DIVE LOG Australasia

2. You will probably start joining liveaboard dive trips that offer three, four or even five dives a day. Using nitrox will extend your no decompression dive time, especially on the later dives in the day. You will be diving with buddies using nitrox and it is always better and safer if all the members of a dive team are using the same breathing gas so that your dive computer profiles match as closely as possible. If you are all breathing the same gas, you will have a good idea of your buddies’ no decompression time remaining simply by looking at your own computer. And, in turn, they will know your decompression status too, so you can all look after each other. If some of you are using nitrox and others are using air, then, especially if you are doing multiple dives in a day, the no decompression time remaining figures on your and your buddies’ computers will be very different. 3.

susceptible to narcosis. In the early days of recreational nitrox diving, it was thought that it would have an impact, as you were breathing less nitrogen, but research subsequently showed that this was not the case. You are just as likely to get narked on nitrox as on air. So, you must be equally vigilant on deeper dives, whatever gas you breathe. However, something that does seem to be true, although experiments have so far failed to find any scientific proof, is that you are less tired after a nitrox diving day than after an air diving day. I remember on liveaboard trips in the past when everyone was using air, most of us found it difficult to keep our eyes open during dinner and by 8 pm we were all in bed, fast asleep. Nowadays, we are all using nitrox, and the chatting, laughing and storytelling continue long into the night. I usually dive with nitrox, but sometimes we travel to more remote places where air is the only option, and I certainly feel a difference. After you start diving nitrox, see if you notice the difference too.

Other factOrs

Just as breathing nitrox instead of air has no effect on your breathing rate, nor does it make you less

69

www.divelog.net.au

DIVE LOG Australasia #408 - October ‘24