is tech worth it? advise needed

[hollydayver]

First of all; thank you for all the prompt and numerous answers. I will take every advice into consideration. It clarified some of the issues I had.
Sorry if some of my questions or opinions were a bit naïve or dumb, I am completely new to tech, and to this forum and still looking around for info. Thank you for being patient with a newbie.

LEARNING
Rhone Man “You sound like a category 2 to me. I was very much the same; I learned a lot doing tec classes (including learning things that I "didn't know that I didn't know"). I do relatively few tec dives today, but no regrets at all. “
boulderjohn “Iwhen I took my first technical diving course. It may have been the most humbling experience of my life. I was shocked to find how much more I needed to know about diving. I was shocked at the skills I needed to have and that I frankly never before even realized existed.”
japan-diver …….. I tell all my tech students that tech diving is a commitment of time and money but for those willing to commit the time and money it is very rewarding experience.

Thank you very much, very interesting contributions that made me pause and think. I saw for myself that at AOW I tough I had learned all there was to learn, but at the DM level; I felt I just scratched the surface. I guess it is more the lack of a structured learning environement, once I exaust courses, than actual diving knowledge that worries me. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and passion for this sport.

DIVE CENTERS
VooDooGasMan “I would get certified from Devon, he is a member and a mod here on scubaboard and in the phillippines. “
ddmattos “I would contact devondiver. He is tech instructor in Manila. “
Jax “As others said, contact DevonDiver. I think that, one-on-one, you'll get a better outlook on tech diving and any further advanced diving. “
DevonDiver I've never met a tech diver (including myself) who didn't find tech training a humbling experience.If/when you're in the Philippines, head up to Subic and do a dive/s with me. See if you feel there's more to learn.”
Thank you I will consider it. Your skills workshops seems very interesting. I will contact you for further details.
Kevrumbo “ In Puerto Galera Philippines, go to directly to Asia Divers/Techasia Dive-Ops and ask all your questions about tech training to Dave Ross or Sam Collett; they also have GUE Instructor Anders Kristensen in residence as well. . .”
Centrals “Hi Hollydayver, If you had made it to PG then you should visit Captain Gregg as well. Talk to Chuck and ask about diving beyond 200m. "Daddy" Paul Neilsen is another highly regarded technical instructor and he is also around PG. “
Thanks i will look into it. If I don’t do the whole tech series in one go, then GUE fundies is definitly on my list.

BORING
petrieps “You think diving is boring, yet you took the instructor course, and want to go tech. This does not compute. You dive for the wrong reasons.Take up a sport you like! “
TSandM “No, I don't think it is. I have seen people for whom a lot of the fun in diving is the challenge of taking classes. In general, they take a lot of classes, and within a few years, they're off doing something else for fun instead of diving.….It sounds as though you are looking for your "reason to keep diving", and hoping you'll find it in tech diving. Well, I can tell you that tech diving is just diving -- it's deeper, darker, often colder, more expensive and riskier, but it's just diving.”
Jax « I'm a little concerned about this: ". sounds like you are more in love with training than with actual diving. If you do not find diving exciting enough, maybe diversify to other sports?


Sorry maybe I wasn’t clear enough previously, it is not diving that I find boring, I find that just breating air at the bottom of a pool is exhilarating. it is “fun” diving… going and looking at fishes and corals and stuff. It seems always the same to me. I enjoy a lot of varied diving activities such as drift, night or macro…but just looking at a pretty view; for me that gets old real quickly.
I can only dive while I am on holiday, so I can only dive at or with the contribution of a dive center. Unfortunately dive centers usually offer either this or courses, and having exhausted most of the courses in rec diving, only the boring option is left…

COSTS
RTee “...this amount just represents a fraction of what it costs for tech diving as you have to consider training, equipment and then the cost associated with diving itself (gas (especially considering trimix), travel, etc). “
boulderjohn "IThat is a good starting point, but you should know that technical diving is pretty expensive, and if one class is a problem, then going the whole route will be an even bigger problem.”
I read in several places that tech was really expensive, but there are not a whole lot of details apart from equipment part of the equation, if you need to buy it….
Most dive site say just mention charges of THB2 or PHP2.5 per litter of He. What does that represent exactly?
For instance, say the mean price of a 2 dive boat dive trip is $70 with equipment rental; how much roughly would be the same trip if on trimix.?



SAFETY
TSandM “technical classes are challenges, and bring your skills and your coping abilities to a new level. But the risks involved in doing technical dives are not trivial. If you haven't thought about what you are going to do when your buddy is ill or injured or otherwise distressed or incapacitated, and you are facing an hour of mandatory deco that you'll have to blow off to take him to the surface, then you haven't really thought through 200 foot dives. “
spectrum “Your lack of interest in non training dives is in stark contrast to the underpinnings of the dive education systems. You are adding an elevated risk to a sport that can present considerable danger. I you seek thrills you are on a good path. “
boulderjohn “The issue is not going to 200 feet. Any idiot can do that. The issue is doing it for any useful length of time and being reasonably sure of coming back alive. If you just want to go to 200 feet and shoot back up, then, no, you don't all that training.”
red_barbarian “The negatives I'd say would be cost, time in keeping up the skills, and you will be disappointed at 80M to find out that although the reef diving environment is somewhat different down there quite often it's nicer shallower”

I am actually a very conservative diver, not into trills at all, I know it is much much better to develop with experience, but in my situation I just can’t. although I have done some higher risk dives such as deep or solo, I mostly dive in the safest environments above 20m…I am in no way a depth addict.
I don’t want to dive under 80m for the depth, what attracts me to deeper dives, is a very different ecosystem. I remember my first 40 m dives where the sandy bottoms seemed deserted and then discovering a whole new world populated with different species at that depth. So I would like to see how life and what amazing species are living down there.

If I was I trill seeker, I would dive more by just diving at home like most of you do. I don’t do this because where I live there are no dive centers, no other divers I know of, and not decompression chambers nearby. So I would have to dive solo, in uncharted territory, without any infrastructure and fill my air in dubious harbor diving type compressor facility that probably has never heard of filters, or valve replacement… (and if some poor underpaid harbor grease monkey dies from foul air while clearing the harbor of junk, too bad for him diving is risky; let’s hire another one….)
I keep hoping to see development of the dive industry in my area, but since I took my first classes in 1996, I saw a progressive decline rather than advancement in the area.

Speaking of SAFETY, my understanding is that nitrox and deco diving are safer than air diving, so where does the risk factor start climbing. Let’s say I forget about my desire to see what is there to see in the depths, which classes would increase my safety margin in diving?
All the ones before trimix? Or is it safest to take adv trimix and but only to dive shallow on a normoxic mix?

 

[hollydayver]

MrsBBC

Join DateFeb 2011LocationSW London, EnglandPosts80Dives200 - 499

I tried again, and I cannot cannot figure out how to reply to this post

Nic

But Matt might hesitate to train him

Nic

seriously???
it always seems that the most judgemental ones are the least experienced ones....i saw your profile and it is similar to mine, though with less variety and scope... so maybe you are the one someone shouldn't be training....

i am patient and openminded to constructive criticisme, but seriously!!!!
​

 

[boulderjohn]

Speaking of SAFETY, my understanding is that nitrox and deco diving are safer than air diving, so where does the risk factor start climbing. Let’s say I forget about my desire to see what is there to see in the depths, which classes would increase my safety margin in diving?
All the ones before trimix? Or is it safest to take adv trimix and but only to dive shallow on a normoxic mix?

You understanding is incorrect.

Nitrox diving allows a diver to stay at certain depths for longer periods of time. If the diver takes those depths to the nitrox limits, it is exactly as dangerous as air. Nitrox also adds an additonal risk factor in that it is possible that using it at normal recreational depths but below the safe level for that particular percentage of oxygen can be fatal.

Deco diving is much more dangerous than recreational diving on air. Doing deco diving safely is why you have to take all those courses that you felt were too many. The entire point of technical diving training is to allow the diver to go to those places safely.

 

[hollydayver]

-------

You understanding is incorrect.

Nitrox diving allows a diver to stay at certain depths for longer periods of time. If the diver takes those depths to the nitrox limits, it is exactly as dangerous as air. Nitrox also adds an additonal risk factor in that it is possible that using it at normal recreational depths but below the safe level for that particular percentage of oxygen can be fatal.

yes, i understand oxygene toxicity. i meant safer while diving conservatively. i never took the nitrox class because staying an hour below always seemed enough, and gives a nice stucture in a 2h boat, 30 min prep, 1 hour dive, 2-3 hours lunch rest, i hour dive and then 2 h back way. that's an already full day..


Deco diving is much more dangerous than recreational diving on air. Doing deco diving safely is why you have to take all those courses that you felt were too many. The entire point of technical diving training is to allow the diver to go to those places safely.

thanks for clarifying that... i was under the impresssion that with a typical rec dive profile doing deco stops increased the safety factor? or do u mean that the types of dives that deco divers typically do are more risky than rec one, but using deco to add safety in a rec dive is still valid.

 

[gsk3]

I'll second or third or fourth or whatever it is by now that you don't seem to know what you don't know yet.

I think you'd get a lot out of tech training. If you're interested in GUE the dive count will be the least of your barriers. By the time you're ready for T2 you'll have more than 200 dives.

Take Fundamentals if there's an instructor nearby (courses are usually arranged only per student demand, so contact the instructor first), or take a rigorous intro-to-tech class (be sure to vet the instructor first to ensure they have good buoyancy and trim and dive planning skills). I think you'll be pleasantly (or unpleasantly!) surprised with how much there is to learn.

 

[LiteHedded]

it's dangerous and there's a lot to learn. that's why there are so many expensive classes

 

[spectrum]

Hollydayer,

Tech pretty much implies overhead either hard or soft so if you do not see the elevated risk yet you really don't know what you don't know. Most divers undertaking dives of this nature will practice as teams so they can work well in stressful situation and tobuild mutual trust of personality and skill. The mold of casual insta-buddy tech diver is an anomaly and probably for good reason.

 

[TSandM]

Doing some stops during the ascent from a recreational dive probably increases the safety, although the rate of DCS is so low that it's hard to prove that.

Doing staged decompression diving, on the other hand, is much riskier. This is because you allow your body to absorb enough nitrogen so that DCS becomes quite likely if the ascent is not managed correctly. This means that any failure to monitor depth and time, any failure to maintain your schedule, or any failure to calculate the correct deco is likely to end you up with symptoms. In addition, no matter WHAT kind of issue you have in the water, you no longer have the option of surfacing to deal with it. That means equipment failures, navigation failures, team failures, light failures, mask failures . . . they all have to be solved where you are.

Here is a story that brings it home, or at least it does for me: Two trained tech divers are doing a planned dive to 60 meters. On ascent, at about 45 meters, they encounter a recreational diver who has dropped his camera and made the bad decision to go after it. He makes some signs to them that he is looking for a camera, and disappears. A couple of minutes later, he comes back in a panic . . . he is out of gas. One of the tech divers donates gas to him, and they continue their ascent. But the recreational diver is freaked out and not maintaining well. At the 70 foot gas switch, the donating diver makes the difficult decision that this panicky person is not going to last through a half hour of deco stops. He alerts his buddy that he is going to take the OOA diver to the surface. (This is at significant risk to himself.) He does so. He sees the OOA diver get to his feet and start up the shore, and he returns to 20 feet to do a long omitted decompression option.

The OOA diver walks up the shore, collapses, and is not revived. He dies.

Worse, the other tech diver, who was abandoned at the 70 foot stop because of the panicked person, never surfaces. His body is later found much deeper. I do not know if the cause of his death was ever ascertained.

The guy who took the OOA diver to the surface made a decision I hope I am never faced with. But this is precisely the kind of thing you have to think about when you start planning dives witha mandatory decompression obligation.

I got my tech cert to visit the interesting ecosystems deeper. Although life is far more dense in the shallows, there ARE species you will see deep that you will see nowhere else. But I consider myself a very marginal technical diver, simply because I don't do enough of it. Most of the technical diving where I am is on deep wrecks, which do not motivate me. But I dive constantly, in the water at least once a week and often more. If the only diving I did was on a couple of vacation trips a year, I wouldn't even consider doing tech diving -- one simply doesn't have enough in-water time to stay sharp. JMO.

 

[ml_guy]

...I dive constantly, in the water at least once a week and often more. If the only diving I did was on a couple of vacation trips a year, I wouldn't even consider doing tech diving -- one simply doesn't have enough in-water time to stay sharp. JMO.

+1 IMHO this is the key to the whole set of questions...

 

[DevonDiver]

Safe Diving = having absolute assurance that you possess the physical, psychological, skill and equipment capabilities to resolve any problem that presents itself on a dive.

Rec Diving = all of the above, solved by recourse to surfacing.

Tech Diving = all of the above, without recourse to surfacing, for extended time periods.

It's a small difference when written down, but in reality, it's a million miles apart.