Advanced Padi Diving Course: Nitrox dives on the Koh Tao Diving Sites
Just finished an Advanced Padi diving course with a cool group of people!
Had some wicked dives, bumping into whalesharks and lionfish at the Chumpon Pinnacles dive site. We had the advantage of diving with enriched air (nitrox) on some of the dives which, allowed us even more time on the deeper dives.
Our favorite critter was this guy, who was out on a feeding mission! The weather has cleared again, the sun is here and its whaleshark season!
Diving on with enriched air (nitrox), is a great way to get longer bottom times or enhance the safety of your dives. In enriched air blends, we lower the percentage of nitrogen by adding more oxygen to the gas mix, with the PADI Enriched Air diving course allowing divers to use nitrox blends containing up to 40% oxygen.
By diving with nitrox, we reduce the amount of nitrogen which we're absorbing into our body during dives, which means we can stay down for longer. This does however introduce additional complications, such as the need to be more careful when planing the maximum depth, (to avoid oxygen toxicity problems).
But by choosing the right nitrox mix for the dive site we can enjoy significantly longer bottom times - especially on Koh Tao diving sites in the 20 - 30M range. The benefits of diving on enriched air/nitrox are especially significant on repetitive dives, where we're facing the cumulative build up of nitrogen from a series of dives. By using enriched air/nitrox mixes, we reduce that nitrogen loading, giving longer bottom times with shorter surface intervals. This makes nitrox diving a popular choice for Koh Tao diving professionals and on multi day live-aboard diving trips.
You can take the PADI Enriched Air (Nitrox) diving course in just one day, or even combine it with your PADI Advanced dive course. If you're interested in finding out more, send us an email .
