Quadriplegic & Paraplegic Spinal Cord Injuries: Scuba Diving... - Quadriplegic & Paraplegic Spinal Cord Injuries

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Scuba Diving... Any other issues to know? Rate Topic: -----

#51 User is offline   twisted_ophelia 

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Posted 05 September 2009 - 02:34 AM

View Postwheeels, on Sep 4 2009, 12:11 AM, said:

Wow you are accumulating a lot of gear fast that is so awesome, and a blizzard reg great choice.

My biggest pet peeves about diving are that we use more air and its tough to keep up to others using just the arms. Thats one reason I like drift diving as it requires less swimming.

I would like one day move into a DPV but they are quite expensive and supper heavy to carry around.

If you are fine around 30feet you will be fine too 100feet you will get a little more pressure and feel the temperature difference, you will notice your breathing rate will change so just watch for that, I find that focusing on keeping my berating rate slow and steady helps.

Oh about the tank usually that the last thing you need I feel as its not that much to rent, you dint have to maintain it and if you travel its not worth taking with you.


I'm actually going to do the Enriched Air course in October so I can dive using Nitrox. I think that should help with air consumption. Drift diving is on my list of things to do. I've heard it is tons of fun! There are few places locally here in Ontario, like Big Bay Point, where people drift dive and I'm excited to give it a try when I have a little more experience.

On our next dive trip, for my 3 and 4th cert dives, we're also being joined by a professional underwater photographer who, depending on whether he gets the 'perfect' shot of me diving, will be submitting the photo to some scuba mags. Yay! He also happens to have a DPV that he will be bringing for me to try which I'm really excited about. He mentioned that it is a pain and heavy on land but underwater is virtually weightless. I forget what kind it is, he sent me the link to it, I'll have to get into my email and post it here.

So, at 100feet, do you find you start to breathe faster and shallower? I've done well so far with the slow and steady breathing and I find that I don't start to really suck air as long as I focus on gliding between arm strokes. I think that's why I came up with 1800psi on Monday.


View Posttrinity, on Sep 4 2009, 04:24 AM, said:

View Postwheeels, on Sep 4 2009, 05:11 AM, said:

My biggest pet peeves about diving are that we use more air.

I find that interesting, I figured you would use less air than everyone else coz you were not using half your muscles, I have found since sci i can swim further underwater than I could pre sci which I put down to none of my leg muscles requiring oxygen to fuel them.

Sorry for the mini hijack, I know nothing about scuba diving!


Nope, you're not taking into account that they have fins on which makes them much more efficient and scuba divers wear a lot of gear. We're wearing BCDs, tanks, weights, etc. Gear is heavy. Ever tried to lift a scuba tank? It weighs a ton. For me, anyway. I can't lift my own tanks so my dive buddy has to help with set up. Unless I roll it along the ground, which I've done. Surface swimming with gear on is incredibly difficult for me whereas underwater it becomes much lighter.


View Postwheeels, on Sep 4 2009, 11:52 AM, said:

I am not an expert but I feel that part of the issue with air and scuba is that when you are swimming you have no equipment on with scuba you have your wetsuit, BCD, regulators and a tank that all add drag though the water.

Swimming with your arms is not as efficient as using your legs and flippers so you end up using more air to go the same distance.

Metabolically we should use less air with less muscle mass, but we loose this advantage due to inefficiency of using our arms and not being as streamlined.


Yep, exactly. But swimming with the webbed hand gloves made me so much more efficient. And we can't streamline ourselves like AB divers do (a good AB scuba diver swims ONLY with his/her fins, hands/arms should be down at their sides) so we create drag underwater.
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#52 User is offline   wheeels 

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Posted 06 September 2009 - 02:49 AM

Enriched Air!! Ah so jealous.....

With the deep dives I found as you get deeper the breathing gets shallower but I think thats just a reaction to the chagne in environment and the ability to slow it down comes with time.

I also think that the more you dive the better you will get with breathing in general and that will help conserve air, I have found on a multi day dive trip that my air seemed to last longer the more I did.
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#53 User is offline   twisted_ophelia 

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Posted 06 September 2009 - 04:06 PM

View Postwheeels, on Sep 5 2009, 10:49 PM, said:

Enriched Air!! Ah so jealous.....

With the deep dives I found as you get deeper the breathing gets shallower but I think thats just a reaction to the chagne in environment and the ability to slow it down comes with time.

I also think that the more you dive the better you will get with breathing in general and that will help conserve air, I have found on a multi day dive trip that my air seemed to last longer the more I did.


Do you have a dive shop in your area that offers the Enriched Air course? Another guy I know with SCI who dives told me it makes a BIG difference for us to dive with Nitrox. I think I will be okay going down to 100 feet. I have an awesome dive buddy who will be doing the Advanced course with me and he quite literally makes me feel very safe down there. It's funny how some people have that effect on others! Anyway, I'm excited to do more wreck diving with actual overhead environments. I'm such a history nerd and old ship wrecks are so amazing and creepy. If you can make a trip to Ontario, you should come and dive with us!

I posted these pics in another thread (and there are more on my blog) but I will repost them here! They are from our dive on Monday. We were down at the Morrison wreck but the vis was crappy so you can't actually SEE the Morrison behind us :D

Me!
Attached Image: morr.jpg

Attached Image: morr4.jpg

Me, my dive buddy and the 'invisible' Morrison wreck behind us.

This post has been edited by twisted_ophelia: 06 September 2009 - 04:07 PM

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#54 User is offline   wheeels 

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Posted 08 September 2009 - 01:33 AM

Yup I have a few dive shops that offer Enriched Air, I just don't dive enough to make it worth at this time.

I have a goal to one day get my dive masters, but I will need way more time before that happens.

Good luck and keep us posted
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#55 User is offline   twisted_ophelia 

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Posted 08 September 2009 - 04:19 AM

View Postwheeels, on Sep 7 2009, 09:33 PM, said:

Yup I have a few dive shops that offer Enriched Air, I just don't dive enough to make it worth at this time.

I have a goal to one day get my dive masters, but I will need way more time before that happens.

Good luck and keep us posted


I was talking to my instructor about becoming a divemaster. I thought that the Rescue Diving course is a requirement though, isn't it? As much as I hate to admit I probably can't do something, I don't think I'd be able to become a rescue diver. One of the required skills is carrying people up boat ladders and such and I don't think this is a feasible possibility for me, lol. Some people are able to become divemasters in a couple years, depending on how much diving you do.

I actually got invited today by Freedom At Depth, an adaptive diving organization, to go out to Bonaire with them in January. I was texting with my dive buddy/friend about it tonight and depending on details, we may go. The trip is not expenses paid, I think we have to pay for own flights but the diving expenses are covered. So I'm considering it if the flight isn't ridiculously expensive. Going to Bonaire to dive would be beyond incredible. I talked to Hubert from FaD about diving deep and he said he's never had an issue taking someone with SCI down to 100 ft but recommends a slower descent/ascent, instead of 1 foot per second, doing half a foot per second because of circulatory issues, scar tissue on our spinal cords, different muscle mass from atrophy, etc. He also recommended doing the Nitrox course. So I'm definitely feeling significantly more comfortable about doing my first deep dive in October.
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#56 User is offline   wheeels 

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Posted 08 September 2009 - 03:11 PM

If all you have to cover is airfare then go or you will regret it, Bonaire would be great.

Yup would have to do the rescue diver, but from talking to the folks around here they are willing to adapt the program for me if I do it, The dragging of a person out of the water with full dive gear would be impossible.
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#57 User is offline   twisted_ophelia 

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Posted 08 September 2009 - 04:10 PM

View Postwheeels, on Sep 8 2009, 11:11 AM, said:

If all you have to cover is airfare then go or you will regret it, Bonaire would be great.

Yup would have to do the rescue diver, but from talking to the folks around here they are willing to adapt the program for me if I do it, The dragging of a person out of the water with full dive gear would be impossible.


If you do the rescue diver course, please keep me posted because I would love to become a divemaster. Other than my SCI, I'm a pretty small female (though I'm strong) but I do know some small women divers (who are able-bodied) who have done the course no problem including the stuff where you have to pick people up. I can barely get MYSELF out of the water with gear on so I'm pretty sure that I would not be able to drag someone with gear on out of the water. On our dives, I was taking off my gear and my dive buddy was pulling it all up on shore then carrying me out of the water. We haven't done a boat dive yet but we have a few ideas about how I'll get back on the boat (most involve grabbing me by the gear and pulling me on board, lol). I know PADI is really good about letting people adapt skills. How did they say you can adapt the dragging-person-with-gear skill? Take their gear off them, maybe? I even find it difficult to do the buddy tow. When I did the skill for my open water cert dives, I was all impressed with myself because we were moving so much faster than I had moved in the pool and I was all excited. Then my dive buddy tells me he was helping me by finning a little bit and that he was a "tired buddy" not a "a dead buddy" hahahaha. Oh well, I know that I CAN tow someone if needed, it just takes a while.

I've contacted the lady who arranges the travel stuff for the Bonaire trip and she is going to speak with the organization a bit more to see what they can do, I guess. I think even just a flight to Bonaire is out of my price range right now but if I can find a way to get down there in January, I'll do it for sure. I've heard the diving is out of this world.

This post has been edited by twisted_ophelia: 08 September 2009 - 04:11 PM

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#58 User is offline   twisted_ophelia 

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Posted 13 September 2009 - 11:26 AM

I am finished up my open water certification dives today! Yay! After this afternoon, I will be all certified and I'm very excited. I bought the Henderson Hot Skins (nylons/UV shield) to wear under my wetsuit as I've been told it makes putting wet suits on MUCH easier. I'm also going to be using a DPV for the first time today which I'm excited to try, see if it makes a big difference. We've got a videographer and underwater photographer joining us again so I should hopefully have some really great shot of us underwater to show you guys soon. We are thinking of heading up to Penetang, Ontario for our next dive to see the Maple Dawn wreck, apparently it's very cool!
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#59 User is offline   brokent10 

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Posted 27 November 2009 - 08:55 PM

Twisted, glad you made it into diving and welcome to the diving family. I'm a T10 complete and I've been diving for close to four years and have almost two hundred dives logged. I am certified through SSI and am a Master Diver. I have taken the Rescue Course and it is all about adaptation. I am also dry suit certified and Nitrox. I dont dive to much nitrox as air is cheaper and Nitrox (in my opinion) is only good if you are doing repeated dives such as a live aboard situation or multiple (3-4) dives in one day.
Air consuption gets better with your skill level once you sort out your kit and become comfortable in the water. I dive in Ohio so its cold and deep, 140 feet at 34 degrees. Going deep will increase your air consuption because of the pressure xerted on your lungs by the outside water pressure. One breath at 100 feet is equal to 4 on land.
I've dove quarries, Lake Erie, St. Lawrence seaway, Florida Keys and Dominican Republic. So I am exprienced in getting on and off boats, salt, fresh and some cave/cavern diving in Florida. I dont use a DPV but rather swimmer's handpaddles because I can wear heavy weight gloves or dry gloves with them and they swing out of the way when I need them to. I recently switched to diving a side mount set up and am more comfortable than a single on the back and I carry more gas.
P.S. if you decide to buy another tank buy a steel becasue you dont need as much weight when diving in a wetsuit or dry suit as a dry suit requires almost double the weight and they dont become positively bouyant as air is consumed!
If you had questions or want advice or want to see pics of me diving look me up on Facebook, Evan Graver. Good luck and happy diving!
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