4 ms·
45m is well within range of recreational diving, I wonder if this will become a diving destination. Personally I would love to dive ruins like this, bit the cy
by diveanon 7y ago
45m is well within range of recreational diving, I wonder if this will become a diving destination.
Personally I would love to dive ruins like this, bit the cynic in me knows that tourists would strip the location and ruin it.
- nradov 7y agoSome sensitive areas have had good results with requiring tourists to dive with licensed local guides. But 45m is a little deeper than most recreational divers can safely go. To do it safely and get a reasonable bottom time takes some basic technical dive training plus double tanks with normoxic trimix, and a decompression stage. (I know many divers have gone deeper using a single tank with compressed air but if anything goes wrong it can turn deadly in seconds.)
- diveanon 7y agoMy deepest dive on a single tank was 57m, and I wouldn't recommend that or try to repeat it. Down currents can be terrifying. You're right that 45m puts of out of range of most divers, but it is definitely still a doable dive with decent divers on twins and a deco stage. The visibility in the photo looks decent for a silty bottom, I wonder what the current is like since it is in the Nile. I am also curious about what caused it to become submerged in 45m of water 1500 years ago.
- smileysteve 7y ago57m on a single tank would just be so short too; air goes quick at that depth, and the longer you stay down the longer you have to take getting up.
- diveanon 7y agoit was definitely not the plan. I remember being hooked on the wall and seeing my bubbles descending behind me. That dive felt more like mountain climbing than diving.
- nradov 7y agoSome walls have vicious down currents, but if you just swim away from the wall a few meters the current will decline and you can establish positive buoyancy.
- diveanon 7y agoYou're right, but I wasn't willing to take that risk. One of the divers in my group was already in a mild state of panic and I didn't want to chance them letting go of the wall and descending another 10m. I had a plan to deal with the current, but oxygen toxicity is another thing entirely.
- nradov 7y agoOxygen toxicity isn't really a factor at that depth; you'd run out of air on a single tank before experiencing any toxicity symptoms. The immediate concerns would be narcosis and hypercapnia.
- Murdoch 7y agoClimate change?
- spchampion2 7y ago45m is well below the range of recreational diving, which has a limit of about 40m. Below that you're looking at needing multiple air cylinders, special breathing gas mixtures, and decompression stops on the way up. On the other hand, 45m is totally fair game for technical divers, who are trained in deeper, longer, decompression style diving. Divers who pursue this training need to be tip-top recreational divers first.
- dgemm 7y ago45 m is well within the range of decompression diving but is beyond the reach of 99% of recreational divers.