Benefits of Getting Your PADI Nitrox Certificate
Many divers overlook the benefits of the Enriched Air, or Nitrox, course merely for the fact that they are already mature divers who can maximize their bottom time through experience. While experience is a vital part of becoming a better diver there are many way in which you can improve by studying further information and updating your PADI course knowledge. While maximizing bottom time may be one of the benefits of Enriched Air or Nitrox, it is by far not the only one. Reducing the feeling of exhaustion after dives, shorter surface intervals and shorter decompression times while having longer repetitive dives are all advantages of being Nitrox certified.
One of the main complaints divers have after a dive is that they can feel exhaustion from breathing compressed air. By reducing the amount of Nitrogen a diver breathes many divers claim they feel more alert and less tired compared to diving on normal air. While the bulk of diving takes part in the early morning, feeling less tired after a dive can free up your afternoon for other vacation activities that may have been pushed out to cram in a post dive nap. You will find that there are endless opportunities for afternoon adventure in and around the Flamingo and Guanacaste region of Costa Rica.
How will being Nitrox certified help with shorter surface intervals? With Nitrox your body is absorbing less nitrogen through breathing and therefore has less gas to burn off during your surface interval times. The enriched air, or “nitrox” is made up for 31% oxygen while normal compressed is at 21% oxygen.
Shorter decompression stops while diving ties in with longer bottom times. We know from becoming a certified scuba diver that the water pressure causes nitrogen bubbles to dissolve into your bloodstream as you are breathing air during your dive. The higher the pressure, the more nitrogen will dissolve. After a certain concentration of nitrogen builds up, you must come back to the surface slowly in order to avoid either mandatory decompression stops or a case of decompression sickness. The less amount of gases your body has to burn off either while at the surface or during decompression stop is time that can be spent enjoying your dive. You can take longer secondary repetitive dives as your body has again absorbed less nitrogen.
Using Nitrox will also help you in repetitive dives for example, after a dive to 70 feet for 30 minutes, a diver using Enriched Air 31% can stay at 70 feet for a maximum of 24 minutes if he immediately reenters the water. However, a diver performing the same series of dives on air may only stay at 70 feet for 19 minutes on his second dive (according to NOAA’s no decompression dive tables). Your body is receiving less nitrogen during a dive with Nitrox and in short that leads to less time your body needs to burn off and decompress the nitrogen after a dive.
If you are a diver who feels that any of these benefits of Enriched Air will help you to become a better diver contact Rocket Frog Divers and let us get you started towards a better diver experience.
