Whatever happened to NITROX...

[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...