
there was a layer of water that felt like the 30's, but air clear - you
could see the whole ship at once, like a dream. We went back up and told the
boat driver that we had a split current and then went back down, but it was
too cold to deal with. It is big, however, and should be diveable if the
water is not screwed up. I never went back there again. There are several
other wrecks sunk in around that one - it is called the Pfleuger reef, sunk
for fishing years ago near Baker's Haulover Inlet in N. Miami.

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe [mailto:joe@po*.co*]
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 6:43 PM
To: Joel Svendsen; 'Techdiver@Aquanaut.Com'
Subject: Re: O2 exposure


>>Anyway, is this "blue dots in a narrowed field of vision" actually O2
>>toxicity?  Until I read your post I had not heard anyone else describe >>a
similar phenomenon.

Hi Jody:

When everyone was diving deep air the fallacies were that you could manage
the narcosis by "acclimating" to it but you needed to worry about O2
toxicity.  This gave way to lengthy discussions on what to "watch out for"
and the above was often said by those who did the extreme depths on air.
While the descriptive coincides with the "V" in the "VENTID" acronym, I
don't think anyone could really say what it was caused by.  Certainly, at
such extremely elevated partial pressures, either nitrogen or oxygen or both
could be the cause of such symptoms.  While I did my share of the "deep air"
before trimix was available (ignorance is bliss - diving deep air is a dumb
thing), I never experienced anything even close to that, so while I suspect
there is a good chance it is most probably caused by the O2, I don't think
anyone could say for sure.

Joe

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel Svendsen" <svendsen@we*.sh*.ne*>
To: "'Joe'" <joe@po*.co*>; "'Techdiver@Aquanaut.Com'"
<techdiver@aquanaut.com>
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 11:14 AM
Subject: RE: O2 exposure


This reminds me of a good story:

Many years ago an old dive buddy of mine (and deep air advocate) told me
about his attempt to dive the Liberty Ship in Miami on deep air--solo.  The
ship lies in 372FT.  He said that he got to about 320 and he could see the
deck of the ship, but that he started seeing dots and had had tunnel vision.


At that point he knew he was in trouble so he told me he "closed his eyes
and hung on to his power inflator with both hands."  He came to at about
120FT on the way back up, stabilized his ascent, relocated the anchor line
and after some decompression stops got out of the water in good shape.  He
told me that he "learned his lesson" and would never again dive past 300FT
on air :).  To the amazement of us all, old age killed him before deep air
did.

Anyway, is this "blue dots in a narrowed field of vision" actually O2
toxicity?  Until I read your post I had not heard anyone else describe a
similar phenomenon.

 - Jody

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe [mailto:joe@po*.co*]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 3:17 PM
To: George Irvine; Techdiver@Aquanaut.Com
Subject: Re: O2 exposure

This guy will never get it.  I just hope that the people in VB will realize
how sorely inadequate his knowledge of diving is.  In one post he embraced
every piece of misinformation about O2 toxicity ever put out. Reminiscent of
when the deep air aficionados used to say that if you started to see "blue
dots" in a "narrowed" field of vision it was time to begin your ascent
because you were about to tox.  I just hope for his sake and everyone around
him that he can get past the hubris and learn to recognize good information
when he sees it.


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