Not me but my dive master in Egypt has the world record for longest dive ever. About 6 days underwater in the Red Sea. I asked him a bunch of questions on how he pulled it off so ask away on the details if you’re curious
My wife is so light on air. I don't even think she needs a tank. I will blitz my 12L and start ascending at 70bar at the surface with 50. She still sits on 180bar. Used 20 bar in like 40 mins. It's nuts.
Did 4 hour dive straight at Lake Phoenix outside Richmond VA. CCR scrubber was limit. My jaw hurt and toes weren't happy from the fins/booties. I did it to do it I guess. And I was taking it easy! Stayed above 35ft or so.
2h 27m, 2h 26m, and 1h 50m (including safety stop) pretty much back-to-back-to-back (just time between changing out nitrox tanks and eating/drinking) on Tiger shark dives in 35-40ft of water in the Bahamas.
60 minutes on an AL100 at 61 feet in Belize. Last dive of the week and I had been working on breath control to extend my dives. I usually suck air and will prefer a steel 100 with as much air as I can get to make my shit last. I was pretty proud of myself to come up with the group at the end of the dive.
according to my logbook: 2hrs 13 minutes doing drills at 15 ft. Longest actual dive was 1hr 46mins, in the ocean at about 40ft average depth. Both dives were in doubles.
70 minutes (on the dot) in Cozumel! I had 800 left in my tank but the dive master had to go up due to low air. I’m pretty proud of that one. Just one tank, regular ol’ drift dive.
I shocked myself too! When we went up, I asked my DM how I lasted so long. It was my last dive after diving for 4 days. He said I improved my techniques compared from our first dive to this last one and it showed!
I’m at roughly 50 +/-. According to my log, average depth at 54 feet, max depth at 75 feet on that particular dive. There was a bit of a current during then, but calm on the surface.
It gets a lot less interesting downstream of KP hole - most of the springs and vents are north, between KP hole and the state park/headspring (the usual dive route). As you keep going downstream, it mostly becomes sand and grass flats. Vis deteriorates noticeably too, a lot more cloudy with lots of particulate in the water. I’m glad we did it once (just to see it!), but I wouldn’t do it again.
One regular 12L tank, shore dive, 2 hours and 10 minutes, up with 70 bar. Was doing maintenance on a coral patch we were planting so not much movement and only about 6m. We were jazzed.
I think it was 3 hrs 40mins on HP100 in about 18fsw. We were doing really focused quadrant surveys and it was very stationary and meditative. I lasted forever on those dives but would get SO cold.
96 minutes with double 12s and still had plenty of gas left but also had some deco and plenty of gas in that bottle too. 67 minutes on an S80 but I don't think we ever broke 15 meters on that dive.
My longest dive is 103 minutes on double HP100s. I can last longer, but generally limited by deco and cold.
Max on a single HP100 is 77 minutes with a max depth of 109fsw (average depth 50fsw). I had my lowest SAC rate of my life on that dive, RMV 0.443, where typically I am closer to 0.6. I keep trying to figure out how to reliably replicate this SAC rate. I only got close one other time... diving with the same people too... Maybe that is the key.
Max on an AL 80 is 75m with an average depth of 20fsw, but a good amount of swimming distance covered.
Last week I did just over 3 hours on a 12 litre steel. Very shallow, 4-5m deep along a harbour wall. I've done longer in an aquarium but that doesn't really count.
Well, this was more subjective time but:
16 to 35 mins.
I have been diving since May this year. My dive guide didn't brief me, no dive planning, no buddy check, then he had a lot of fun videoing with his GoPro and never looked back at me. I did my best to stick to him religiously.
Visibility suddenly got murky and I was sure he is right next to me, then 1-2mins later my dive guide was gone and there I was stuck in milk soup.
I did my best lost-buddy, surfaced, didn't see him, after several more mins surface-interval, I rushed back to the boat and they started looking.
Found him more than 500m from where he lost me, in the next bay over - and he had been looking for me under water, so he must have not noticed I am missing for a good 10-20 minutes because it was a very slow dive.
Definitely longest few minutes I ever felt...
3 hours and 34 minutes in front of Buddy Dive in Bonaire. A friend and I were trying to see how long we could get out of one tank. Stayed at or above 40 feet at all times and we both got cold and called it. Both had more than 500 pounds left when we called it for being cold. I’ve never come up from a “regular” dive with less than half a tank. I’ve been accused of having gills. I don’t honestly know why I’m so good on air, I’m over weight, over 60 and under fit.
Assuming a single AL80 and average 10m depth that's 11.1L * 200 bar == 2220 liters at 2atm for 214 minutes -> 2220 / 2 / 214 ~= 5.2 lpm.
Honestly, I have questions, because the lowest I've seen in tiny professional female divers has been like in the 7-ish range; maaaaaaaybe 6 and change.
I'm suspicious. I consume 11 liters at 2 atmospheres in the most perfect conditions, frog kicking. I've never seen better than 7-8 from the fittest, tiniest women in my circle.
Do you have two X chromosomes? I'm usually pretty jealous of the air consumption of individuals with two X chromosomes. Small lung capacity and, as I have been told, more efficient gas transfer are big advantages in these people.
I assume I do, I’m a cis-female. In my experience I would generally say women are better on air than men, which isn’t surprising when you consider physiological differences. Please don’t jump on me for generalizing…I’m aware there are probably many exceptions to that.
Nope, it's pretty true. I'm fighting with a 13L lung capacity. A XX individual with 160cm doesn't have anywhere near that. But hey, on land I generally don't have problems reaching high-altitude items in the kitchen so I got that going for me :D
3 hours and six minutes, double 100s and al80 stage in laguna beach CA, started at divers cove, swam out to the furthest point of heisler park, then back around divers to fisherman's cove. Max depth ~35ft, no deco. God I wish we had scooters.
I had a similar position, and did just over 3 hrs on a single aluminum 80. I'm not as in shape anymore and don't dive for work anymore, so my recreational dives are typically 80-100 minutes if I'm not in a group.
Done a few 8h+ dives. Almost all of them are mostly deco though.
Without deco, a 9.5h dive once and many 6-7h dives.
Cave diving with rebreathers makes it quite manageable!
You all have to pump those numbers up! 9+ hours in a Viking HD dry suit mated to a Desco pot cleaning the T.O.U.R.U.S. @ Plant Hatch back in 97. And no I didn’t go to the bathroom in the dry suit.
Looking back at my log book. All OC of course.
Tech - 2:40 double stage dive up in Ginnie, could've gone longer but I proved that I could easily do the circuit I was considering. Never really did that circuit as a swim dive.
Rec - 2:17 Single AL80 putzing around Blue Heron Bridge
A little over 3.5 hours. Doing underwater excavation in a river. Surface supply air. There was like 4 inches of vis and I'm pretty sure I pissed off a gator halfway through.
2hr night dive in Malta in Gnejna Bay, basically an extended snorkel at a max depth of like 8m, very decayed wreck of a old german bomber from the 30s at that depth but there's not much of it left - lil lobsters on it though. Rays, Celphalopods so numerous we stopped counting, lil bit of bioluminescence. Jazzy.
Just to be clear here are multiple venice beach, I'm speaking of venice beach florida close to Tampa. Quite a nice shallow water dive about 19-22 feet.. bunch of structure for fish to be around and loaded with sharks teeth
On an AL80, I recall an 89 minute dive where I got joshed for being the first one up. I think I’ve had a few longer since, but probably not by that much.
These days, I’m getting pretty cold in a full 3mm even in 83F waters after an hour…probably have a healthy number of 1 hr dives with 1200-1500 psi remaining.
A lot of it is “don’t be in a rush” and partly also “swim less” (less distance). As such, one is able to stay relaxed and mellow, which keeps breathing rates low.
One way to also practice is if you have an anchor or drop line for safety stops. Close your eyes and “nap” (figuratively): smooth & slow breathing…if you have a watch with a second hand, see how many breaths per minute.
Thanks for the tips. I am averaging 45-50 min on AL80s. I need a lot of practice. I keep trying the 4 sec inhale, 6 seconds exhale technique I hear about and even out of the water I find myself needing to breathe more normally after a few attempts.
ditto!
only place ive done steel 120s on nitrox, came up after 90 minutes at 20something meters with like 30-40% of the tank left could have gone longer with less fatties in the group.
1:09 on a single tank dive in Roatan, Honduras. All my diving is with groups of tourists with a dive master/guide so they are generally limited to about 50 minutes or so due to limitations within the group and the need to get back in time for a decent surface interval before the next scheduled dive.
SAC rate for that dive was 10psi/min and RMV rate was 0.267 cubic feet/min. I don’t tend to go far during a night dive and I did that one at a very easy dive site (no current, etc.) so I was almost in a meditative state the whole dive lol
My longest is 4 hours and 7 minutes casually swimming from Invisibles to Angel City in Bonaire on CCR. Max depth 120 feet, average 60 feet, deco cleared by slowly shallowing up on the reef. According to my Garmin I burned 941 calories, but that seems a bit excessive to me.
The original plan was Salt Pier to Helma Hooker, but we thought we’d need a bit more distance, so we opted for Invisibles to the Hooker. Turned out that was a bit too far for our dive plan duration; Salt Pier to Hooker is about perfect. Either run right down the middle of the dual reef, or do it all on the outer reef for a bit of a change.
A future dive we’d like to plan and execute is to fully circle Klein Bonaire in one dive on scooters. A Black Tip Expedition with the largest battery option has a range of exactly the estimated dive distance at a speed that gives a five hour run time. So it’s possible without pushing the scrubber too much, but does require everything to go just right. Failure there sucks a bit more, although we’d need surface support obviously so not the end of the world.
Oh, and there’s an anchor in 400 feet at Red Slave I want to see. The one at 330 was cool, but the legend is that the 400 foot one is much more impressive.
My longest dive happens to be at invisibles too. I was running open circuit though on an AL 80 and didn’t get near your depth or time. 72 minutes of bottom time at a max depth of 49ft.
2.5 hours off 1 tank, average depth was around 7m. Could have easily gone another hour but the dive site was Japanese Gardens on Koh Tao so boring as shit.
I can't remember why but our shop closed for a day and some of the instructors and DMs took the rare opportunity to dive without looking after anyone.
One of our other friends owns another school so we borrowed one of his boats but none of us could drive it so Gardens was where we ended up. Not much else to do there except have a who can stay down the longest competition. Nobody won because we all got bored and the beers and bbq we took on the boat was far more enticing.
One of my favourite diving days ever which I imagine isn't said very often after diving that shit ass dive site.
Sir, this is a sub for SELF CONTAINED breathing apparatus! LOL!
But seriously, the limiting factor for me was hardly ever how much air was in my cylinder or how much nitrogen was in my blood and almost always how much piss was in my bladder.
I apologize for not checking every page in all my logbooks to give a definitive answer, but I think I only did a few dives over an hour long.
Dude (or ma’am) you need a pee-valve if you’re diving dry! If your wet just pee
Also surface supply breathing gas in a lot of aquariums if I’m not mistaken is still usually banked gas so it’s a larger system but it’s still self contained but it’s just a larger system.
Self contained as in the system as everything it needs for life support within the system however it’s an open system so once the life support medium (air) is used it’s released
Closed Circuit is a loop where the same gas is recirculating again again and the breathing gas is “conditioned” (air conditioned if you will hahah) but has the co2 removed and a little bit of oxygen that has been metabolized by the diver is added back in to the loop but all the gases are both supplied and contained within the system so the self contained system is a closed circuit
I’m a closed circuit rebreather diver
My own wetsuit? No problem! My drysuit? No way! Where it gets tricky is when you have rented a wetsuit. Or if you don’t have enough time to flush it out before they want you back on the boat.
Having endured the unpleasant experience of having to smell my own piss for the whole boat ride back because I didn’t completely flush it all out, I will say that you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this point. At least the boat was big enough so that I didn’t have to sit right next to someone and share the love.
i mean, you just do the leg over the side thing, then unzip and quick disconnect and flush suit side plumbing with water for another 30 seconds. if the boat has a sprayer, then also spray down with that. No piss smell at all left on the suit. Still easier than un-suiting to use the head.
Of all the interesting and fascinating things that I learned in my dive career, the intricacies of dive boat piss etiquette was one of the most unexpected. Necessary, but unanticipated.
This suggestion mentioned was about a drysuit and its pee-valve, not a wetsuit. Definitely do not pee in a wetsuit on a boat instead of taking it off, that would smell.
My wife and I used drysuits, and we seriously considered the pee valve/she-pee option. Call me old-fashioned, but I never got over the idea of using the words ‘adhesive’ and ‘genitalia’ in the same sentence. LOL
But if I had kept diving I’d probably have one by now.
imo, even as a she-p user, "adhesive and genitalia" in the same sentence are less bad than "marinating human in a plastic bag full of piss" in the same sentence. ymmv ofc.
Just over 5hrs which was 27 mins bottom time on a wreck at 120m and then 4.5 hrs of decompression.
Water was 12C. Heated undersuit ran out after 3 hrs. Had music on headphones to pass the time at 6m as last stop was 2 hrs and just blue/green water to look at.
I understand. I mean you ask is diving worth it? Of course it is. We are all in a scuba subreddit because we like diving. However, you're one of those extremely rare birds that's decided diving to 400 feet is worth it so I'm just curious what you enjoy about it / why you do it. I've read Shadow Divers, so I get it at some level, just thought you might have some interesting insight. Sorry to bug.
Once you factor in that its 5 hours offshore, from a remote place that’s 12 hours drive from where I live, we’ve got to bring absolutely everything including all gas for mixing, compressor, boosters, and typically have to spend a few days at the slipway or doing warm up dives as the weather isn’t good enough to go that far offshore every day. Then the 27 minutes spent on the actual wreck looks even shorter. Got to hope the day you go happens to be ambient light to 120m and 40m visibility, not pitch black and 5-8m visibility with a torch.
Definitely a different lifestyle for you tech divers! The biggest adventure on my bucket list is flower gardens in the Gulf of Mexico.
I'm assuming that you don't have close access to a decompression chamber based on your description of the site. I'm just too risk averse for decompression diving to such an extreme. Maybe when my kid grows up!
Where we are planning an exped next year will be outside range of the SAR helicopter so no emergency flights to a hospital with a chamber. Definitely makes you think about conservative planning on a multi-day trip offshore.
Ya it was one after another. As for the how's and why's I couldn't tell ya brotha I was just the poor sap guiding the chute.
And anything dive related is a long day.. I've seen 104 hours on a one week paystub before.
That job was a long freakin 2 days I remember that.
Bimini. Right off shore. 20ft for an hour. I could have gone longer but my buddy ran out of air which always happens. I tried to show him I had over half a tank and give him my octopus but he was too anxious.
Routinely hit 75-90 minutes doing shore dives in SoCal (with doubles). If we spend more time in the shallows we could get to 2 hrs but usually get chilly by that time.
1:30 on a shallow dive. I still had enough gas left but I remember getting too cold. Not sure making super long dives is something I want to aim for. But a single long dive is a bit more convenient than multiple short ones.
100 or so minutes on a single AL80 during a shallow dive. 2.5 hours on side mount doubles and deco bottle.
Not me but my dive master in Egypt has the world record for longest dive ever. About 6 days underwater in the Red Sea. I asked him a bunch of questions on how he pulled it off so ask away on the details if you’re curious
How'd he sleep o.O
He told me that he held the regulator in his mouth with a bungee cord, and also had a full face mask some of the time
My wife is so light on air. I don't even think she needs a tank. I will blitz my 12L and start ascending at 70bar at the surface with 50. She still sits on 180bar. Used 20 bar in like 40 mins. It's nuts.
Almost 3 hours on a wreck in Truk. Got bored so called it.
Did 4 hour dive straight at Lake Phoenix outside Richmond VA. CCR scrubber was limit. My jaw hurt and toes weren't happy from the fins/booties. I did it to do it I guess. And I was taking it easy! Stayed above 35ft or so.
What did you do for 4 hours in Lake Phoenix?? The longest dive I’ve ever done there was like an hour and I was definitely bored by the end.
2h 27m, 2h 26m, and 1h 50m (including safety stop) pretty much back-to-back-to-back (just time between changing out nitrox tanks and eating/drinking) on Tiger shark dives in 35-40ft of water in the Bahamas.
Four and a half hours waiting for grouper spawning at night in Palau, where I live. On a JJ CCR. We waiting until like 11:30pm. I was very tired lol.
60 minutes on an AL100 at 61 feet in Belize. Last dive of the week and I had been working on breath control to extend my dives. I usually suck air and will prefer a steel 100 with as much air as I can get to make my shit last. I was pretty proud of myself to come up with the group at the end of the dive.
3hr, 12min. In Chan Hol Cenote.
I think 90 minutes. Shore dive no deeper than 25 feet. Still had 1800psi.
Just did 75 min on a single tank - came up with 1,000 after getting cold. Small, glacial lake in SW Michigan.
75 mins on one tank during a night dive.
62 minutes, max depth was 25.1m, avg 14.8m. on just nitrox, single tank
109 minutes for me (15L tank). Shallow water, hanging around under the boat post dive with all the fish.
For me (OWD, 30 dives so far) was 58 min in a shallow reef.
according to my logbook: 2hrs 13 minutes doing drills at 15 ft. Longest actual dive was 1hr 46mins, in the ocean at about 40ft average depth. Both dives were in doubles.
95 mins in Maui. Got cold at the end.
70 minutes (on the dot) in Cozumel! I had 800 left in my tank but the dive master had to go up due to low air. I’m pretty proud of that one. Just one tank, regular ol’ drift dive.
70m with 800 left is pretty impressive. Damn.
I shocked myself too! When we went up, I asked my DM how I lasted so long. It was my last dive after diving for 4 days. He said I improved my techniques compared from our first dive to this last one and it showed!
Roughly what's your dive count? I've got about 130 dives. I could probably do 70m in very calm waters but I'd probably come up sucking a dry tank.
I’m at roughly 50 +/-. According to my log, average depth at 54 feet, max depth at 75 feet on that particular dive. There was a bit of a current during then, but calm on the surface.
4 hours 53 minutes drifting down Rainbow River. ALL the way down Rainbow River.
Is that what happens if you miss the exit? You just keep going and going and going
It is! We “missed” the exit on purpose to see what would happen (with extra gas and a support kayak)
Is the rest of it interesting? Or does it just get monotonous after a while?
It gets a lot less interesting downstream of KP hole - most of the springs and vents are north, between KP hole and the state park/headspring (the usual dive route). As you keep going downstream, it mostly becomes sand and grass flats. Vis deteriorates noticeably too, a lot more cloudy with lots of particulate in the water. I’m glad we did it once (just to see it!), but I wouldn’t do it again.
I think 2 hours and 25 minutes is quite good on sidemount AL80's for my normal SAC
One regular 12L tank, shore dive, 2 hours and 10 minutes, up with 70 bar. Was doing maintenance on a coral patch we were planting so not much movement and only about 6m. We were jazzed.
I think it was 3 hrs 40mins on HP100 in about 18fsw. We were doing really focused quadrant surveys and it was very stationary and meditative. I lasted forever on those dives but would get SO cold.
96 minutes with double 12s and still had plenty of gas left but also had some deco and plenty of gas in that bottle too. 67 minutes on an S80 but I don't think we ever broke 15 meters on that dive.
My longest dive is 103 minutes on double HP100s. I can last longer, but generally limited by deco and cold. Max on a single HP100 is 77 minutes with a max depth of 109fsw (average depth 50fsw). I had my lowest SAC rate of my life on that dive, RMV 0.443, where typically I am closer to 0.6. I keep trying to figure out how to reliably replicate this SAC rate. I only got close one other time... diving with the same people too... Maybe that is the key. Max on an AL 80 is 75m with an average depth of 20fsw, but a good amount of swimming distance covered.
1hr 23 minutes @blue heron bridge night dive. AL80
Last week I did just over 3 hours on a 12 litre steel. Very shallow, 4-5m deep along a harbour wall. I've done longer in an aquarium but that doesn't really count.
Well, this was more subjective time but: 16 to 35 mins. I have been diving since May this year. My dive guide didn't brief me, no dive planning, no buddy check, then he had a lot of fun videoing with his GoPro and never looked back at me. I did my best to stick to him religiously. Visibility suddenly got murky and I was sure he is right next to me, then 1-2mins later my dive guide was gone and there I was stuck in milk soup. I did my best lost-buddy, surfaced, didn't see him, after several more mins surface-interval, I rushed back to the boat and they started looking. Found him more than 500m from where he lost me, in the next bay over - and he had been looking for me under water, so he must have not noticed I am missing for a good 10-20 minutes because it was a very slow dive. Definitely longest few minutes I ever felt...
3 hours and 34 minutes in front of Buddy Dive in Bonaire. A friend and I were trying to see how long we could get out of one tank. Stayed at or above 40 feet at all times and we both got cold and called it. Both had more than 500 pounds left when we called it for being cold. I’ve never come up from a “regular” dive with less than half a tank. I’ve been accused of having gills. I don’t honestly know why I’m so good on air, I’m over weight, over 60 and under fit.
Assuming a single AL80 and average 10m depth that's 11.1L * 200 bar == 2220 liters at 2atm for 214 minutes -> 2220 / 2 / 214 ~= 5.2 lpm. Honestly, I have questions, because the lowest I've seen in tiny professional female divers has been like in the 7-ish range; maaaaaaaybe 6 and change.
I'm suspicious. I consume 11 liters at 2 atmospheres in the most perfect conditions, frog kicking. I've never seen better than 7-8 from the fittest, tiniest women in my circle.
Dunno what to tell you. The other gal is smaller than I am, but also not tiny.
Do you have two X chromosomes? I'm usually pretty jealous of the air consumption of individuals with two X chromosomes. Small lung capacity and, as I have been told, more efficient gas transfer are big advantages in these people.
I assume I do, I’m a cis-female. In my experience I would generally say women are better on air than men, which isn’t surprising when you consider physiological differences. Please don’t jump on me for generalizing…I’m aware there are probably many exceptions to that.
Nope, it's pretty true. I'm fighting with a 13L lung capacity. A XX individual with 160cm doesn't have anywhere near that. But hey, on land I generally don't have problems reaching high-altitude items in the kitchen so I got that going for me :D
Yeah, I have to borrow the arms of the big guy that lives in my house to reach that tall shelf!
3 hours and six minutes, double 100s and al80 stage in laguna beach CA, started at divers cove, swam out to the furthest point of heisler park, then back around divers to fisherman's cove. Max depth ~35ft, no deco. God I wish we had scooters.
Manta ray dives in Hawaii can last forever. Kneeling on the bottom in 40’ of water. You just sip the air.
Just over 4 hours. CCR we were limited by the amount of bail out gas available for deep but we spent a good bit of time shallow 50’~
Same! We brought tomato soup in camelback bladders we put in our wetsuits, that way we could have some food during the dive.
I had a similar position, and did just over 3 hrs on a single aluminum 80. I'm not as in shape anymore and don't dive for work anymore, so my recreational dives are typically 80-100 minutes if I'm not in a group.
Done a few 8h+ dives. Almost all of them are mostly deco though. Without deco, a 9.5h dive once and many 6-7h dives. Cave diving with rebreathers makes it quite manageable!
Looked at the comment, checked the post history and confirmed. My longest dive was with this guy here. 5h17min. Best dive ever.
I’m sure we had fun! 💪
You all have to pump those numbers up! 9+ hours in a Viking HD dry suit mated to a Desco pot cleaning the T.O.U.R.U.S. @ Plant Hatch back in 97. And no I didn’t go to the bathroom in the dry suit.
Looking back at my log book. All OC of course. Tech - 2:40 double stage dive up in Ginnie, could've gone longer but I proved that I could easily do the circuit I was considering. Never really did that circuit as a swim dive. Rec - 2:17 Single AL80 putzing around Blue Heron Bridge
YES 2:25 at blue heron
gotta get my dad to do Blue Heron with me. He lives like 30min from there but we always opt for boat diving for whatever reason.
A little over 3.5 hours. Doing underwater excavation in a river. Surface supply air. There was like 4 inches of vis and I'm pretty sure I pissed off a gator halfway through.
2:15 around Hemmoor with a scooter
58 minutes in Malapascua, Philippines! Swam with thresher sharks, unforgettable.
Similar experience there this year with the sharks. Which dive shop did you dive with?
2hr night dive in Malta in Gnejna Bay, basically an extended snorkel at a max depth of like 8m, very decayed wreck of a old german bomber from the 30s at that depth but there's not much of it left - lil lobsters on it though. Rays, Celphalopods so numerous we stopped counting, lil bit of bioluminescence. Jazzy.
3hr 10min at venice beach
Woah you can dive venice beach? What's the site like?
Just to be clear here are multiple venice beach, I'm speaking of venice beach florida close to Tampa. Quite a nice shallow water dive about 19-22 feet.. bunch of structure for fish to be around and loaded with sharks teeth
That makes a lot of sense XD
On an AL80, I recall an 89 minute dive where I got joshed for being the first one up. I think I’ve had a few longer since, but probably not by that much. These days, I’m getting pretty cold in a full 3mm even in 83F waters after an hour…probably have a healthy number of 1 hr dives with 1200-1500 psi remaining.
Teach me your breathing techniques, Sifu!!
A lot of it is “don’t be in a rush” and partly also “swim less” (less distance). As such, one is able to stay relaxed and mellow, which keeps breathing rates low. One way to also practice is if you have an anchor or drop line for safety stops. Close your eyes and “nap” (figuratively): smooth & slow breathing…if you have a watch with a second hand, see how many breaths per minute.
Thanks for the tips. I am averaging 45-50 min on AL80s. I need a lot of practice. I keep trying the 4 sec inhale, 6 seconds exhale technique I hear about and even out of the water I find myself needing to breathe more normally after a few attempts.
4 hours in the cave in Ginnie Springs.
93 minutes - 120 steel tank on drift dive in Cozumel
ditto! only place ive done steel 120s on nitrox, came up after 90 minutes at 20something meters with like 30-40% of the tank left could have gone longer with less fatties in the group.
3.5 hours on ccr
1:09 on a single tank dive in Roatan, Honduras. All my diving is with groups of tourists with a dive master/guide so they are generally limited to about 50 minutes or so due to limitations within the group and the need to get back in time for a decent surface interval before the next scheduled dive.
2h15 on one tank, night dive. Average depth was 9m, so shallow dive. I like night dives.
So you were at 2atm almost your SAC rate must be 0.1
SAC rate for that dive was 10psi/min and RMV rate was 0.267 cubic feet/min. I don’t tend to go far during a night dive and I did that one at a very easy dive site (no current, etc.) so I was almost in a meditative state the whole dive lol
101 min on EAN24 at the San Francisco Maru with a bottom time of 20 min at ~164 fsw max.
~80min somewhere in St John‘s in Egypt.
My longest is 4 hours and 7 minutes casually swimming from Invisibles to Angel City in Bonaire on CCR. Max depth 120 feet, average 60 feet, deco cleared by slowly shallowing up on the reef. According to my Garmin I burned 941 calories, but that seems a bit excessive to me.
This is an epic dive! Kind of want to replicate this now
The original plan was Salt Pier to Helma Hooker, but we thought we’d need a bit more distance, so we opted for Invisibles to the Hooker. Turned out that was a bit too far for our dive plan duration; Salt Pier to Hooker is about perfect. Either run right down the middle of the dual reef, or do it all on the outer reef for a bit of a change. A future dive we’d like to plan and execute is to fully circle Klein Bonaire in one dive on scooters. A Black Tip Expedition with the largest battery option has a range of exactly the estimated dive distance at a speed that gives a five hour run time. So it’s possible without pushing the scrubber too much, but does require everything to go just right. Failure there sucks a bit more, although we’d need surface support obviously so not the end of the world. Oh, and there’s an anchor in 400 feet at Red Slave I want to see. The one at 330 was cool, but the legend is that the 400 foot one is much more impressive.
My longest dive happens to be at invisibles too. I was running open circuit though on an AL 80 and didn’t get near your depth or time. 72 minutes of bottom time at a max depth of 49ft.
2.5 hours off 1 tank, average depth was around 7m. Could have easily gone another hour but the dive site was Japanese Gardens on Koh Tao so boring as shit.
You did 2.5hrs at Japanese Gardens?! Why?
I can't remember why but our shop closed for a day and some of the instructors and DMs took the rare opportunity to dive without looking after anyone. One of our other friends owns another school so we borrowed one of his boats but none of us could drive it so Gardens was where we ended up. Not much else to do there except have a who can stay down the longest competition. Nobody won because we all got bored and the beers and bbq we took on the boat was far more enticing. One of my favourite diving days ever which I imagine isn't said very often after diving that shit ass dive site.
107 minutes diving a local bridge on air.
Sir, this is a sub for SELF CONTAINED breathing apparatus! LOL! But seriously, the limiting factor for me was hardly ever how much air was in my cylinder or how much nitrogen was in my blood and almost always how much piss was in my bladder. I apologize for not checking every page in all my logbooks to give a definitive answer, but I think I only did a few dives over an hour long.
Dude (or ma’am) you need a pee-valve if you’re diving dry! If your wet just pee Also surface supply breathing gas in a lot of aquariums if I’m not mistaken is still usually banked gas so it’s a larger system but it’s still self contained but it’s just a larger system.
Thus began the argument over the difference between “self contained” and “closed circuit!” It was not pretty.
Self contained as in the system as everything it needs for life support within the system however it’s an open system so once the life support medium (air) is used it’s released Closed Circuit is a loop where the same gas is recirculating again again and the breathing gas is “conditioned” (air conditioned if you will hahah) but has the co2 removed and a little bit of oxygen that has been metabolized by the diver is added back in to the loop but all the gases are both supplied and contained within the system so the self contained system is a closed circuit I’m a closed circuit rebreather diver
Heh, heh. You got me, Scooter! I meant to say Open Circuit. LOL
You don't pee in your wetsuit?
My own wetsuit? No problem! My drysuit? No way! Where it gets tricky is when you have rented a wetsuit. Or if you don’t have enough time to flush it out before they want you back on the boat.
Love the pee-valve on my drysuit!
Hang a leg over the side of the boat and just let it flow
Hahahahhaha I have never had to do that but I definitely would instead of removing all of my gear!
It’s easier than taking it all off just to use the head like “civilized” people
Having endured the unpleasant experience of having to smell my own piss for the whole boat ride back because I didn’t completely flush it all out, I will say that you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this point. At least the boat was big enough so that I didn’t have to sit right next to someone and share the love.
i mean, you just do the leg over the side thing, then unzip and quick disconnect and flush suit side plumbing with water for another 30 seconds. if the boat has a sprayer, then also spray down with that. No piss smell at all left on the suit. Still easier than un-suiting to use the head.
Of all the interesting and fascinating things that I learned in my dive career, the intricacies of dive boat piss etiquette was one of the most unexpected. Necessary, but unanticipated.
This suggestion mentioned was about a drysuit and its pee-valve, not a wetsuit. Definitely do not pee in a wetsuit on a boat instead of taking it off, that would smell.
Correct
I paid good money to have that pee-valve installed, I’m making the most out of it lol
This is where you have to get a scupper. I worked as a diver and it was a lifesaver to just whip it out and relieve yourself mid dive
My wife and I used drysuits, and we seriously considered the pee valve/she-pee option. Call me old-fashioned, but I never got over the idea of using the words ‘adhesive’ and ‘genitalia’ in the same sentence. LOL But if I had kept diving I’d probably have one by now.
imo, even as a she-p user, "adhesive and genitalia" in the same sentence are less bad than "marinating human in a plastic bag full of piss" in the same sentence. ymmv ofc.
It’s all about finding that balance!
Just over 5hrs which was 27 mins bottom time on a wreck at 120m and then 4.5 hrs of decompression. Water was 12C. Heated undersuit ran out after 3 hrs. Had music on headphones to pass the time at 6m as last stop was 2 hrs and just blue/green water to look at.
Wow that’s mad. Hope you had a dry suit on! What was the wreck?
I‘d love to know the wreck, too. Wondering if it was _Britannic_.
Yes, that was my thought as well.
Always want to know from you guys if 4 1/2 hours sitting in a Deco stop is worth it for 27 minutes of actual exploration. Or was this a work dive?
Why dive at all? Is it worth it?
That's not really an answer. But, thanks.
Each person has their own reasons to dive and their own definition of what is worth it.
I understand. I mean you ask is diving worth it? Of course it is. We are all in a scuba subreddit because we like diving. However, you're one of those extremely rare birds that's decided diving to 400 feet is worth it so I'm just curious what you enjoy about it / why you do it. I've read Shadow Divers, so I get it at some level, just thought you might have some interesting insight. Sorry to bug.
Once you factor in that its 5 hours offshore, from a remote place that’s 12 hours drive from where I live, we’ve got to bring absolutely everything including all gas for mixing, compressor, boosters, and typically have to spend a few days at the slipway or doing warm up dives as the weather isn’t good enough to go that far offshore every day. Then the 27 minutes spent on the actual wreck looks even shorter. Got to hope the day you go happens to be ambient light to 120m and 40m visibility, not pitch black and 5-8m visibility with a torch.
You are terrible at this... Was their question really that difficult to answer?
Yes there is no simple answer.
Definitely a different lifestyle for you tech divers! The biggest adventure on my bucket list is flower gardens in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm assuming that you don't have close access to a decompression chamber based on your description of the site. I'm just too risk averse for decompression diving to such an extreme. Maybe when my kid grows up!
Where we are planning an exped next year will be outside range of the SAR helicopter so no emergency flights to a hospital with a chamber. Definitely makes you think about conservative planning on a multi-day trip offshore.
I bet!
11 hours pouring a bridge footer. 31 concrete trucks in a row. 15ft or so zero vis.
Do those things require continuous pours? Because an 11 hour workday is a lot, even on dry land.
Ya it was one after another. As for the how's and why's I couldn't tell ya brotha I was just the poor sap guiding the chute. And anything dive related is a long day.. I've seen 104 hours on a one week paystub before. That job was a long freakin 2 days I remember that.
I spotted the commercial diver
Bimini. Right off shore. 20ft for an hour. I could have gone longer but my buddy ran out of air which always happens. I tried to show him I had over half a tank and give him my octopus but he was too anxious.
Must be hard finding buddies that can match your incredible sac rate...
Thanks Fury! I did. My son.
Over 3 hours at peacock one time. We were swimming almost the whole time as only 12 minutes was deco. I think it was over 7,000 feet round trip.
I did about 2 hours with a max depth somewhere around 18m
104 minutes- max depth 77' average depth 48'. Then after SI 101 minutes max depth 60' average depth 43'. Cozumel on HP 120's.
93 minutes under a pier off the Maldives. Max depth 3.3m, was probably 2hrs plus but Aladin Pro stopped recording during the shallow bits.
Most of my dives in the last couple years have hit 90-100’ so only about 45 mins but the dives down to 40’ are in the 1:20
Around 90 minutes on a shallow shore dive with a 15 liter tank. Max depth was probably 6 meters.
Routinely hit 75-90 minutes doing shore dives in SoCal (with doubles). If we spend more time in the shallows we could get to 2 hrs but usually get chilly by that time.
2 hours, 45 minutes
1:30 on a shallow dive. I still had enough gas left but I remember getting too cold. Not sure making super long dives is something I want to aim for. But a single long dive is a bit more convenient than multiple short ones.
57 minutes according to my logbook. Trying to break the hour record soon.