Does anyone actually Dive 2000 Meters?

[watchma]

I did about 12 great dives, and we never got below about 30 meters, and even that was only for a minute or two.

Did the pressure just get to you? lol

[tomsimac]

Sold my Rolex Sea Dweller when I realized how stupid the metering was. I can't go to the bottom of a pool.
yet, if you have a 3atm for 30 meters or 90 feet, whatever they mean by all this... Don't wash your hands or get near water. So if that is the case what really does it mean? 100mm is minimum for swimming in one foot or five.?

maybe they need a new scale. 100 for a six foot pool. 200 if you shower with it
etc... Something we can relate to. Numbers vary by watch or instruction, but you get the idea. So I look for a 200
as a safety item, know the case is stronger than a Target watch. Anything less and I won't wear in water as I am just not sure if the numbers really relate to normal wear. Deep diver seals can still fail so need to be tested more often I suspect.

[Pakz]

Sold my Rolex Sea Dweller when I realized how stupid the metering was. I can't go to the bottom of a pool.
yet, if you have a 3atm for 30 meters or 90 feet, whatever they mean by all this... Don't wash your hands or get near water. So if that is the case what really does it mean? 100mm is minimum for swimming in one foot or five.?

maybe they need a new scale. 100 for a six foot pool. 200 if you shower with it
etc... Something we can relate to. Numbers vary by watch or instruction, but you get the idea. So I look for a 200
as a safety item, know the case is stronger than a Target watch. Anything less and I won't wear in water as I am just not sure if the numbers really relate to normal wear. Deep diver seals can still fail so need to be tested more often I suspect.

The thing is, there are a number of myth that some people in the industry like to propagate. A watch that is 3 atm is OK for washing your hand, swimming in a pool and so on. The only problem is that if you don't take care of a watch, the gaskets and seals grow old and become less resistant. So they want to cover their asses and say this and that... A shower is no problem, swimming doesn't increase the pressure in any significant proportion, etc. etc.

The only specific thing is that there's an ISO norm for divers' watches (so the divers at Seiko have "Divers' 200m indication, for example). That norm specifies that a watch should resist to 25% more than the stated depth pressure, that it should be highly legible, and so on and so forth... Note however that Rolex doesn't have "ISO certification" and still the sub and SD are THE reference dive watches.

With a basic 200m dive watch from Seiko (like the Monster or the SKX007) you can handle everything that is not saturation diving. But it needs to be checked regularly and gaskets changed every so often (and greased a bit with specific silicon oil) if you really want to dive it seriously. Rinse the watch carefully after a sea immersion, too, since in drying the salt crystals could erode "quickly" the rubber of the gaskets.

[ky70]

So what If I attempt to Dive 2000 Meters because my watch says it can handle that kind of depth. If I put on a wet-suit and got a snorkel and attempted to go 2000m below surface what would that say about me?

"That skype88 WAS really a nice guy"

[Medphred]

+1 I once went down to 1000 ft (in a submersible) and there is nothing to see. At the time I don't even think my watch would have made it ... It only had 200m rating.

Re what would happen to you if you were in a wetsuit at that depth ... Well we attached large size styrofoam cups (~8" high) to the outside of the submersible and when we came back to the surface they were only about 2" high - compressed from the pressure. I'll have to see I f I have any pictures ... That was back in the 'film' days.

Indeed that is so. I have been down to 110 feet but only once because there is nothing attractive to see at that depth. It's bleak, very cold, and frankly rather colorless. Everything worth diving to look at is in 40 feet of water or less. Give me a decent mask, snorkel, twenty feet of tropical reef, and a 200 meter WR watch and I'm a very happy guy.

[Medphred]

Subs can go deeper than what they say of course ... when I was DoD anything that exceeded WW2 ratings was classified.

Military submarines cannot even go that deep, with the US Navy officially saying that their submarines can go deeper than "800 feet" - which is on the order of 250 meters.

[cs12]

I always wondered what was the point of owning a Ferrari in London as you would never get the chance to utilize its full speed due to speed restrictions and traffic.

I was told that although you may not get it up to full speed because its designed to perform well at a higher speed it will perform better at a lower speed than a lesser car.

[MrGone]

Indeed that is so. I have been down to 110 feet but only once because there is nothing attractive to see at that depth. It's bleak, very cold, and frankly rather colorless. ...

Yeah, not quite. There are some very large sponges starting at 90 or so feet and they get much bigger as you go deeper. As well, I've seen some of the biggest tiger rockfish lower, i.e. at 100 feet and below :)

But yes, there is so much more to see closer to the surface. Plus it is generally much safer ;)

[ManMachine]

A mini cooper will do much better in London. But people will look at you if you are in the Ferrari.

[pcmxa]

People aren't made of styrofoam though, we really don't have many air pockets to compress. Since we are "ugly bags of mostly water" we won't crush the way the styrofoam crushes. As you go deeper, the air you breath into your chest also becomes more compressed, so your lungs don't crush in. You equalize your mask so that air gap is also pressurized, as are your ear canals. So as long as those gas pressures are kept equal to outside pressure, you aren't going to crush. The problem with depth comes from the solubility and behavior of gas under pressure. Essentially, at certain depths the air you are breathing becomes toxic, or if you are using a mix to compensate for that, you will eventually run into issues with gas solubility in the blood stream. I am sure there is a depth where our bodily structures fail, but I don't know where that occurs. I think the main reason you don't get diving at depth is because of the cost benefit ratio. A few minutes of work time at very deep depths is many hours of decompression.

I remember being surprised that being at 33 meters really felt no different than being at 1 meter, except the water was colder and it was darker, and it was a long way up at slow speed if anything went wrong. Glad I did it once, but give me 10 meters max and a warm sunny day anytime.