Backing off from technical diving

[mathauck0814]

Probably more like air deco to mixed gas or occasionally, mixed gas to basic trimix

 

[waterpirate]

Dale made my point more clearly. It is also about attitude and goals. You present yourself to a perspective instructor and proceed to have a long chat about your previous diving experiance to see where to begin to meet the current objective. After that they usually want to see your rig and discuss your choices with it, then go dive. So for those on the other side of this disscussion, intro to tech was done, over a couple of adult beverages and a weekend of diving.

My other question also comes from a situation I observed. A prior military service trained diver showed up at a LDS and wanted some tech certs. Do you think the shop instructor took him back to padi rescue diver?
Eric

 

[DaleC]

If it helps I'll say accelerated deco using EAN/O2 instead of mixed gas. Otherwise ? to the ?

 

[mathauck0814]

If it helps I'll say accelerated deco using EAN/O2 instead of mixed gas. Otherwise ? to the ?

That makes more sense. Some agencies and divers use mixed gas interchangeably with trimix so the order in your original comment had me a little perplexed.

 

[decompression]

I as well find myself in this situation. As I age and deal with medical issues coupled with the fact I have 2 young children. I am finding the time and money scales tipping in the opposite direction of expeditions/pushing limits and costs. I am satisfied that all the experience I've gathered over the years can now benefit myself and others by having a confidence and skill level that is very useful at "recreational" depths and less challenging overhead dives. I no longer seek the thrill of possible danger that I referred to as "risk management" and i am satisfied with a well executed dive without the escalating risk factors brought by my previous profiles. I've made the shift from enjoying the satisfaction of surviving a challenging dive to enjoying perfecting every aspect of a far less challenging dive. Not sure if ill ever sell the doubles and deco bottles.......but I can still wear them in the pool, right?

 

[fjpatrum]

I'm in no way qualified to discuss the transition to or from technical diving but it seems to me this is supposed to be fun. You dive what you enjoy. Over the course of our lives all of us experience changes in what we enjoy. Go with the flow, dive the fun caves you like, skip the deep dives that bring more work and less pleasure.

I have completely changed what I will dive in from the time I took my OW class, and while I'm no "diver" I can easily see how changes can drastically modify your diving regimen. In the end, all diving is good diving if you come home from it, right?

 

[Diver0001]

I as well find myself in this situation. As I age and deal with medical issues coupled with the fact I have 2 young children. I am finding the time and money scales tipping in the opposite direction of expeditions/pushing limits and costs. I am satisfied that all the experience I've gathered over the years can now benefit myself and others by having a confidence and skill level that is very useful at "recreational" depths and less challenging overhead dives. I no longer seek the thrill of possible danger that I referred to as "risk management" and i am satisfied with a well executed dive without the escalating risk factors brought by my previous profiles. I've made the shift from enjoying the satisfaction of surviving a challenging dive to enjoying perfecting every aspect of a far less challenging dive. Not sure if ill ever sell the doubles and deco bottles.......but I can still wear them in the pool, right?

I can second that thought. No matter what kind of dive I'm making I do feel like a more complete diver for having the experience I have. To be honest, these days the most enjoyable thing about diving is just finding the time to get wet and bimble around.

A few days ago I went pike spotting with my buddy in our local mud-hole. We spent an hour or so in the water and probably didn't get any deeper than 6m but we spotted some large pike. We didn't find the "monster" we were looking for (and have seen before), which only means we have to try again but we had a nice relaxed dive that left us both feeling more relaxed and energized than we had been going in.... and isn't that why we all started with this hobby?

R..

 

[Abdullah]

There is a practical problem to educating yourself, with or without the help of a Mentor, until the time comes when you really need the card. In order to get the higher level card you needd from every agency I know, you have to go through the courses leading up to it.

I started with one tech agency, and I went through the first three levels of tech certification with them over a long period of time. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had no choice but to switch agencies. That agency had a relatively reasonable crossover policy, so I did not have to repeat too many courses in order to get my certifications with them up to the level they were with my first agency, but it still took quite some time. My earlier training made it easier for me to go through the steps, but I still had to go through the steps.

Then a took a bunch of courses from that new agency before making the unavoidable decision to leave it and switch to another agency. Fortunately, I went back to my original agency, which meant I only had to go back to my old highest training level with them in order to continue. Had I gone to another agency, I would have had to start from scratch.

If you get great training from a Mentor (but no cards) over a period of years and then find out you need a trimix card to go further, when you go to get that trimix card, you will probably discover that you will first have to take the introduction to technical diving course and then go through all the steps that you have already gone through on your own. That is roughly what I had to do when I switched agencies, and I suspect it will be even harder if you walk up to an advanced tech instructor and say, "Please put me in your advanced trimix class without making me go through all the courses before that. A friend has shown me all that stuff, so I don't need to take those classes. Don't worry about your agency's policies--you can make an exception for me."

To many divers, the tech "badge" is the goal more than a practical need for any tech skills. For those divers, the only way to succeed is to have that card on file. Dumping cash into the tech money pit is all part of the process to attain the coveted tech status. Once they get it, half their gear is on e-bay and they're off to the next cool badge (solo badge maybe).

But for divers who want the skills to advance their diving, formal classes and c-cards aren't the only path to success. Teaming with more experienced divers and learning from mentors is just as effective as taking a sequence of agency classes. And, the diver won't be pouring cash down the tech rabbit hole without understanding exactly why they need that particular piece of kit.

A diver may never need that tech c-card. Why dump thousands of dollars into something you don't know you'll ever need? If they do need the card, the class will just be a formality at that point.

 

[Diver0001]

To many divers, the tech "badge" is the goal more than a practical need for any tech skills. For those divers, the only way to succeed is to have that card on file. Dumping cash into the tech money pit is all part of the process to attain the coveted tech status. Once they get it, half their gear is on e-bay and they're off to the next cool badge (solo badge maybe).

This reminds me of someone I had for a guided dive once.

He came in to the shop in the morning wearing a T-shirt that said "INSTRUCTOR" on it. His gear was all "DIR compliant" and he had twin-AL80's as opposed to the much more useful and much more common steel twin 12L bottles that most DIR divers in Europe use.

So... of course... I asked him about it.

Turns out he wasn't an instructor at all. He had an AOW cert with some kind of PADI deep something-or-other. He had also chosen for the twin-80's because they were "bigger" than the twin-12's

Why?

"because chicks dig that ****. I'm not here to dive. I'm here to get a date".

He had literally gone through a couple of months of training and spent God-knows how much on gear so he could flash his (pretend) chest-hair and get some woman to fall for it.

I don't even want to tell you what he looked like in the water.

The point being that what you're saying, although it isn't the norm in my experience, isn't unheard of.

R..