AOW student looking to take tech route- wondering how i can get the edge.

[rjack321]

The "Intro to Tech" DVD available here is really worthwhile for converting some of the words and descriptions you've gotten here into a mental picture.

 

[nereas]

Nereas forgot one really important piece, and that is mindset. All of the skills he mentions are important because they free up bandwidth to deal with much more complex diving. Remember how simple things like checking your SPG caused you to lose track of what was going on around you? Think about how that would stress you out.

You need to cut out the stress because stress will eventually lead to panic in most divers. Panic, quite frankly, is what kills technical divers.

Therefore, you need to learn to control the panic button, and to remain cool when the crap is hitting the fan around you. In the recreational world, heading back to the surface when things go wrong is always an option, in the technical world, not so much.

Understand where your panic buttons are, and work to conquer them. Lots of instructors will task load you beyond belief in class, not because you are going to some day lose your mask while sharing air with a buddy on an ascent, and then have that buddy's deco bottle disappear, but because it is a good way to simulate task loading in the real world.

All that means really understanding your own mind and the way you react to stress underwater. It also means really asking yourself why you want to do what you are seeking to do, and whether you have the ability to go there.

Since you are local, also consider limited visibility diving, and the cold water. We did a dive in the lake tonight to 150 ffw with good vis for the lake, maybe 8 feet or so. Sound appealing?

"Mindset" is a fascinating notion with respect to scuba diving.

I was going to talk about becoming a D/M or A/I or even an Instructor before you go into tech diving, in terms of gaining the mindset of solving problems and helping out others that this would give you, however my post was getting just too long, and I was already starting to feel like Thallasmania.

[He is another guy who always makes long posts equivalent to the Declaration of Independence. But he is a wealth of knowledge about scuba, and I always enjoy reading his posts, even when I disagree with him.]

I did not mention it, because that may raise the bar way too high, for you.

But it would be great if you did some D/M work as well, when you started your tech training. There is time to do both. Most of my diving buddies are also instructors, and I therefore have a high confidence level in them. Some are D/Ms, and I know that these will try hard to do what is correct in the circumstances, as well.

At any rate, in addition to STELLING's excellent observations supra, I would say that a tech dive is a continuous series of problem solving.

Lets say that you did all the necessary prep, and now you have hit the water with a splash as usual. The first thing you are going to do is a bubble check with your buddy. And if there are bubble leaks, then this will become your first problem, which you both will need to solve. I always bring spare parts and tools with me onto the boat, for things like this. Failing the bubble check means that you climb back onto the boat, fix the leak with a swap of some kind or tightening, and then try again. I know some tech divers who bring a rusty scuba tool with them into the water on all dives as well.

Now as you begin to descend, you will need to watch for your gas switch depth, if this dive is involving a travel mix. And you need to make sure your buddy does the switch right as well. The same is true of the ascent as well, involving several gas switches for you and for your buddy as well. You always need to watch out for yourself and also for your buddy. And hopefully he/she is doing the same for you, too.

Finding the wreck is not always easy. Hopefully the down-line is hooked into it. But if not, then this is the most common next problem. DPVs partly solve this problem nicely, but I know a lot of tech divers who still don't own DPVs, and thus they hazard CO2 overloading and deep water blackout just from swimming around lost.

Once you find the wreck, then keeping your turn-around time/pressure in mind is something that at least one bozo in the group will forget about, and if that bozo is your buddy, then you need to coax him/her back to reality. This problem seems to come up a lot.

Finally you need to find your way back to the upline or anchorline. This can be the most stressful and critical part, if you cannot find it. You will need to go up in the water column on a free ascent while decompressing, a very stressful process, if you cannot find the line. I like having a DPV with me for this exercise as well, because my neutrally weighted DPV can then become my reference point in an ocean of nothingness for the next hour of decompression. Even if I have lost my buddies or group, my DPV is always a reliable friend who never lets me down nor abandons me. It can be a very lonely world when you are decompressing alone in the water column.

And as Stelling correctly points out: do you know if you can handle all that? Nobody knows, for sure, until they have tried it a few times. If you bolt to the surface with a deco obligation in your blood, then you will die from DCS. And your scuba hobbie will have killed you. Some hobbie then, huh?

What kind of person are you? This is "mindset."

 

[nereas]

...Panic, quite frankly, is what kills technical divers...

Respectfully, I must disagree.

Panic indeed is what kills most novice non-tech divers, yes.

But tech divers normally die peacefully, either from switching to the wrong gas, or getting lost in a cave or wreck and running out of breathing-gas, or due to a malfunction of their CCR.

 

[ppo2_diver]

I once read that less than 1% of all recreational divers have the knowledge, skill, attitude, and judgment for technical diving. I agree with that statement.

 

[Clammy]

Respectfully, I must disagree.

Panic indeed is what kills most novice non-tech divers, yes.

But tech divers normally die peacefully, either from switching to the wrong gas, or getting lost in a cave or wreck and running out of breathing-gas, or due to a malfunction of their CCR.

Well, I'm not sure how peaceful asphyxiation is especially after one is staring at their gauge as it slowly reaches 0 psi, and shouldn't most tech divers being dying of old age or some accident that takes place top side?!

 

[Clammy]

I once read that less than 1% of all recreational divers have the knowledge, skill, attitude, and judgment for technical diving. I agree with that statement.

You forgot money in there!

 

[nereas]

Well, I'm not sure how peaceful asphyxiation is especially after one is staring at their gauge as it slowly reaches 0 psi, and shouldn't most tech divers being dying of old age or some accident that takes place top side?!

Ultimately as you ran out of gas in a situation like that, you would end up using your 100% O2 bottle, and within about 15 minutes you would simply pass out and die in your sleep from an OxTox siezure.

 

[texdiveguy]

Respectfully, I must disagree.

Panic indeed is what kills most novice non-tech divers, yes.

But tech divers normally die peacefully, either from switching to the wrong gas, or getting lost in a cave or wreck and running out of breathing-gas, or due to a malfunction of their CCR.

Let's hope your state is all in jest..........

 

[nereas]

Let's hope your state is all in jest..........

Why would you hope that??

Of the people whom I personally know of, or have read about, that is how they died while techdiving.

It was never due to panic.

 

[ucfdiver]

Respectfully, I must disagree.

Panic indeed is what kills most novice non-tech divers, yes.

But tech divers normally die peacefully, either from switching to the wrong gas, or getting lost in a cave or wreck and running out of breathing-gas, or due to a malfunction of their CCR.

Are you freaking kidding me?!?!?! Why do you think they find scratch and claw marks around cave diving deaths. Drowning isn't a peaceful way to go.....especially when you have 2x130's on your back worth of gas to sit there and think about it. I don't think convulsions come under the "peaceful" category, either.

A friend of mine got lost in a cavern due to a siltout, and she told me that she cried the entire way home. The rescue 911 cave diving episode talks about the divers who never dove again they were so freaked out. Peaceful and drowning just don't blend.

shouldn't most tech divers being dying of old age or some accident that takes place top side?!

Well, if tech diving was an older hobby, I'd say yes, but until we get people in their later years that tech dove, we won't see that. The numbers of tech diving deaths seem to be slightly rising, while the number getting into the hobby is rising exponentially, that speaks volumes for the safety of modern tech diving.

Once you find the wreck, then keeping your turn-around time/pressure in mind is something that at least one bozo in the group will forget about, and if that bozo is your buddy, then you need to coax him/her back to reality. This problem seems to come up a lot.

This is just insane and not true at all. Turn pressure is a very simple concept, and if you find your buddies violate it a lot, you need to find new buddies.