What would recommend as a path to Wreck Diving in the North East and Great Lakes?

[Wayne at DiveSeekers]

Thanks for the info. I am moving away form NJ but I will return for business. I will make sure to plan enough time to do some training in the area when I am ready.

As far as your questions about skills. I only have 24 dives to date (+3 discovery dives but I don't count those) I practice my bouyancy and kicks constantly and I watch tons of videos online to help reinforce the ideas.
I can keep my bouyancy within a 5' window when concentrating. I think when task loaded I may get out of the window. I know once I had an ascent of about 10ft or so when using a compass. That shocked me and caused me to really focus my bouyancy a lot more. I know I need to get more experience so that bouyancy and depth control using my lungs is more second nature to me.

For kicks. I use the frog kick a lot. I prefer it over the flutter kick. I have tried the modified flutter kick on occasion. I need to get some more time in the water to work on the helicopter and reverse. Usually when I go to Dutch with my regular buddy we dive until we hit our turn around PSI then head back to the platforms. There I practice my kicks while maintaining bouyancy back and forth along the platforms until we hit our psi to ascend. During my AOW course my instructor was very impressed with my bouyancy control and mentioned that if I wasn't moving away they would want me to keep going into their divemaster program.

For this season I am done with official training. I am going to dive as long into the winter as I can and get more experience. Then in early spring I will do rescue diver and begin looking into a wreck course for early next year.

Thanks for the advice. I was starting to see from the PADI course materials that they may be a little too casual for the type of diving I wanted to do and rather than stay on their path it might be time to look for training form other sources.

FYI, A lot of what I teach is actually from my Tec background (Full Cave, Trimix, Rebreathers). If it works on a Tec level then it does on a Rec level. Three quarters of what I teach is not even covered in materials, still say it is worth the trip to discuss, you wont's be disappointed .....Guaranteed, My Wreck Class (Core Skills) will be your most challenging class to date.

 

[Kevrumbo]

The best advice is to find a wreck instructor employing the best practices for the kind of diving environment and geographic/oceanographic region that you are interested in. For example, if you're interested in WWII Indo-Pacific Wrecks, take a course at where they actually are --such as the Philippines Subic Bay or Truk Lagoon. The transport/tanker wrecks in Truk are nearly 70 years old, fraught with danger of collapse as well as unstable live ordnance and large quantities of caustic Aviation Gas leaking from deteriorating fuel drums, so you definitely would want an instructor/guide with knowledge & experience diving on these wreck sites. (Obviously, these are not previously prepared & cleaned wrecks with planned cutouts through the length of the hull/superstructure like the purpose sunken artificial reefs of Carrier USS Oriskany in Pensacola, or Destroyer HMCS Yukon in San Diego). . .

 

[Wayne at DiveSeekers]

A Quality Wreck Class should cover techniques for all types of wrecks. BTW, I have been to Truk and most of the wrecks we dive here in the NE (Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence Seaway, Mass, LI, NJ) are real wrecks and we have to deal with all the factors like Water Temp, Viz, Mono Line, Surge, Current Etc.. So if you are in the NE, you don't have to travel 3/4 away across the world for a wreck class. Word to the wise, interview a couple of instructors then make your decision.

 

[00wabbit]

I'll make sure to stop by. I was actually in your shop once before. I picked up my hood there and I bought the DSS mount for my compass there. It was a nice shop.

 

[AfterDark]

This article might help shape your decisions: The Anatomy of an Effective Wreck Diving Course




---------- Post Merged at 06:43 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:34 PM ----------



Gotta disagree with the absurd logic presented in this statement.

1) Sidemount (whether prefered or not) is more flexible for movement through any shape passage/confinement. The flexibility to remove/reposition tanks is a critical safety factor, enabling egress/escape where backmount would require a complete equipment removal.

2) Few wrecks sink upright. Warships almost never do, due to heavy deck plating. To choose a configuration based upon wrecks sinking upright is ludicrous. Would that mean that backmount divers shouldn't dive the majority of wrecks that don't lie magically upright?

3) A sidemount diver who had to 'unmount' his tanks to fit through a doorway (that you passed through in doubles) should simply not be diving sidemount. They've obviously not been properly trained on SM.... or got sufficient basic diving skills to maneouvre themselves. Or... they were simply practicing a technique at their disposal (but not at yours) and you misunderstood their intentions.

Nonsense is annoying. Misinformed nonsense is worse... when presented from a position of supposed expertise/authority on a subject.

DD have you ever swam thru a WWII sub with sidemount? Having dived the U853 since my teens I have a hard time picturing sidemount inside that sub. I'm willing to be wrong but it looks very tight horz. to me.

 

[DevonDiver]

DD have you ever swam thru a WWII sub with sidemount? Having dived the U853 since my teens I have a hard time picturing sidemount inside that sub. I'm willing to be wrong but it looks very tight horz. to me.

I haven't swam through a WWII sub on sidemount, not found any subs here in N.Phils (yet). We've got a kooky little Japanese patrol vessel that's fun to pass through. It is upright and the door profiles are very 'minimalist' LOL (about 1.5' wide). Passing through the tiny spaces from the engine compartment to the forward rooms is a real challenge - use it for a black-mask/line-follow/air-share route on technical wreck courses. Can still be done on sidemount without having to unclip the sidemounts. Pretty straightforward really - just a matter of adjusting lateral orientation...and some measure of sensitivity and control.

You can't get through those areas at all on CCR... and it'd be a matter of significant heaving and scraping with back-mount doubles.




For those, like Howard, who seem to have difficulty grasping the concept.... there is a useful training aid available:

 

[waterpirate]

Alot of good advice here. I am never going to disuade someone from more training, but to be competant at anything there is no replacement for repetition add nauseam. So if you want to be a NE wrecker go diving here alot and talk to people who do it alot, not just talk about it alot. Dive,dive,dive,.
Eric

 

[AfterDark]

Looks like the side mount lateral trim would work, but you'd need to go thru twice to see both sides!

OP waterpirate is right one. I've never had any formal wreck training. I learned here in NE by diving with divers that had been diving wrecks for years. Some of them had raised wrecks as professional divers. Finding divers like that is hard, I was lucky enough to stumble across them and just smart enough to listen to them. Back then there was no formal wreck diving training these days the best option would be to do both formal and informal training.

 

[CamG]

Greetings 00wabbit when are you getting to IN?
Where are you going to be? If you are in state try to come to the Great Lakes Wrecking Crew M&G Oct. 19-21 at Gilboa Quarry in OH.
When you get to ZINZ look me up and we can talk a bit about the local scene here and in the Great Lakes.
There are charters who could take you as a AOW diver to some really cool wrecks within your training and level of experience.
I would recommend Rescue and also finding a group / club to keep you actively diving.

One of the best things you can do is research, read, study, start to formulate just what your training goals are.
This thread is a great way to seek out your path of training.
Agencies will be scrutinized but in the end it is the instructor who determines just how good the training is.
Everyone has opinions as do I but it will be up to you to decide what direction to go.
I can give you names, LDS's, and groups to meet the rest is up to you.

CamG Keep Diving....Keep Training....Keep Learning!

 

[billgraham]

Sidemount is a great system for wreck diving, but I agree that backmount would be better for swimming down the hatch on the 853, just like backmount sucks for trying to slide under a deck plate on the Oregon. I think you're a ways off from this yet, but at a certain point you might want to consider cave training. It helped me a lot with wreck diving to have that training--gave me a whole different mindset.