TDI Advanced Wreck Diver course - reflections

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Rhone Man

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Background: I had never really planned on taking a wreck penetration course because, frankly, the idea of wreck penetration scares me. However, the instructor who taught me Extended Range told me he was teaching the TDI Advanced Wreck class, and the other student from my Extended Range class was doing it, would I like to come too? Eventually I said yes. Like my approach to tec training generally - I figured it would make me a better diver generally even if I did not become some hard core wreck diver.

Day 1. First dive is on the wreck of the St George, in 145 feet of water. It is just a look-see to plan later dives. It was quite deep, but not unduly deep. The water is clear and warm - how hard can this be? Short decompression and then chat during the surface interval. During the surface interval our instructor says "At the end of the course I'd like you to take me to the engine room," before adding mischeviously, "and back again of course!"

Second dive is on the wreck of the Atlantic Princess. This will be our "training wreck" - sunk in 40 feet of water, it was a former sight seeing barge and so although it has several decks connected by stairwells, all levels except the lower one have wide open windows which are easy to swim through and let lots of light in. Perfect. Day 1 finishes up with some easy work with lights and signals.

Day 2. Expecting another light day after yesterday, but day 2 is a backbreaker. Two 70+ minute dives on the Atlantic Princess doing drill after drill - predominantly line drills. The instructor sets what is basically a circular line along the corridor, down a level, across, back up a level and back to the starting room. But for training we treat it as linear - in and out. First follow the line - easy. Second, follow the line in a blacked out mask. Not so easy. My bouyancy is good, I keep the line level - but I still crash my tank valve against the lip when swimming through a window. Now I know why we plan for catastrophic loss of gas... by the end of the circuit I have made so many vertical and horizonal motions with my hand in front of my face I feel like a Catholic priest. Very chilling to feel overhead cables drag across your gear when you cannot see, even knowing your instructor is nearby - must be terrifying when it is "for real". Then we have to do the entire circuit sharing air. Aye Caramba, my tank valve takes another beating going down the stairwell. Then we take the line up and each student relays it and then follows it in the blacked out mask. When we finally get to the "easy" drills on dive 1 (remove and replace mask holding line and staying stationary in the water column, etc.) I am exhausted.

Second dive is lost line and lost diver drills. For this we go to the bottom deck where there is tons of silt and a lot less light, although still some. I am either very unlucky or I suck at the lost line drill - I have to reset three times before I find the damn thing - I am covered in rust smears from banging around doing my sweeps in the blacked out mask. By the time I get it I no longer need the blacked out mask - silt is everywhere. My buddy gets the line first time within 20 seconds. B@st@rd. Then mercifully it is outside for setting a Jersey upline and shooting lift bags. What a relief to be in clear water!

Day 3. First dive is on the Atlantic Princess for the last time. This time we take stage tanks (in 40 feet of water). Stowing stages - fine. Next we try to penetrate the wreck with stages on - bang, clatter, crash. OK, it can be done, but this is a pretty wide open wreck, and we avoid the worst stairwells. In a smaller wreck or, God forbid a U-boat, this is a non-starter. Then we have the last drill - locating and recovering an unconscious diver. Before we started I knew the instrctor would wedge himself in the deepest part of the wreck, so that was no surprise when he did, but using careful bouyancy and passing him between the buddy team we got him out without cracking his skull.

Then back to base for a long surface interval and sitting the exam (pretty basic) and then back out to the St George for our penetration. I was leading our buddy team, bit surprised by how vertical the penetration was (cargo barge) but it is OK, just lay the line off to the sides to leave a clear passage and down, down, down we go, and before you know it we are in the engine room. Well that was easy, what do we do with the rest of the time? Check gauges - wah! Quarter of gas and one third of bottom time gone already! How did that happen? Signal buddy "turn around" - engine room already silting up, and work our way back out. Removing line always took longer in drills, but we go quite efficiently and we pop out on deck with a few minutes of planned bottom left, so we swim around the deck for a couple of minutes before retrieving our stages and ascending. Decompress, climb aboard and back to the hotel for a few celebratory beers!

Not sure if I will ever do much wreck penetration diving, but I was quietly pleased that I faced and conquered my fears. Also think I learned a lot - you might think your bouyancy is good, but until you try tying off a reel in a tight spot without kicking up any silt, you really can't be sure.

Random additional thoughts:

#1 I had never done a backward roll entry with sling tanks before. If you ever have to do this, forget everything else and grip both sling tanks firmly. Regulator being dislodged or mask coming off pales into insignificance compared to a tank valve embedded in your forehead.

#2 The TDI Advanced Wreck manual is a leap above the manuals for deco procedures and extended range, but still wasn't felt to be good enough by the instructor - he had us reading the NSS Cave Diving Manual (and without it I wouldn't have gotten one question on the exam).

#3 I dive a computer that monitors my SAC rate. All the training dives I was about average, but for the final penetration I was breathing at nearly 50% above normal rate. I didn't feel stressed, but I guess the computer doesn't lie.

RM
 
Thank you. Question -- do you think if you had done Cavern and/or Intro to Cave prior to the wreck class you would have been well ahead of the game? (Disclosure -- I did a wreck workshop so that I could get some line work done prior to doing Cavern and it really seemed to help.)
 
The only skill I had problems with was the Lost Line Drill, made more difficult because during both trials I managed to lose one or both of my contact lenses and never got an initial good look at the Main Line I was trying to find anyway. Consequently, my search patterns were woefully erratic and off-base ("Wow! Almost just like you really were lost!", as Instructor Sam later quipped). Took 20 minutes before I gave-up on my first attempt (18m deep at Night, in some cargo hold of the El Capitan), and 10 minutes before I luckily found it in a covered corridor on the LST (24m deep during the Daytime, but I had to close my eyes [simulating a no-viz silt-out] and was also accruing near max limits of my Deco Plan). A serious and grave situation to be in for real, and it really hit home with me because of my difficulties (I must've swam & finned head-on into every damn pipe and stanchion in that LST deck corridor before I snagged the Main Line :shakehead:).
Also a big lesson learned for myself: on a gas-sharing emergency egress, the Out-of-Gas Diver might have to switch donors -an option highlighting the advantage of the Three-Man Team. . .
IANTD Technical Wreck Course, Subic Bay Philippines 2006
 
Thank you. Question -- do you think if you had done Cavern and/or Intro to Cave prior to the wreck class you would have been well ahead of the game? (Disclosure -- I did a wreck workshop so that I could get some line work done prior to doing Cavern and it really seemed to help.)

Definitely.

The course was predominantly (although not exclusively) about line work. I think a background in cavern/intro to cave would be a huge head start.

Our instructor was basically a cave instructor, and he kept referring back to cave diving techniques throughout. He didn't outright say "wrecks are for wimps", but he left a very clear impression that cave diving was more dangerous and cave training is more rigorous and thorough, none of which I have any difficulty believing.
 
Nice report - thanks for taking the time to write it up and share it with us!
 
Nice write-up, thanks for sharing.
 
Rhone Man, did your instructor ever dive on or talk about the Bianca C over in Grenada?
 
Running line always raises my SAC rate, but a buddy gave me a great tip -- DON'T use your breath for buoyancy control when putting in ties. Adjust your buoyancy with your wing to be neutral when putting the ties in. It didn't bring my gas consumption down to my relaxed normal, but it brought it down a lot.
 
Running line always raises my SAC rate, but a buddy gave me a great tip -- DON'T use your breath for buoyancy control when putting in ties. Adjust your buoyancy with your wing to be neutral when putting the ties in. It didn't bring my gas consumption down to my relaxed normal, but it brought it down a lot.

I personally don't think it makes any difference. It's what's going on "between your ears" that matters. These kinds of things are not a matter of "skills" but a matter of "flow"

I don't know if you play a musical instrument, Lynne, but if you don't then you should learn one because the kind of "attention" involved in playing music is very similar to the kind of attention required for the "flow" in diving.

Over concentration about diving is akin to concentrating so much on the clutch and gear-shift of a car that you effectively make youself a danger on the road.... In terms of situational awareness you may be intensely aware of your clutch but still unable to "feel" when you should put your foot down... it's like the pedal on a piano. The pedal is played with your "ear" and/or your "feeling"... not with logic. There are things like this in diving too.

R..
 

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