I know I can...but should I?...and when?

[BigJoshCRNA]

I hope this thread is in the right spot because I still consider myself new to diving. I got my open water certification in April and have since fallen in love with this sport and am excited about learning as much as possible. I have spent a week in Costa Rica, am leaving for Cozumel this week and have booked a trip on a live-aboard in the Red Sea next month. At 20 dives total now, I am about to start my advanced open water certification and have been praised by my instructors for quick adaptability to the underwater environment. One instructor was so excited about my skills he actually suggested I go straight through to get my DM. I have subscribed to several dive magazines and enjoy all the information provided and becoming quite enamored with some of the technical aspects of the sport. As a matter of fact, I was just reading about an article about diving a particular wreck where the writer was going to be exploring the "deeper sections" of the wreck at 236 feet. He was going to be using a rebreather and tri-mix for the dive to maximize his bottom time. This sounds AMAZING to me. Now, I know most dives shops are motivated by money and will sell a rebreather and would be glad to give someone the training if they can afford it. So, at twenty dives and a soon to be advanced open water diver with the means to travel and dive frequently and afford some of the more expensive equipment, I finally come to my question. When should I attempt anything more technical than recreational diving? How does one know that it's time? I know I can go out and take the classes and buy the equipment, but should I? Whose opinion should I trust?

 

[BonaireDan]

Congrats on your love of the underwater world and your apparent skill and comfort level. I am envious of your dive planning. Like you, I moved fairly fast from OW to AOW to DM and later to instructor.

Your path is right on. Get your AOW and get Rescue. Work on specialties in the areas in which you are interested and in those skills necessary for safe diving. Such as: Nitrox, Buoyancy, Night, Navigation, Deep, Search and Recovery, Multilevel and computers, Drift, Wreck, perhaps Solo and some others. Get DAN certs in O2 and CPR, DAN's DEMP program. By then you will qualify for Master Diver at 50 dives.

Then get started on DM and work towards the tech specialties that will move you up to the skill levels for what you want to do with rebreathers. It will take, classically, something like 10 dives minimum to get going into areas you find of interest. Once there work on instuctor certification.

Sounds like a great path for you. Good luck and best wishes.

 

[BonaireDan]

OOPS - typo. I meant 100 dives (not 10 - obviously).

 

[RJP]

One of the greatest traits a technical diver can posses is PATIENCE.

There is no substitute for experience: not aptitude, not training, not skill, not gear.

Take it slow and enjoy!

 

[drdaddy]

Congrats on your love of the underwater world and your apparent skill and comfort level. I am envious of your dive planning. Like you, I moved fairly fast from OW to AOW to DM and later to instructor.

Your path is right on. Get your AOW and get Rescue. Work on specialties in the areas in which you are interested and in those skills necessary for safe diving. Such as: Nitrox, Buoyancy, Night, Navigation, Deep, Search and Recovery, Multilevel and computers, Drift, Wreck, perhaps Solo and some others. Get DAN certs in O2 and CPR, DAN's DEMP program. By then you will qualify for Master Diver at 50 dives.

Then get started on DM and work towards the tech specialties that will move you up to the skill levels for what you want to do with rebreathers. It will take, classically, something like 100 dives minimum to get going into areas you find of interest. Once there work on instuctor certification.

Sounds like a great path for you. Good luck and best wishes.

Listen to Dan. He is right on!!! Your enthusiasm is great. However ...

Sometimes I can be a little cynical. I question many dive shops' motivation when they take a new diver's enthusiasm and change it into dollars. The DM is a professional title and is not that far from instructor. But the majority of DMs and even instructors do not continue in the profession. It's kind of like PADI's "Master Diver". It's meaningless. Lots of plastic cards, but less than 100 dives and calling oneself a master diver? You don't need to be a DM or Instructor to be the best diver in the world, nor do you need a title (or the fanciest and latest equipment/gadgets) to really enjoy diving.

I'm an older guy and I love diving and I support my local dive shops (LDS). And I would not tell someone not to pursue diving as a profession. But I find that many dive shops sound like Army recruiters and will promise the young guy the world, with questionable motives. Get 100 dives, choose what specialties are relevant, do Rescue Diver, and just enjoy diving. Just be careful to not let your enthusiasm (and money) be drained away.

Anyway, I dive in the cold murky (and sometimes "clear") Pacific Ocean of Oregon (occasionally Washington). We dive at least every other week - year round. I have also been diving in the Red Sea - it's gorgeous!!! Enjoy!!!

 

[TSandM]

Well, congratulations on falling in love with this sport -- it's an amazingly rewarding and fascinating thing to do.

Four years ago, I sounded like you. I had gotten certified, decided diving was the best thing since sliced bread, and was all set up with the shop that certified me to do AOW, a variety of specialties, eventually rescue . . . and to follow in the footsteps of many of their prior students, and get my DM. I churned through the AOW and some specialties, and I learned a little, but not a whole lot. And then I had a turning point -- I went diving with someone (NWGratefulDiver on this board) who didn't look like anything I had ever seen in the water. He was incredibly quiet and stable. He didn't disturb anything, even when he got right down on the bottom to look under things. His underwater communication was clear, unambiguous, and emphatic. I took one look at him and said, "I want that." And he mentored me and then sent me where HE had learned those skills, and I watched the instructor in that class and once again saw a level of proficiency that was amazing.

At that point, I sat back and said it would be a long time before I knew enough to teach anybody anything about diving. It's been four years and about 800 dives (and a LOT of training), and I'm finally doing my DM to assist my instructor husband (who also had hundreds of dives and a bunch of advanced training before he became an OWSI).

My advice would be to do some exploration of the diving world -- do some reading, like the articles on NWGratefulDivers website, and books like Mark Powell's Deco for Divers. Watch some of the 5thD-x videos. See if you can find some divers who are not only experienced, but have some advanced training (tech or cave, in particular) to dive with, and look around and see what you like for role models. Don't let a shop's fast track to instructor program suck you into doing nothing but training dives, and becoming an inexperienced and relatively unskilled diver teaching other people to be the same thing.

Just my two cents' worth.

 

[fnfalman]

The DM is a professional title and is not that far from instructor. But the majority of DMs and even instructors do not continue in the profession. It's kind of like PADI's "Master Diver". It's meaningless. Lots of plastic cards, but less than 100 dives and calling oneself a master diver? You don't need to be a DM or Instructor to be the best diver in the world, nor do you need a title (or the fanciest and latest equipment/gadgets) to really enjoy diving.

Yep. Unless you want to be a diving professional (i.e. earning money while doing it), there's no reason to be a Dive Master or an Instructor...unless you just want to be one for the heck of it. There are plenty of ways to improve your diving skills & education without having to become a DM or an Instructor.

My suggestion is for you to take the AOW course so that the charters would let you go on the cool sites. Get Nitrox so that you can dive Nitrox. Get Rescue so that you can rescue yourself and maybe others.

The rest of the "specialties" are to me a waste of money and you can book learn on your own by going to the library and check out various scuba text books.

Take technical diving fundamentals classes that teach about true buoyancy control and trimming, decompression theories and deco diving, advanced Nitrox and Trimix. After those classes and with a bunch more dives, then go into rebreather.

Rebreathers are wonderful tools that can also kill quick if you don't know what you're doing.

As far as when it's OK to go from rec to tech, I don't know. I do know that you have to spend enough time in the water so that you will be 100% comfortable in the water and have some pretty damn good buoyancy skills, trim, weighting and general diving techniques. I've seen "ten years" divers with hundreds of divers under their belts and faded/worn gears whose idea of establishing buoyancy is to flap their arms like a bird in order to keep off the bottom. I've seen "experienced" divers who swim at 45-degree slants and whose fins clear a path on the reef/sand like Alexander the Great going through Persia.

Dive a lot, dive often, dive with experienced people, dive conscientiously and try to improve your skills. Then one day when you go diving with a group of good tech diver and ask them how you look underwater and whether or not you're ready for the next step.

Like you, I'm nuts about diving since the first time I sank into the blue ocean. I wanted to do it all and do it now. But two years and a 100-dives later, I know that I have a great many things to learn and accomplish before I can take the next step up to Tech diving fundamentals, much less doing super deep dives, wreck/cave penetrations and rebreather work.

 

[RJP]

Unless you want to be a diving professional (i.e. earning money while doing it), there's no reason to be a Dive Master or an Instructor...

Hell, some would suggest that if you DO want to earn money while diving there's even LESS reason to be a DM or Instructor!

 

[boulderjohn]

Anyone can dive to 236 feet. The trick is returning safely to the surface.

The training required for the certifications you will need to dive to that depth on trimix and/or with a rebreather is intense and time consuming. It will not be done quickly, and it is not something you want to take lightly.

While you don't want to rush it, you don't want to waste too much time either. Some of the earlier posts hinted at it. If you dive for years with the kind of technique you see in most basic recreational divers, you will not only not get all that much closer to your goal, you will actually ingrain poor habits that will be hard to shake.

Do a lot of research and choose a path that is right for you, a path that includes competent instruction all along the way. Then follow that path patiently and persistently.

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

Well, congratulations on falling in love with this sport -- it's an amazingly rewarding and fascinating thing to do.

Four years ago, I sounded like you. I had gotten certified, decided diving was the best thing since sliced bread, and was all set up with the shop that certified me to do AOW, a variety of specialties, eventually rescue . . . and to follow in the footsteps of many of their prior students, and get my DM. I churned through the AOW and some specialties, and I learned a little, but not a whole lot. And then I had a turning point -- I went diving with someone (NWGratefulDiver on this board) who didn't look like anything I had ever seen in the water. He was incredibly quiet and stable. He didn't disturb anything, even when he got right down on the bottom to look under things. His underwater communication was clear, unambiguous, and emphatic. I took one look at him and said, "I want that." And he mentored me and then sent me where HE had learned those skills, and I watched the instructor in that class and once again saw a level of proficiency that was amazing.

At that point, I sat back and said it would be a long time before I knew enough to teach anybody anything about diving. It's been four years and about 800 dives (and a LOT of training), and I'm finally doing my DM to assist my instructor husband (who also had hundreds of dives and a bunch of advanced training before he became an OWSI).

My advice would be to do some exploration of the diving world -- do some reading, like the articles on NWGratefulDivers website, and books like Mark Powell's Deco for Divers. Watch some of the 5thD-x videos. See if you can find some divers who are not only experienced, but have some advanced training (tech or cave, in particular) to dive with, and look around and see what you like for role models. Don't let a shop's fast track to instructor program suck you into doing nothing but training dives, and becoming an inexperienced and relatively unskilled diver teaching other people to be the same thing.

Just my two cents' worth.

Couldn't agree more, and I hope to follow a somewhat similar path you did in my diving career: that is not rushed. I have 26 dives now, technically I could go do my rescue this week and next week start my DM training and internship. However, I know that right now I have no business teaching anyone anything. I feel like I'm improving but no way are my fundamentals anywhere near good enough to be teaching others or being responsible for inexperienced divers safety.

I figure that I'll be ready to do DM at the same time I'm ready to start technical training: both in my opinion require nearly perfect skills (for technical so you don't endanger yourself, for DM so you don't endanger others). When will this be? No clue, but I figure 300 dive mark minimum. Before this, I'd like to complete any PADI specialties that interest me, and then hopefully move to either GUE or UTC and do some of their "rec" courses.

Only after all of this will I be confident enough in myself for DM, deco diving, or penetration beyond rec limits.