Happy to always dive advanced within recreational limits, forever ? [Poll]

[TooManyHobbies]

I have pretty limited experience with other tech divers outside of the circle of people who were mostly all trained by the same instructor as I was. But, a friend was telling me just yesterday about seeing a variety of tech divers up at Juturna Springs in the last couple of months who exhibited really poor buoyancy control and poor trim. And he said these were divers who were already certified for tech and already had a number of tech dives under their belt. That is a very disappointing state of affairs, to me.

Juturna can be littered with divers who have more money than skill. During one of my AOW dives, a herd of guys in drysuits with rebreathers and DPVs drug their fins through the silt for at least 50'. The vis in the entire quarry was halved for the rest of the day.
Matt is working hard to correct this type of behavior, though.

 

[The Chairman]

John, the students having certain skills when they showed up didn't get a discount but did they get more instruction on the other end because they'd made it "easier for you"?

You didn't ask me, but we go as far as time and their inclination/proclivity to learn allow. I am an adaptive instructor. I don't want you to take my class just to get my blessing. I want you to learn something while we're together. Odds are, I'm going to learn something too. I, at least, hope that to be the case.

Diving is all about limits. We all accept gas/time/depth as limits we establish before every dive. Hopefully you honor those limits and return safely after each dive. Those aren't the only limits, though. Some are kind of soft, like training vs experience. I've never taken a drysuit course, but I have and will dive drysuits. IOW, I have the experience to do that even though I don't have the formal training. I was diving side mount before there was any formalized training, so the same is true there as well. My limits to how I dive are a unique mixture of physics, training and experience. I try to honor my limits.

My take is that too many divers substitute gadgets for training. Rather than learn gas management, you see a lot of inattentive divers with spare airs. It's easy to blame the instructor for your lack of knowledge and certainly, many instructors leave a lot to be desired. However, it's your dive and so it's your responsibility. It's really up to you to ascertain what you don't know or understand and fill in those gaps. If you're on ScubaBoard, odds are that you are doing that right now. Kudos! Just don't use ScubaBoard as a substitute for real OTJ training. If you are great at trim and buoyancy find an instructor who is and learn from them. Not sure where to start? Take a Cavern Course from an NSS-CDS instructor. Oh yeah. Anything you learn to do in a cavern/cave can be used in an OW environment. Not everything you learn in an OW environment can be used in a cavern/cave or even in technical diving. I encourage ALL of my OW and AOW students to take a cavern course from an NSS-CDS instructor. Nothing improves your overall diving experience like that class will.

Caveat: I am not an NSS-CDS instructor, but I'm way impressed with the way they vet their instructors. I don't know that I would ever qualify to be one, but maybe one day I'm going to try. They are the elite of the elite, the creme de la creme. Mark Fowler, Ken Sallot @kensuf, @Capt Jim Wyatt, Pam Wooten, Lamar Hires and more are my role models. You just can't find better people to learn from.

 

[Chavodel8en]

In response to the poll. Im mainly in diving to look at the fishies, so I have been fine w/ my OW/AOW for the past 15 years - I haven't even gotten Nitrox training, as I have had no need for it.

But I really enjoyed the few rec wrecks Ive dived. The smaller ones were cool -- but the big one (Sea Tiger in Oahu) was really cool. Wrecks are the only thing that would get me past rec diving.

Its really a matter of time & money for me. I don't have any reason to go beyond rec right now. But if I could afford a Truk trip ... Oh yeah, Id have to get the training & equipment to do some nice longer dives. Ive no desire to penetrate them.

 

[stuartv]

In response to the poll. Im mainly in diving to look at the fishies, so I have been fine w/ my OW/AOW for the past 15 years - I haven't even gotten Nitrox training, as I have had no need for it.

But I really enjoyed the few rec wrecks Ive dived. The smaller ones were cool -- but the big one (Sea Tiger in Oahu) was really cool. Wrecks are the only thing that would get me past rec diving.

Its really a matter of time & money for me. I don't have any reason to go beyond rec right now. But if I could afford a Truk trip ... Oh yeah, Id have to get the training & equipment to do some nice longer dives. Ive no desire to penetrate them.

You've dived the Sea Tiger, but you've never needed Nitrox. I'm just curious because I know the Sea Tiger is a bit over 100' depth. You have never had to end a dive because you got low on your NDL? All of your dives have always ended because you were either low on air, you were just "done" and ready to go up, or your buddy thumbed the dive for whatever reason? I don't mean my question as a knock in any way. I'm just a little surprised that a dive on the Sea Tiger would end for some other reason than "ran out of NDL". At that depth, I almost always run out of NDL before I get low on gas or get tired of being there.

I agree about the Sea Tiger. I dived it and then I went back that night and dived it as a night dive and it was even cooler!

 

[Chavodel8en]

You've dived the Sea Tiger, but you've never needed Nitrox. I'm just curious because I know the Sea Tiger is a bit over 100' depth. You have never had to end a dive because you got low on your NDL? All of your dives have always ended because you were either low on air, you were just "done" and ready to go up, or your buddy thumbed the dive for whatever reason? I don't mean my question as a knock in any way. I'm just a little surprised that a dive on the Sea Tiger would end for some other reason than "ran out of NDL". At that depth, I almost always run out of NDL before I get low on gas or get tired of being there.

I agree about the Sea Tiger. I dived it and then I went back that night and dived it as a night dive and it was even cooler!

I should restate that I don't really need Nitrox for the majority of my diving -- which is local shore diving.

I could have definitively used Nitrox for the Sea Tiger, and for a couple of other dives Ive done around that depth -- all wreck dives. I basically had to see what I could at 100', then see what I could at 80', etc, so yes, the NDL limited my diving.

The Sea Tiger wasn't planned by me. I was in Oahu, I signed up for a charter, and they took me to the Sea Tiger. And actually all the other wreck dives were similarly unplanned - its where the boat happened to take me that day. In retrospect, it's not the best way to do these dives, and I would really benefit with Nitrox, at the very least.

I am actually planning on getting Nitrox soon. Although I have no pressing need for it, as I really don't have any deep dives planned (all my travel diving is basically signing up to whatever charter when I have a free morning (my wife doesn't dive).. However, the next time I find myself with the opportunity to dive a wreck, I wont be so limited by the NDL. And I do understand that a pony is also something I should look at for these dives.

 

[scubadada]

You've dived the Sea Tiger, but you've never needed Nitrox. I'm just curious because I know the Sea Tiger is a bit over 100' depth. You have never had to end a dive because you got low on your NDL? All of your dives have always ended because you were either low on air, you were just "done" and ready to go up, or your buddy thumbed the dive for whatever reason? I don't mean my question as a knock in any way. I'm just a little surprised that a dive on the Sea Tiger would end for some other reason than "ran out of NDL". At that depth, I almost always run out of NDL before I get low on gas or get tired of being there.

I agree about the Sea Tiger. I dived it and then I went back that night and dived it as a night dive and it was even cooler!

Exactly. I have 7 dives on the Sea Tiger over 3 visits to Oahu. Max depth averaged 107 feet (102-116). All my dives were on 32% and the average dive time was 40 minutes (35-42), all limited by NDL, 2 with a couple of minutes of deco. I simply can't imagine doing this dive on air, where my dive time would be limited to around 25 minutes. Nitrox certification is the easiest thing you can do to extend your diving, along with using a computer of course.

Sorry, I was typing while @Chavodel8en was answering, good choice

 

[markmud]

Hi OP,

I have received Tech 40 training (I am a tech diver with training wheels on--or, in name only).

I don't dive enough to justify staged decompression. Since I moved to Ohio, my diving is quite limited.

Also, I am the guy who would put his 100% 02 reg in his mouth while well below 20 fsw. I get bored easily and then do stupid things. Being stuck on an anchor line doing deco for 1 to 8 hours would just kill me, literally.

"A man has got to know his limitations." I know mine.

cheers,
markm

 

[Aloha Joe]

50-50. I like longer dives, and for the most part, long shallow dives scratch that itch. But there are some wrecks here that I’d like to spend more time per dive at. I don’t have a strong drive for this at the moment, but it would be nice to have the equipment, skills, and knowledge to do over head dives. I don’t know how many there are here to be worth getting a technical background just for that, but I do really like sticking my head in whatever nooks and crannies I can find underwater

 

[Jackie Treehorn]

I'm mostly a warm water ocean diver. This past year I had pretty much done most of the recreational class work and although I felt very comfortable in my diving, I still wanted more training.

Since I was already a PADI MSD, I felt like I only had three options. Go down the DM/Instructor path, Tech path, or just shut up and dive. I completed the PADI Tec 50 and TDI Trimix Diver courses and although extremely technical diving isn't something I see myself maintaining practice with, I'm very glad to have had the theory required and the experiences of being at 200 FSW under the watchful eye of instructors.

I now have a much better feel as to how my body feels when narcosis sets in, feel much more confident in dive planning, and going through this training demystified some of the concepts you learn in rec training such as going into deco is the root of all evil. I feel the training and experiences have made me a safer recreational diver.

I don't see myself taking the TDI Advanced Trimix course as I just really have no need to go that deep. My next training course is to tag along with the owner of my LDS and head down to cave country for some sidemount/cave training.

 

[markmud]

I'm mostly a warm water ocean diver. This past year I had pretty much done most of the recreational class work and although I felt very comfortable in my diving, I still wanted more training.

Since I was already a PADI MSD, I felt like I only had three options. Go down the DM/Instructor path, Tech path, or just shut up and dive. I completed the PADI Tec 50 and TDI Trimix Diver courses and although extremely technical diving isn't something I see myself maintaining practice with, I'm very glad to have had the theory required and the experiences of being at 200 FSW under the watchful eye of instructors.

I now have a much better feel as to how my body feels when narcosis sets in, feel much more confident in dive planning, and going through this training demystified some of the concepts you learn in rec training such as going into deco is the root of all evil. I feel the training and experiences have made me a safer recreational diver.

I don't see myself taking the TDI Advanced Trimix course as I just really have no need to go that deep. My next training course is to tag along with the owner of my LDS and head down to cave country for some sidemount/cave training.

Hi Jackie,

I did tech 40 for the fun of it. I wanted formal training on the basics of tech diving and staged decompression. Compared to recreational dive training, it was a comprehensive coarse and well worth the time and money to accomplish it.

I know some well trained and travelled recreational divers who did not know what staged decompression was when one of them went into staged decompression (according to their computer).

cheers
markm