Best agency for learning Tech diving - criteria given - honest :)

[boulderjohn]

Is your question rhetorical?

In the context of the lines I quoted in that post, I am suggesting that there must be something about the entire technical diving process itself that makes it enticing to me, when all objective evidence suggests that there is no good reason to do it and a number of good reasons not to do it. What would you call it? Maybe a thrill?

It is not rhetorical in the sense that I am asking others to give me another reason for it.

 

[TSandM]

I am absolutely convinced that a significant part of the allure of technical diving is the planning and execution of the dive.

In Seattle, for people who have a "first-level" technical certification (to about 150 feet) there aren't a lot of great dives. Several are downed airplanes in Lake Washington. Now, even large airplanes are small dive sites, and the visibility at the bottom of Lake Washington varies between poor (by Seattle standards!) and execrable. The bottom of the lake is also cold. There is no marine life, so the only change one is going to see in these dives is damage to the wreck from people dumping shot lines on them.

Yet people dive the sites over and over again. To me, this argues that something other than the airplane itself is the lure of the expensive and logistically complicated dive. "Thrill" has a connotation of adrenaline and to me, implies something spontaneous and not well-planned, but maybe the OP is using the word differently.

 

[HungoverDiver]

In the context of the lines I quoted in that post, I am suggesting that there must be something about the entire technical diving process itself that makes it enticing to me, when all objective evidence suggests that there is no good reason to do it and a number of good reasons not to do it. What would you call it? Maybe a thrill?

It is not rhetorical in the sense that I am asking others to give me another reason for it.

Gotcha. And yes I agree, the main reason for doing technical diving, at least for me, is to challenge myself and my diving abilities for the excitement of it. Not a reckless thrill, but an excitement thrill.

 

[Seya]

Lots of keyboard warriors trashing a dude on how he feels.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

[kensuf]

I'd say he's being honest when he says it's for the thrill. That's a more honest answer than many people would give, and it's substantially better than "I heard tech divers are the best, and so I want the card to show the world I'm the best."

 

[boulderjohn]

I am absolutely convinced that a significant part of the allure of technical diving is the planning and execution of the dive.

I used to make beer--a lot of it, and I was pretty good at it. I truly enjoyed deciding what variety of beer I was going to make, especially if I was planning to tweak an old recipe. I enjoyed going to the local supply shop, selecting the mixture of grains I was going to use and grinding them to the texture I preferred. Selecting the hops was also an art. Then came the process of getting the mash to the right temperature, keeping it at that temperature for the right amount of time, drawing off the resulting malt syrup, getting the wort boiling just so, adding the right hops at the right times--all of it was a lot of fun.

I stopped doing it for a variety of reasons, one of them being that my wife liked the wine I was making better. I still make wine occasionally, but my heart isn't in it and I have almost stopped that as well. The main reason is that I never got as serious about it. I don't start with grapes. I buy mammoth bags of juice from the grape variety I want. After that it isn't a whole lot more than adding some yeast and waiting. No challenge to it.

Yes, I think there is something to doing something that has a challenge to it, something that most people can't do, and doing it well. It's kind of, well, kind of a thrill.

 

[rongoodman]

I would stay away from BSAC, simply because they adhere to some practices which are pretty much out of step with the rest of the technical diving world. If you can't evaluate individual instructors, GUE is probably the most consistent. OTOH, I have certs from IANTD for cave, rebreather, and trimix and have had no complaints with them.

 

[tomfcrist]

While I agree with those who think thrill seeking is s foolish reason to get into tech, the op also listed self discovery, higher learning etc.....

Personally I only dive deep so I can play with wrecks that very few others have or will ever see. It's smazing how well preserved wrecks that sit outside of recreational limits are...not to mention that in my experience they hold bigger and more fish.

I say let this guy alone and tell him the standard not the agency but the instructor advise. The differences between agencies is more geared toward gear and team philosophy than anything else....ie: DIR or don't care.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

I wrote something along these lines in another post recently.

About a month ago I did two dives a few days apart.

1. Dive #1 was to a very nice wreck at about 100 feet max. I used EANx 32, which cost me close to what it would have cost me for air where I bought it. I explored for a while, and when it was time, took a couple minutes to ascend, did a three minute safety stop, and got back on the boat. I had a great time. After that we did a second dive on a nearby reef.
2. Dive #2 was to a very nice wreck at about 200 feet max. I used a blend of 18% O2 and 45% helium for the working part of the dive and both EANx 50 and EANx 100 for decompression, and that combination cost me a small fortune. I explored for the same amount of time as the previous dive, and when it was time, took about an hour to ascend, with multiple stops looking out at fellow divers who were also floating along doing nothing but hang out at their decompression stops, and got back on the same boat as the previous dive. There was no second dive. I had a great time.

So what was it about the second dive that made it so much more special that I was willing to pay all that money, carry all those tanks, own all that extra gear, and spend all that mind-numbing time decompressing?

The wreck on the second dive was Oriskany Just sayin.

 

[eelnoraa]

.... tell him the standard not the agency but the instructor advise. The differences between agencies is more geared toward gear and team philosophy than anything else....ie: DIR or don't care.

Not to pick on any one, but this topics: instructor matter, agency not

For a new diver, could be a brand new OW diver, or even seasoned rec diver looking into tech (new to tech), the "choose instructor, not agency" comment, while true, but it is not helpful. It is like when someone ask which car is more reliable, then you tell them it is not the car, but the engine and the transmission. If someone knows enough about car to tell a good engine apart from a bad engine, this question will never come up.

When someone are new to xx class, you don't know what is good what is not because you don't know what you don't know. And even after the class, you have nothing to compare too. And most likely, if you learn something in the class, you will give a good review to the class and instructor, but is by no mean objective. That is why I think picking an agency with higher/consistent minimum requirement is a safe bet. You can be sure you will have certain level of education. If you pick a wrong instructor from an agency with low min requirement, you will just waste your money.