When is it not worth it anymore?

[gsk3]

That's an excellent point. I should point out that I didn't get into tech diving because I wanted to dive deep--I just wanted to spend more time at 100'. The rest was just a slippery slope

^ This.

I didn't really enjoy 100' dives until I took Tech 1. Now give me a bottle of O2 (40's are easy to schlep on land, and they just disappear underwater) and it makes the whole dive so much more relaxing. Want to stay another 5 minutes? Sure, you've got a few hours of bottom time left. Plus I feel better afterwards.

 

[Diver0001]

If I lived in Monterey, I would do far more technical diving than I do in Puget Sound.

Yeah, this is so context dependent. Personally I do 50-odd dives a year that are "technical" in nature (in the sense that we go (well) over the NDLS) but few of them are deeper than about 36-38 metres. In Holland you would have to take a shovel to get much deeper than that at a site that was not subject to heavy current or other complicating factors that would make it unwise.

So while in terms of the number or frequency of our technical dives we can establish that our little club is fairly active, the dives we make are not big by any means. In our context, required deco is never (much) more than the bottom time.

Part of me (my ego) wants to have access to sites where diving trimix makes sense. In the last few years I haven't dived deeper than about 50 meters.... and these depths (Lynne is going to want to kick me) can be done reasonably well on air.

R..

 

[TSandM]

I can absolutely guarantee that you would not want to do them with ME on air . . .

 

[lamarpaulski]

The submarine he was on was fresh out of torpedos.

 

[deco_martini]

I am a realist. I am not an explorer. I am an underwater tourist.

I'm guessing most people are underwater tourists who get into technical diving now. They aren't finding new wrecks. They are just following in the steps of the people who already found them. They aren't mapping a new cave, they're following the routes that were already found.

So I guess you have to ask yourself, "how much is worth to you to be an "adventure" tourist?". Tech-rec is basically that. You add more complexity and danger to the dive..... for what?

Just food for thought, there is no right or wrong answer. Every dive is a value proposition. Or it should be. Non-pioneers wanting to hit a depth marker just to say they did... I was that guy for a while. I grew out of it.

 

[HKu]

As far as I'm concerned that's an easy one: the moment you started asking yourself such a question, it probably isn't anymore.

 

[fire_diver]

Reading through this thread is interesting. I stalled out in my tech training in 2010 because of time/work/life requirements. I was just staring at my 3 sets of doubles, all out of hydro last week.

Anyway, I was just glad to see so many old, familiar names still here and posting. That is a true rarity in internet forums.

 

[reeftankdiver]

And there are some things in the 200 - 210 ft range I want to see. Right now I'm good to about 170.

My goal one day is the U-869 at 230'. That and the Andrea Doria. I'm not interested in entering either but I want to see them with my own eyes. But those are a ways off.