O2 During Safety Stop?

[ScubaDiveandTravel]

Dan,

I know we spoke about this at the shop, so hopefully it's not too repetitive. For your style of diving, there is no need to be diving trimix. Your O2 idea would definitely benifit you. You will off gas about twice as fast using O2, allowing you to return to the surface much cleaner. There is a place for recreational trimix, such as cave or wreck penetration in the 100-150 range, where task loading becomes an issue. I believe the added danger of helium based diving for simple recreational, no decompression, open water diving is not worth the little bit of benifit. Helium absorbs into your tissues much faster than Nitrogen, meaning you will become saturated with inert gas much faster. You should come out cleaner if you follow a staged decompression schedule, but we are talking about no decompression diving. If your tissues were saturated with Helium at 100ft and you had to make a fast assent perhaps to assist someone, or you blow a HP O ring, ect. you would most likely come up bent. Make an informed decision for yourself and weigh the positives and negatives.

Hopefully this has been helpful.
Happy Diving,
Richard