If you are a dive intructor please don’t read. 
With regular air of course no nitroux or whatever it is called.
I have been to 145 for 3 minutes (big Amberjack down there ya know.)
And have ya ever narc’ed out? It is a buzz without a hangover(unless you die of couse.) And yes I have. Just once.
Well what about ya’ll.
Seventeen meters, or 52 feet, this summer off the Mexican coast in Pamul. Also, this goes to IMHO.
While I truly advocate safety, diving within ALL limits (personal and Agency), diving with a buddy, etc., I must admit that I’ve “bent” the rules a bit (NPI).
Most of my diving has been in quarries along the MD, VA, PA region. Fun actually, owners have to sink some cool stuff to attract divers. Bainbridge (PA) sunk a Navy A-7 Corsair. Willow Springs has a 70 ft steel hulled fishing trawler. Almost all diving quarries max out around 80 ft. Imagine the liability insurance premium if 20% or so of your quarry is 200ft deep!
Ocean diving is different. Here on the East Coast, he are “blessed” with the Graveyard of the Atlantic off of N Carolina and Virginia (Maryland too) Here, there are lots of wrecks in relatively shallow waters. Enxellent diving. Also, around NC, the water is relatively warm.
but I digress…
My extremes have been more on pushing personal limits (how else can you test and expand them?) Once dived on a Germain submarine (black panther) off of Piney Point, MD. VERY DARK! EXTREMELY POOR VIS.! Depth around 90 ft, but to see all I wanted to see, I pushed the DCI limits. Luckily, no problem. It was interesting (in retrospect) to analyze my justification of staying longer - probably a result of minor narc.
There is a hole in the Patuxent river around 120 feet off of Calvert County. The river takes quite a bend and the water swirls tremendoulsy. The river bed drops from 35 feet or so to 120 ft over the linear distance of a hundred yards. Back in the 50’s the Navy sunk a sub in the hole to train divers in deep water sub rescue. After quite a few divers got tangled in the wreck and died and others were banged up badly (cuts, etc. - it’s amazing what constant water swirling will do to metal) they abandoned it. I’ve heard of a few sport divers dropping in the hole, but I’ve never been that stupid. I figure that someone else’s death ought to serve as a warning.
I have other “near misses” with equipment failures, etc. but these are not within the scope of the question.
About 110 feet, in a trench off of La Jolla, CA, several years ago. Very cold, very dark, poor viz.
155ft in Hawaii, at a place called Puuhonua O’Honaunau (“Place of Refuge”). My dive buddy was an old friend and one of the best instructors on the Big Island, and he kept a very close eye on me once we hit 120ft.
The visibility was perfect; at 155ft, we could still see the surface.
The bottom goes out gradually to a shelf, where the bottom drops away. As we swam down the wall it seemed like we were only heading down a very gentle slope. There was this mesmerizing, intensely deep blue ahead. It wasn’t until we stopped that I realized how steep the wall was, we’d been head-down, and the deep blue was nothing but a two thousand foot drop. Not a good place to pass out.
My previous deep dive was 90ft, and I wanted to see how a deeper dive felt. At that pressure, every breath felt a bit like a liquid going down the windpipe. Weird. My nerves felt a bit jangly, too.
On the way back up, we stopped and visited a resting sea turtle–4ft carapace–and listened to whalesong in the distance.
The next morning we were hiking in snow on the top of Mauna Kea (14,000ft). Only in Hawaii…
BTW, never narced. And I’ve only had to perform a decompression stop four times in fifteen years. Place of Refuge was one of them, and that was easily accomplished because of the calm waters there.
10FT, the bottom of my inlaws pool 
12 ft.
The amazing thing about this is that I did it WITHOUT scuba equipment!!!
Seriously, I have wanted to get certified for ages, guess now that I’m a grown-up with my own $$$ I should do it, huh?
A bit of a hijack, but did anybody see the last “NOVA” episode 9about the german WWII U-Boat off NJ)? This wreck was at 230 feet, and there were extremely strong bottom currents. Anyway, three men lost their lives diving this wreck-two (a father and son) died because they panicked and surfaced without decompressing properly. The show mentioned that the divers switched to using an oxygen/nitrogen/helium mix-apparently, this improved their thinking abilities on the bottom-using plain air at this depth causes symptoms (at 230 ft.) akin to drunkeness.
I found the show interesting, but I would not have risked my life to do this.
Without getting too intense or “Instructor-ish”, I figured I’d clarify some points for the non-divers who may read this. (Yes, jk1245, you should consider certification :))
Air is made of 20% oxygen and 80% Nitrogen (roughly). This is cool on the surface. As one breathes under pressure (under water) the percentage stays the same, but the partial pressure (actual pressure exerted by each different gas) increases with depth. This is fine until the Nitrogen reaches a “magical” pressure. The build-up of nitrogen can cause “narcosis” which is a mild to strong euphoric, drunken-like state. Imagine impared judgement at 100 ft. Not a good thing.
As one stays at depth for longer periods of time, the amount of Nitrogen dissolved in the blood increases (with pressure and time; it’s a non-linear curve). If one has lots of nitrogen in the blood an high pressure and then moves to lower pressure, the nitrogen can’t be dissolved in the blood as efficiently, so it comes out - as tiny bubbles. This can have tremendously bad effects that are usually lumped into the category of DeCompression Illness (DCI). To combat this, limits are made for time spent at specific depths (this ain’t an exact science). The “maximum” depth for sport diving is 130 to 140 ft., depending on the agency. To stay too long or close to too long increases the chance of DCI. To this end, the diver should ascend slowly, hanging out at specific depths for some time to allow the nitrogen the time to come out slowly, via gas exchange in the lungs.
Now for preventative measures. Since the nitrogen is the culprit here, anything one can do to decrease the amount of nitrogen dissolved in the blood is good. Either raw amount or rate.
option 1) Don’t go too deep. If you do go deep, don’t stay long.
option 2) Don’t stay long. If you intend to stay awhile, don’t go too deep.
option 3) Breath “air” with less nitrogen than “regular” air. This is the idea of NITROX. Nitrox has a nitrogen percentage of 60% to 79%, depending on the mix. This is more correctly called Enrich Air Nitrox, since regular air is (to be picky) nitrox.
option 4) If you need to go REAL DEEP for a LONG TIME remove lots of nitrogen and replace it with a light weight, inert, unreactive gas. Helium does the trick. This is called Tri-mix (Nitrogen, Helium, Oxygen). You can’t replace the removed nitrogen with all oxygen because it begins to have problems of its own at high partial pressures.
As Mrs. Spritle’s friend told her: Scuba diving ain’t rocket science, but if you do it wrong, you could die.
Sorry to be so verbose, but I kinda’ thought background info might be helpful, specifically after reading some of the non-diver responses.
I would have to go back and check my logbook for the exact depth, but it was about 127 feet or so. That was on the backside of Molokini off Maui. The other time I recall going about that deep was on the barrier reef off the coast of Belize.
I haven’t had any reason to go deeper or even that deep very often. Most of the life I am interested in is fairly shallow - 70 feet or less.
Hey Spritle,
You explained that very well. I even followed it. I finally understand what nitrox does. Cool. Maybe I should take a refresher class got certified at 15 (21 years ago).
WildestBill,
Thanks, it’s the teacher training in me.
If you’re ever in Maryland and need a dive buddy…
Yes, take the refresher course.
Get a subscription to Dive Traning magazine - the best. Excellent for new, returning and experienced divers (and instructors). I don’t work for them, nor are they paying me for such endorsements. It’s the only Diving mag I read.
Diver,
I whole-heartedly agree. Nitrox can allow you to either go deeper or stay longer (NOT both), but you run into the 'ole bottom time situation. Sure you can go to 140 ft., but just what can you get accomplished in 6 minutes?
Since there was no mention of “pushing the limits,” I’ll assume you didn’t have any X, Y or Z residual from your dive, but isn’t it still a bad idea to go to altitude within 24 (used to be 48) hours after a dive?
egkelly, I saw that special, too. On eof the divers on the show almost bought it, too, IIRC when some debris colapsed behind him and his buddy was forced to head back to the surface w/out him.
Myself, I’ve been to 67’ in fresh water in Northern Florida and 84’ in the ocean off of North Myrtle Beach, NC. Vis, BTW, is terrible off of NC and unless you are the first one down, you won’t have much of anythign to look at around the wrecks.
If anyone wants any gear, I’ve got two extra, full, sets of regs/octos and BCD’s, also 6 tanks and a couple sets of fins, snorkles (new) and knives.
DACOR all around, FWIW. I’m willing to bargain for those that are looking for more than one or two pieces.
Thinksnow,
talk to me about the tanks. Steel? (my fav) Al 72?
When were they in hydro? last VIP? Price? Location?
Always looking to upgrade to newer stuff, but buying tanks can be troublesome if you don’t dive often. Not worth the expense.
In my advanced open water class we went to 120 feet for 3 minutes.((as our required Decompression dive)).Deep sucks.The best diving,IMHO,is less than 60 ft.The vis is much better.120 ft was Dark and cold and I had one HELL of a mask squeeze.We did an emergency out of air ascent from 90 ft.That was a blast.“Follow your bubbles up” like hell! I went up so fast I shot out of the water to my thighs.
My friend did some Wreck/cave diving classes where they went to 140 ft to show them the effects of nitrogen narcosis.Part of the test was that they had to dive down to a submerged car at 140 ft,read and record the odometer reading.My buddy said one guy came up and said he couldn’t find any car,but why was there a piano on the bottom? That story cracks me up.
About 130’. Most of my research took place b/t 30 and 60’, but occassionally I would have to go deeper for a certain speciman.
Much of my work was done in shallow reef areas where the surge required me to wear about 36 lbs of lead to keep weighted down.
All my research diving was on nitrox.
I once spent a 10-day saturation mission on the research station Aquarius near Conch Reef off Key Largo. The six of us on the mission spent the last 8 days at a low-level of nitrogen narcosis. Just enough to be slightly giddy when back in the tube. No one was affected enough to compromise the work at hand. Even so, there were support divers from the surface always keeping their eyes on us–general safety precaution.
We spent on average 10 hours a day working at depth. 6 hours, then back for lunch, then another 4 hours or so in the afternoon/evening. We wore doubles, and just did a switch at the tank rack (stocked by surface support) whenever necessary. I think at least 6 research papers came out of that mission, including some groundbreaking video footage.
After that mission, we went through a 24-hour decompression before surfacing.
Duuuuuude! That is sooooooooo hardcore!
Nope, no such extreme residuals, to my recollection (my dive logs are boxed away due to my moving last week). And in the hotter weather of Hawaii we were safe within 24 (offgassing more quickly in hot weather). My instructor always warned about gaining altitude after a dive, or even taking a hot-tub after dives that pressed the NDL [“no-decompression limit” for the non-divers].
I got PADI certified through a semester-long class at Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA, and we did our checkout dives at Fort Bragg, CA. In colder conditions, after repetitive dives we had to watch our tables before driving over the mountains to go home. Two students in the prior semester got too eager to get home that day and got the bends driving through the mountains. The college administration gave the SCUBA program hell for that.
But, yes, on the drive to the top of Mauna Kea I did keep alert for itchy skin.
Ohhh, man, Divemaster, I’d have given my left nut to go on that Aquarius mission!
OrcaChow, good to hear, sounds incredible, just one question: I though Fort Bragg was in NC?
spritle, the tanks are AL, I though 80’s, but I might be wrong, one I know is a compact 50 (good for the women-folk)
3 just had hydro and vis in June, the other 3 are in need of hydro.
price, we can talk
location: Ohio
drop me an email if interested, and in case you’re wondering why I’m selling, it’s because I really don’t see the need for all the duplicate equipment, I’m hanging onto my good regs and BC, the rest can go.
divemaster, I think you are now the god of this thread.
<all hail DM>