Course progression to Tec diving

[Lorenzoid]

Where besides SB or a tech forum can one find opinions from people who have taken courses from multiple agencies? Out in the real world, most divers are blissfully ignorant that there are more agencies than just the one they got their OW cert from. SB'ers may represent a small sample of all divers in the world, but they might just represent a good sample of divers who have trained with multiple agencies.

 

[cipherbreak]

Within the Scubaboard microcosm, there some universal laws:

1. BP/W is the only acceptable form of BC. If you prefer any other style of BC you are clearly inexperienced and/or doing something wrong.
2. Add a GUE cert and say Hogarthian over and over for bonus points.
3. You are either Doing it Right or doing it wrong. That is an absolute statement.
4. All PADI instructors are garbage. All TDI instructors are trustworthy. All GUE instructors are gods. (This gets really complicated when a PADI instructor holds other agency certs)
5. Dive the absolutely smallest wing possible or you are going to die.

I can't say I entirely disagree with them, but I don't entirely agree with them either.

 

[stuartv]

And whence comes this perception"? You certainly have it, even though you have taken no courses from either organization. Where did you get it?

You got it, of course, from reading ScubaBoard, where the same few people write the same stuff over and over and over and over again, thus giving the impression of a major trend in thinking. If you read ScubaBoard, you will get the impression that the backplate and wing is the form of BCD most widely used on Earth. If you run a survey (as has been done many times before), it will comprise more than half of the responses. Industry statistics, however, indicate that the BP/W constitutes less than 1% of all annual sales. ScubaBoard has a very small and specialized portion of the diving community, and even within that small selection, a handful of voices dominate.

Now that you have gotten your SB-based perception, you repeat it regularly, thus enlarging that perception, even though you have absolutely no personal knowledge of any facts related to it.

My perception is certainly colored by ScubaBoard. It's also somewhat informed from being trained by some instructors who were also PADI instructors and by observing some PADI instructors who were teaching within my earshot.

But, I don't believe I have bashed PADI at all since you and I had a PM conversation a little while back where you corrected me on some things that I was previously misinformed on. If I have said anything in this thread that is incorrect, please correct me!

 

[red_barbarian]

It's easy to bash PADI, SSI, etc for running to the lowest common denominator in their OW recreational courses. I won't begin to defend the way OW water courses are frequently taught. However, the PADI Tech course materials and the new SSI course materials in the hands of a good instructor are good starting points. The TDI materials are sparse and depend on the instructor to fill in the gaps. The agency can not replace a good instructor with materials of any kind. Technical dive instruction requires drills, and the instructor's attention to detail. Focus on who you learn from and how they teach. The agency the card comes from makes no difference in my mind. Take your time. Take a course, then practice what you learn, and take another course from someone else. No instructor is perfect, nor will they spot every little thing you can improve on, or even focus on the same things. Expect a good instructor to have drills that will highlight your worst bad habits and weaknesses in a safe manner. Part of early Tech training requires you to be task loaded and learn to keep prioritizing what to get to next. You should wind up with dives where you feel you didn't do anything right (partially because the instructor targeted drills where you need improvement). You should also hear what you did right from the instructor as well as what you have to keep working on.
To the OP: Nitrox/Deep at the recreational level will expose you to what you will study in greater detail when you take your first tech course. I'd recommend them, you will have enough on your hands when you start a tech course to not have to go home thrashed and have to do book learning on very unfamiliar material. The recreational wreck course is a waste of time and money. If you have a strong desire to do wreck penetrations safely in the 42M range you are looking at least (I'll use the TDI course names) Adv Nitrox/Deco Procedures, Adv Tech Wreck. I'd highly recommend GUE technical fundamentals before any of the above if you can. After the Adv Nitrox/Deco Procedures a full cave course in Mexico would be a great stepping stone and a SM course while doing the full cave.

 

[boulderjohn]

4. All PADI instructors are garbage. All TDI instructors are trustworthy. All GUE instructors are gods. (This gets really complicated when a PADI instructor holds other agency certs)

It was indeed really complicated when I was both TDI and PADI. Then I dropped TDI and I felt all my competence evaporate at the end of the year when my payment expired.

 

[tbone1004]

@cipherbreak that's a bit of an exaggeration

1. sidemount is better than backmount ;-) That said I have yet to hear an actual justification for a jacket bc over a bp/w outside of a couple instances where the "hug" comforted divers *whom I wouldn't certify if that was an issue as I don't deem them mentally stable enough to dive if their anxiety is that bad*. There are some who have preferred soft plates, or padded harnesses, but they are still bp/w's

2. don't see hogarthian mentioned that often anymore

3. most on here actually don't believe fully in DIR and most of us DWW. That will end up in a mostly Hogarthian/DIR configuration, but there may be some differences. I.e. I use Poseidon Jetstreams which are not DIR compliant, I also use swivels which are not DIR compliant, and I don't cross my LPI because I don't think it's necessary if not diving in an overhead which I don't when diving doubles

4. that never gets said. it's do your homework on an instructor, but GUE is the only agency where you can be essentially guaranteed of quality instruction. Everything other agency is a crap shoot and is dependent on the instructor

5. also never said, it's don't dive an excessively large wing as it can cause quite a bit of hassle if you don't need it. A 40lb wing, or one of the single/double wings when diving in a bathing suit in an AL80 *a dive that can be done without any wing at all*, runs the risk of you becoming overweighted. When you are overweighted, the bubble in the wing is larger. A larger bubble in the wing means that depth changes cause a more volatile change in buoyancy. The more volatile change in buoyancy increases the risk of an uncontrolled ascent or descent. A larger wing also affords that larger air bubble more space to hide and being more difficult to dump in a runaway ascent which increases the risk for AGE.
There is a method to the madness....

all about the balance for most on here, but there is a reason that things like what you listed above seem like they are echo'd over an over, and it's not all blindly following what people have chirped previously

 

[stuartv]

The recreational wreck course is a waste of time and money.

Maybe it is if you are teaching it. When I took it, I thought it was extremely useful. We learned how to deploy an SMB from depth, relevant light signalling, and learned how to use a reel and lay a guideline - with a lot of practice. Drills included the instructor setting up an L-shaped tunnel made out of PVC in the pool and practicing tying off to it, laying a line through it (with intermediate tie-offs), tying off at the far end, then taking it all back out, all while blindfolded. The course was specifically a NO penetration course, but I still learned a LOT. And I have definitely used the skills I learned, to lay a line when diving wreck sites with poor visibility that were mostly debris fields. No penetration, but still pretty easy to get turned around and not be able to find my way back to the anchor line.

All stuff that I think is great to know even if you are doing purely recreational, non-penetration dives to and around wrecks.

And, possibly as important as the SMB and line work, I learned how weak my buoyancy control was compared to what I thought it was. I am a lot better now and I still suck at holding my depth well while tying off a line!

 

[stuartv]

I don't cross my LPI

Totally OT, but what does that mean?

 

[tbone1004]

Totally OT, but what does that mean?

I use a short low pressure inflator *LPI* that comes from my left post. In typical DIR form it would come from the right. Argument for it on the right post is in an overhead, a rolloff would stop your ability to inflate your wing. I don't dive doubles in the overhead unless I absolutely have to, so my doubles regs have a traditional length drysuit inflator on the right, and the low pressure hose on the left. Only thing you have to be careful about is hooking the drysuit up first, and making sure you "OK" the long hose from the first stage to make sure it doesn't get twisted *which you should do regardless*.

I also will typically run my SPG along the corrugated hose which I stole from @Capt Jim Wyatt close to a decade ago

 

[stuartv]

I use a short low pressure inflator *LPI* that comes from my left post. In typical DIR form it would come from the right. Argument for it on the right post is in an overhead, a rolloff would stop your ability to inflate your wing. I don't dive doubles in the overhead unless I absolutely have to, so my doubles regs have a traditional length drysuit inflator on the right, and the low pressure hose on the left. Only thing you have to be careful about is hooking the drysuit up first, and making sure you "OK" the long hose from the first stage to make sure it doesn't get twisted *which you should do regardless*.

I also will typically run my SPG along the corrugated hose which I stole from @Capt Jim Wyatt close to a decade ago

Gotcha. I run my wing inflator from the right post (and drysuit from the left). I just didn't realize that was what you meant by "crossed".

I figured having 1 inflator hose on each post meant that even if I blew out a tank valve O-ring and had to close the isolator, I would still have a hose I could use to inflate my wing (or use my drysuit for buoyancy, if I didn't want to swap the LP hose over to my wing). I have no cave training, so an overhead rolloff hasn't been a consideration for me. You don't think redundant wing inflation is important for BM doubles, regardless of environment? You would just rely on oral inflation, if it came to that? What advantage is there to removing the wing inflator from the right post?

I just switched my SPG to a short hose running over my left shoulder. Only done one dive like that, but I liked it better that way than run under my left arm to clip-off point on a shoulder strap. And way better than clipped to my waist.