Whatever happened to NITROX...

[Weston]

... IT'S STRANGE TO THINK THAT, JUST OVER A DECADE AGO, technical diving was the new big thing. Not the deep wreck exploration that gets the press these days, just simple things like using nitrox on an average 24m dive to double no-stop times.
Nitrox was the gas of the future, the popular topic at technical diving conferences, the advance guard of technical diving of which we could all be part, a tool we could employ in our everyday dives.
Unless, of course you were a member of BSAC or PADI, in which case it was the devil's work, didn't actually exist, and, if it did exist, would be guaranteed to kill you as soon as you sniffed it.
But we could all rebel, sneak off on a course run by IANTD or TDI, poke the establishment in the eye and do our own nitrox thing.

full Article:

[Omicron]

It's a useful tool!

I'm looking foward to being able to (eventually) use it to accelerate decompression, instead of using it really as my main breathing gas....

It's fun to run some dives through vplanner and see the changes you get by just adding in some 50%!

[jasondbaker]

I think nitrox still suffers a bit from some misconceptions. Some dive shops treat it as casually as air and others treat it like dynamite. Some shops require the tank to be O2 cleaned for <40% premix fills. Some shops will not put hyper filtered air in a tank with a nitrox sticker.

One of the dive shops in the cities is now selling nitrox fills at the same price as air fills. That's progress. I hate the big nitrox stickers. I removed them from my tanks this year. The shop I get fills at places an appropriate content sticker on the tank after every fill.

[DRE]

Hey Jason,

which shop is that? I think that's great to hear. A friend of mine owns a shop in Miami, FL and he charges less for nitrox than for air, but then he has a liquid O2 setup as well...

[LKunze]

Hey Jason,

which shop is that? I think that's great to hear. [/quote]
David, he's probably referring to GUDC. The only catch is they raised the price of their airfills to match the nitrox price so it really makes no sense to get an air fill there now. I believe they are charging $7.00 for both nitrox and air fills. Still, I think $7.00 for a nitrox fill is the best price in town if I'm not mistaken.

[DRE]

Thanks Lonnie.

[Chris H]

You can hardly get AIR in Milwaukee for $7.

I made the mistake of getting my doubles filled with Nitrox at a shop that was convenient at the moment and didn't ask the price before they were filled. When they told me it was $32+ I really wanted to let it out of the tanks and tell them to keep their damn Nitrox >

Somebody please do fills by cubic feet.

[FreediveWI]

$32!!! I bet I can guess who that shop was.

I actually quit working at a shop a few years ago because I was told I couldn't even mention the word "nitrox" on 'their' sales floor. The owner got ticked when I corrected him in front of a customer- he was telling them that Nitrox was a gas only used for "deep diving". :-X

I left and went to more technically freindly stores. Now, all these years later, they have even added nitrox to their store.

Trimix is now getting the same rap the nitrox did a decade ago, however, 10 years from now I bet many stores will be pumping it. Deep Blue is the only stroe I know of, or at least would trust, to fill my tanks with trimix, but I am sure the rest of the state will catch up- eventually.

If you look back on things, there was a time that people looked down on SPG's and BC's. Now you can't take a class without having them. The same may happen with nitrox.

Jon

[DRE]

I feel your pain, that's why I'm doing the O2 and He mixing myself (plus I have access to free air ;D). I don't want to go off on a rant here, but my friend in Miami is filling Nitrox for $5 for an AL80, and you pay top-offs by the cf. For most diveshops the reasoning is that because there is not enough demand for nitrox locally, they're not willing to invest the money in banking it (so it's easy for 'em to fill it), so they keep the price pretty high. All it takes is the commitment of one shop to step up and seriously start pushing it, and, while at first it might be a bit of a loss leader, in the long run you can get a return on your investment (such as teaching more nitrox classes). In my opinion, nitrox is sometimes taught as a prereq to Adv Nitrox/Deco Proc without really implementing it in the diving (hence AN/DP classes being held using air as bottom mix ???)

And BTW, I do believe that in ten years we'll be having this same conversation about rec trimix, but that's a whole other topic...

[FreediveWI]

DRE,

your right about a couple of shopsleading the way,as long asthey are not charging $32 for a fill.

While everyone around here was bemoning the cost of nitrox, we saw all of the Chicago divers using it out on the charter boat. You could almost tell who was from WIsconsin, vs. Illinois by what they were breathing!

Now, we are starting to catch up ,but Wisconsin has always been a little slower to catch on in things- which is why it is used as a "test market" for so many national goods.

BTW: Deep Blue is now teaching recreational, and non-recreational, trimix in Milwaukee. They can also go out on site and teach courses at your local shop if requested- as they have been doing with other technical courses in the past.

Jon