Backing off from technical diving

[Quero]

I keep experimenting this distaste for the artificial line in the sand that is used to create the terms technical and recreational. While I wholeheartedly agree with what Quero is saying, I think it should be universally applicable. ie All dives are decompression dives, all dives should have proper gas planning, all dives should be executed with a healthy ascent behavior.

Call it whatever you like--doesn't matter a bit. I specifically stated planning decompression dives and the resultant stops. While all dives can rightly be viewed as 'decompression dives' not all of them require planned stops as a result. For the kind of dives that johnnyblackau is contemplating, the further training he is thinking of doing is appropriate.

What if I misbehaved a lot?

If you misbehaved a lot, then you didn't plan your dive and dive your plan, meaning you didn't follow your training. A diver who doesn't have the presence of mind to follow training to the degree that he would 'misbehave a lot' will not be helped by knowing how to use a decompression table. This is a diver who lacks the mental discipline to plan and execute dives of any type.

 

[Slamfire]

Call it whatever you like--doesn't matter a bit. I specifically stated planning decompression dives and the resultant stops. While all dives can rightly be viewed as 'decompression dives' not all of them require planned stops as a result. For the kind of dives that johnnyblackau is contemplating, the further training he is thinking of doing is appropriate.

ok. I shall call it Lucy. :cheeky:

If you misbehaved a lot, then you didn't plan your dive and dive your plan, meaning you didn't follow your training. A diver who doesn't have the presence of mind to follow training to the degree that he would 'misbehave a lot' will not be helped by knowing how to use a decompression table. This is a diver who lacks the mental discipline to plan and execute dives of any type.

I concur. But at least the misbehaving diver does so after full disclosure. An ignorant misbehaving diver only knows he is venturing into the realm where "thar be dragons". Who knows, maybe he will find the philosopher's stone in such places.

In any case is that justification for hiding relevant knowledge behind yet another course? Maybe another course is not separation enough from knowledge, let's put it into another whole new category and call it "technical diving" or better yet, just Lucy. Then not knowing Lucy becomes an excuse for churning out ignorant, less than competent divers. There is a better way of diving, but don't you worry your pretty head about it, it is only for people that know Lucy. And you don't need to know Lucy. Just come back to the boat with 500 psi... if you can.

 

[Quero]

ok. I shall call it Lucy. :cheeky:

I concur. But at least the misbehaving diver does so after full disclosure. An ignorant misbehaving diver only knows he is venturing into the realm where "thar be dragons". Who knows, maybe he will find the philosopher's stone in such places.

In any case is that justification for hiding relevant knowledge behind yet another course. Maybe another course is not separation enough from knowledge, let's put it into another whole new category and call it "technical diving" or better yet, just Lucy. Then not knowing Lucy becomes an excuse for churning out ignorant, less than competent divers. There is a better way of diving, but don't you worry your pretty head about it, it is only for people that know Lucy. And you don't need to know Lucy. Just come back to the boat with 500 psi... if you can.

Lucy may be your intimate friend, and as such your approach might work for you as an individual, but I would caution you against the very common tendency to project, as if your experiences, mindset, and practices were common to other people. I can assure you that they are not. Perhaps you haven't seen enough of divers in training or dived with enough inexperienced divers to understand how far beyond fact people believe their competence stands. Right now there's a thread running by a dive shop manager about the many divers who show up at his place with a dozen dives saying that they are pretty experienced and demanding to book dives for which they are not prepared. Scuba diving is one of those activities that seems to draw a larger than statistically proportionate number of risk-tolerant people. As the saying goes, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," and when it comes to scuba diving, in my opinion, giving inexperienced divers the notion that they have enough information and training to do decompression dives is foolhardy. I fully support not teaching decompression tables and deco diving to new divers. To me, to be honest, you sound like a guy who is just jumping on a SB bandwagon populated by a bunch of other guys who decry the arbitrariness of the technical/recreational dichotomy. It's really a non-issue.

 

[Slamfire]

Lucy may be your intimate friend, and as such your approach might work for you as an individual, but I would caution you against the very common tendency to project, as if your experiences, mindset, and practices were common to other people. I can assure you that they are not. Perhaps you haven't seen enough of divers in training or dived with enough inexperienced divers to understand how far beyond fact people believe their competence stands.

Perhaps.

... As the saying goes, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," and when it comes to scuba diving, in my opinion, giving inexperienced divers the notion that they have enough information and training to do decompression dives is foolhardy. I fully support not teaching decompression tables and deco diving to new divers.

I like to live under the belief that knowledge is better than ignorance. Of course people can do bad things with knowledge they acquire. It is still no excuse to promote ignorance. Should we go through life telling others that "they can't handle the truth"? Maybe we should just give in to a culture of instant gratification and entitlement and tell people that, yes, they are now a true blue scuba diver while walking away whispering to ourselves, "even though you never took the time or the effort to gain a bare minimum understanding of decompression."

It's really a non-issue.

Well, it is enough of an issue for a couple of agencies to rename NDL to minimum deco and try to teach a more comprehensive ascent behavior to new divers. I'm no GUE/UTD/DIR fanboy, but I do see the advantages on the way they teach it. I also like the way Steve Lewis presents his ascent behavior in his book. The way I interpreted it, he made it very relevant for dives with or without Lucy.

 

[boulderjohn]

I think the problem with people not understanding the divide between what is considered recreational and what is considered technical is that they look at it as simply "knowledge." It is indeed knowledge, but it is far more than that.

To cut the difference between the two into the simplest of differences, in a recreational dive, the diver should always be able to make a direct ascent to the surface in case of emergency. (I am not talking about accidental entrapments, etc.). IN a technical dive, there is a ceiling between the diver and the surface. It could be a hard ceiling, like the top of a cave, or it could be a soft ceiling, like a mandatory decompression stop. The technical diver must be able to solve any problem without going to the surface. Technical training therefore focuses on preventing those problems in the first place and on dealing with them appropriately should they occur. Since a shockingly large number of things can go wrong, the amount of training required is significant. If you just have the knowledge--say you know the required decompression stops and times--you can do a technical dive, assuming nothing goes wrong. The same thing is true of caves. Yes, so untrained people go into caves and come out alive. Some don't. To use the old Dirty Harry line, ask yourself how lucky you feel today before such a dive. The proper training increases your odds tremendously.

 

[tracydr]

I just finished purchasing most of my gear in hopes of doing cave training,adv nitrox/deco procedures,etc. I was diagnosed with avascular necrosis in 4 joints, my knees and ankles. I'm not sure right now what life, much less diving will bring me. I truly hope that I will be able to continue on my path to cave and lighter technical diving but honestly,I don't even know if it will be safe to keep diving.
Right now, I face some complex surgeries and will most likely need knee replacements in the near future, unless the stem cell/core decompressions take. I'm hoping that a 12 week course of lovenox will settle everything down and stop things in its tracks as it has for some people.
this was all caused by a round of steroid injections for neck pain and then a big dose of steroids given when I had an airway compromise in 2007, or at least that's what it seems to be caused by. Doesn't appear to be diving related.
I was also found to have a coagulation disorder, anticardiolipin antibody, which is why I'm supposed to take the lovenox injections.
But, it certainly has put the technical dive training on hold for awhile! I keep wondering if I should sell the fancy can light and other gear, especially the wing/backplates. Since, I will most likely learn sidemount when I start up again.
But, again, if I just do recreational diving, a simple BP/wing will come in handy, and I should be able to handle a single tank on my back, if I get knee replacements, assuming my ankles don't get too bad.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I think the problem with people not understanding the divide between what is considered recreational and what is considered technical is that they look at it as simply "knowledge." It is indeed knowledge, but it is far more than that.

To cut the difference between the two into the simplest of differences, in a recreational dive, the diver should always be able to make a direct ascent to the surface in case of emergency. (I am not talking about accidental entrapments, etc.). IN a technical dive, there is a ceiling between the diver and the surface. It could be a hard ceiling, like the top of a cave, or it could be a soft ceiling, like a mandatory decompression stop. The technical diver must be able to solve any problem without going to the surface. Technical training therefore focuses on preventing those problems in the first place and on dealing with them appropriately should they occur. Since a shockingly large number of things can go wrong, the amount of training required is significant. If you just have the knowledge--say you know the required decompression stops and times--you can do a technical dive, assuming nothing goes wrong. The same thing is true of caves. Yes, so untrained people go into caves and come out alive. Some don't. To use the old Dirty Harry line, ask yourself how lucky you feel today before such a dive. The proper training increases your odds tremendously.

I have absolutely no problem teaching the most basic divers how to use the Navy decompression tables. I will teach my daughter that soon. It is extremely useful for them to understand the concept.

I have no technical training nor cavern or cave training, but you seem to equate doing a "light" deco dive with cave diving. I've seen enough to know that those things are very, very different. Go a few feet too far in a cave, make a bad kick and you die... Stay a little long and go into deco in open water and you have a hang or might get a little bent. I really think the two things are very different!

 

[mathauck0814]

you seem to equate doing a "light" deco dive with cave diving. I've seen enough to know that those things are very, very different. Go a few feet too far in a cave, make a bad kick and you die... Stay a little long and go into deco in open water and you have a hang or might get a little bent. I really think the two things are very different!

Agreed. Out of air in a cave = dead. Bent does not always = dead. Sometimes bent just = unhappy.

 

[AfterDark]

Depends on the dive. I'm coming up from a lovely 200-foot dive in Nootka Sound, British Columbia. It's a beautiful reef ... non-stop scenery. At 120 feet my toes start cramping. I'm looking at 45 minutes of deco between here and surface, so I try to relax and put my mind on how beautiful these cloud sponges are, and how ... from the 70 foot stop almost to the 20 foot stop ... I'll have carpets of sponges and strawberry anemones and all the critters that call them home to take my mind off this pain. After that, I'm in the kelp with a completely different environment to admire all the way to the surface. 25 minutes later I'm at 20 feet, switching to oxygen. The cramps have gotten worse, and I can barely move my right foot it hurts so bad. I'm looking at 20 minutes at this depth. Scenery's nice ... but all I'm thinking about is how much I want this dive to be over. I really want to get my foot out of that fin, out of that boot, and massage the cramps out of my toes. Life threatening it ain't ... but I'd definitely call it a mandatory negative ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

That's diving and has been for me longer than the term "tech" diving has been around. All my deco dives and there have been somewhere around 200-300 have been totally on air using US Navy air dive tables with minutes added on at each stop and a 30FPM ascent rate instead of 60FPM. No chamber rides to date. Some uncomfortable dives like Bob described but as I started...... That's diving!

 

[tracydr]

This strikes a chord with me.

'Tech' vs 'rec' diving has always appeared to be a very artificial, and apparently US-centric construct. In many places, mostly under CMAS influence, diving is a continuous progression, with early certifications being on how to avoid deco, but with full training in tables, deco stops (even if they are initially only safety stops) and a good grounding in theory. But full deco follows pretty quickly, often in their second qualification, and is then widely and routinely performed. Similarly, Nx and accelerated deco follow almost routinely.

Many divers that develop through a system like this tend to have periods where they tend to do more simple dives, often <40 m with limited deco, and then other times where they are doing harder 60m dives with stages and accelerated deco. I am a good example of this in that over the last few years I have done many 50-60m dives with accelerated deco (mostly on EANx 80 as that is the French standard - so no flames about that please!), but recently because of limited time, coupled with a lack of interesting sites locally in this depth I have mostly done no deco dives.

Similarly, those that are trimix (and they are as rare as rocking horse droppings here in France - cos they love their deep air) tend to slip up and down the scale as well, with periods of intense diving, and periods of calmer diving.

Diving is just one long continuum and we all tend to move up and down it.

best

Jon

I remember reading about this in the Verna Van Schaik's book. It was such a different,yet efficient system for divers to progress through the ranks.