What is tech diving???

[Bonairetrip]

Gonzo

<SNIP> Here is my most important piece of advice:

Do not buy gear yet. Do some research and you will find that for the same amount you'll spend on OW gear you can purchase gear that is just as good for basic open water but will also serve you well later on if you decide to go the "tech" route. Generally speaking if you take a PADI OW class and buy the gear they teach you to be standard and then you want to go into tech diving you'll find yourself rebuying alot of gear.

I cannot agree more with this quote! There is plenty of good gear that is suitable for both Rec and for Tech. If you think tech is likely, choose gear with that in mind. Ther

It might be worth consulting with a dive shop that is more tech oriented when you go to purchase gear. As an example, there are two or three within a 30 or so minute drive of my house (Olympia, Tacoma, Hoodsport).

In the meantime, enjoy rec diving, improve your skills and get at least 100 dives under your belt. Ideally in some more challenging conditions. (Diving in a 7mm with hood and gloves in 50 degree water and 15 ft viz is way different than a swimsuit in 80 degree water with 200 ft viz).

 

[DevonDiver]

Most entry-level technical diving courses require a reasonable amount of experience before you can start. Typically, this will include, OW, AOW, Rescue, Nitrox and a minimum of 100 dives.

For the time being, the OP should concentrate on achieving these pre-requisites with an emphasis on quality instruction and getting the core skills perfected and firmly ingrained.

Once basic Open Water is completed, spend some time just working on your buoyancy, trim and weighting. Improve your situational awareness underwater to a high level. Ensure you can fin along without kicking up the bottom or colliding with things. Work on your breathing and relaxation to reduce your air consumption.

Choose your equipment purchases with your end-goal in mind. Do some google and forum searches on 'Hogarthian' and 'DIR'. That will give an indidication of what you should aim for.

After you have 'mastered' the core skills taught on the Open Water course, then sign up for an Advanced Open Water. Choose the modular dive options to widen your skills base. Deep, Navigation, Wreck, Cavern, Nitrox etc

At this point, get some experience diving in more demanding locations - strong current, low viz, wreck, cavern - depending on your locality.

Pick up the Nitrox course...this will introduce you to concepts such as 'partial pressures' and generally improve your understanding of the 'Gas Laws'.

Do a Rescue Course.... this will increase your confidence underwater and present you with some basic skills and experience in self-rescue and assisting others.

At that point, you may consider a GUE/UTD 'Fundamentals' course - which wil raise the bar considerably with your core skills.

By the time you have been through that process, you should be in a position where you can sign up for an entry-level tech course. There are many agencies and options, but the most important factor is to find a great instructor, who is prepared to mentor you over a longer time span.

Agencies providing Tech training include; PADI (DSAT), IANTD, TDI, GUE, ANDI etc Have a browse online to see how their courses correspond and what they include.

The basic entry level tech training consists of:

1. Advanced Nitrox - using EANx blends 40-100% for the purposes of accelerated decompression. Dive planning using these gases.

2.. Decompression Procedures - The equipment, skills and procedures needed to conduct safe decompression stops (allowing excess/dangerous levels of nitrogen to leave your body by conducting pre-planned stops on your ascent from the dive).

3. Extended Range - Basically, fine-tuning your skills and dive planning/conduct to conduct dives within the 'air range' (down to a level where the oxygen content of air becomes toxic and the effects of nitrogen narcosis become overly debilitiating).

Once that training is completed, you can opt for specific training for technical wreck or cave diving. You may also choose to seek training for 'Trimix' (helium added to your breathing gas) for deeper depths.

And lastly. START SAVING YOUR MONEY.

Tech training and equipment is extremely expensive. You cannot cut corners with your expenses if you want to conduct this type of diving... so be prepared for your bank account to take a hammering.

 

[Walter]

Because, for example, it's easier to say, "Does your shop offer any technical diver training?" than it is to say, "Does your shop offer training for cave diving, wreck penetration, DPV piloting, rebreathers, staged decompression, gas blending, trimix, heliox, nitrox mixes >EAN40, and that sort of stuff?"

Why would you want to take all of those at once? It makes more sense to me to ask about the specific class in which you are interested at the time.

You: "Do you offer technical training?"
Shop: "Yes."
You: "Great, when can I start my cave training?"
Shop: "We don't offer cave."

Me: "Do you offer cave training?"
Shop: "No."

Ah, I can see how it saves time.

Obviously, "Hey Bob, let's go technical diving this weekend!" isn't very meaningful, because it doesn't communicate what it is you have in mind.

It never does. It's pretty much useless. Folks don't agree on the definition and even when they do, it's too broad.

It's a term in common usage, and I don't see it going away anytime soon. Arguing against it, IMHO, is a waste of breath.

No more so than giving a defginition that is far from universal.

You might as well argue that flammable and inflammable shouldn't mean the same thing, for all the good it'll do.

"Flammable" is first attested in an 1813 translation from Latin
It was rare until the 1920s when the U.S. National Fire Protection
Association adopted "flammable" because of concern that the "in-" in
"inflammable" might be misconstrued as a negative prefix.

I'm comfortable with using an imperfect term.

Go for it.

The "TECH DIVERS" seem to love the term.

The term is all about ego.

 

[DevonDiver]

Why would you want to take all of those at once? It makes more sense to me to ask about the specific class in which you are interested at the time.

You: "Do you offer technical training?"
Shop: "Yes."
You: "Great, when can I start my cave training?"
Shop: "We don't offer cave."

Me: "Do you offer cave training?"
Shop: "No."

Ah, I can see how it saves time.

That really isn't very logical - when you consider the progression that the courses take.

I think 'tech diving' is a nice, all-encompassing, term that covers all non-military and non-commercial diving, that is beyond the scope of recreational training.

If people want cave, they ask for cave, not 'tech'.

However, if people want to extend their diving beyond recreational limits, then they will investigate 'tech'....and see what appeals to them.

Likewise... someone may ask for 'cave', when what they really want is trimix decompression cave.

So...

You: "Do you offer cave training?"
Shop: "Yes."
You: "Great, when can I start my trimix cave training?"
Shop: "We don't offer trimix."

Me: "Do you offer trimix training?"
Shop: "No."

The term is all about ego.

That is one view. It's only a name. A general, all-encompassing definition.

Mixed-Gas, Overhead Environment. Covers it all.......

Imperfect...yes. Suitable...yes.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

A couple things are generally clear and understood in "technical" diving:

1. It requires a mindset of resolving problems on the bottom. In contrast, the solution to most recreational issues involves a more or less immediate ascent to the surface. It's an important distinction as immediately going to the surface is normally not an option in a technical diving environment.

2. Technical diving involves equipment and configuration that goes well beyond normal "recreational" diving.

So when a reference is made to technical diving, everyone with any background in it understands both 1 and 2 and it is consequently understood that a diver needs to have both areas covered.

It is true that a dive shop that offers "technical" diving training may not offer everything, but they will offer at least the basics required to meet the requirements in the two areas mentioned above and that mindset and basic configuration will transfer from decompression diving to wreck diving and to cave diving.

 

[DevonDiver]

Just look what 'tech diving' can involve...and then wonder why most people use the over-arching term to describe it...

1. Deep Air Decompression Diving
2. Deep Trimix Diving.
3. Technical Wreck Diving.
4. Technical Wreck Trimix Diving.
5. CCR Diving.
6. CCR Trimix Diving
7. Cave Diving.
8. Cave Decompression Diving
9 Cave Trimix Diving.
10. Cave CCR Diving.
11. Cave CCR Trimix Diving
12. Normoxic Trimix Diving.


Just to name a few 'sub-specialities'.......

So, you can be a cave diver...and use trimix....and use a CCR. Is that 3 different activities?

You can be a wreck diver...and use accelerated decompression....on open circuit.... another 3 activities?

It just gets to damned confusing if you try and be specific about it.....

 

[ianr33]

Just look what 'tech diving' can involve...

3. Technical Wreck Diving.
4. Technical Wreck Trimix Diving.

It just gets to damned confusing if you try and be specific about it.....

Might be less confusing if you did not use the word you are trying to explain in the expanation

Technical diving involves technical Wreck Diving

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I agree. Though it may be both overinclusive and underinclusive at the fringes, I think "technical" diving is still pretty clear, and serves its intended purpose to distinguish more advanced forms of sport diving than what 99% of people know and engage in.

Nitpicking at it just doesn't seem like a fight worth having.

Sure ... you *could* call it advanced diving ... but that term's come to mean someone who has 9 training dives in the PADI program (or 11 if they've chosen NAUI) ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Walter]

It requires a mindset of resolving problems on the bottom.

I teach that in the Open Water class, so I don't see that as a difference.

 

[Cave Diver]