Monday, March 13, 2006

The double edged sword that is my life...

I live my life in a constant struggle.....a struggle of excitement and disappointment. Ofcourse what I am talking about is climbing vs. diving. When its winter and the ice is here want it leave on one hand, so I can dive, but on the other hand I want it to stay and I can continue to climb.

Since the diving season is just right around the corner I think I am going to talk about that. This year should be exciting. My dad and I will be utilizing helium more often in our gas mixes, thus reducing the danger associated with nitrogen (air) Technically, helium is only used for more "technical diving" but dad and I will be using it on deeper recreational dives. i.e.-below 80ft. More often than not people won't dive helium/oxygen/nitrogen (trimix) mixtures due the cost. Heluim is not cheap, but due to the fact that we mix our own gas its actually cheap to do.


-This is our fill station at my house. The green bottle is the oxygen and there will soon be a brown one with helium in it.
HELL YES!!!!! and yes the entire fill whip was made curtousiy of Matt and Steve Van Zeeland.




Some many people are afraid of heluim, only becuause they don't understand it. As the years go by the phrase, "Air is for tires, mixed gasses are for diving" is soooooo true. There is scientific evidance the shows air actually hurts your body in scuba applications. (narcosis, offgasses slowly, bone deteriation etc...)

I talk about this alot because it pisses me off when people shoot off there mouths about "techical diving" and don't know jack shit about it. They are the ones doing the stupid dives and killing themselves as well as others. I am by now means an expert, but damn it, make diving the safest you can. You know, the worse ones are the older generations. They give the "I have been doing this for twenty years, so don't tell me how to dive". Fucking get off your soap box and change with the times. If helium was so bad and hard on your body. Why then, would hospitals put people on a heliox (oxygen/helium) gas when they are in surgery, or actually any time they have a hard time breathing. Because heluim is soo easy to breath (physically) and so easy of your body to perfuse in to your lungs. To dive trimix is no more difficult than diving Nitrox, PADI's new push. BUT WAIT, that is the same certification agency that used to call nitrox the "devils gas" and that its totally unsafe. DEMA banned it from their shows and some islands banned it. (cayman) But now its the big thing to hit diving. Even though its been around for along time, contrary to popular beleif.

Anyways, to get off my soap box, my dad and I will be limiting our dives to 150' and minimal decompression, less than 15 minutes. I don't think people understand my excitement. We will be able to dive many new wrecks and dive with a clear head (due to the heluim).

Thats it for now about diving. I just finished up with a presentaion in my 490 class, which went very well so I was excited.

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