Definition of technical diving

[MikeFerrara]

The problem is that there is a whole spectrum of diving ranging from the guided tour to the saturation commercial dive. In the mid range is technical diving.

Technical diving (the term) was invented to relieve recreational agencies of liability and relieve divers from commercial rules so they can operate in the 'gray area'.

Commercial diving is very technical not just because of the equipment and dive profiles but because of the planning required and most important because of the focus. Commercial divers are not there to be 'diving', we are there to solve a problem or do a job and the dive is just how we get to the work site. We have to be able to concentrate on the JOB and not think much about the dive while we are working. This means that all of the diving skills and emergency handling be automatic.

I am a strong supporter of individual choice but if you are thinking of doing a commercial dive job (and are not a commercial diver), ask yourself why is someone willing to pay me to do this? Do I really know ALL of the significant risks? If things go wrong, will I survive? and will my insurance pay?
When it comes to pipes, dams, and salvage of anything bigger than what you can personally pick up then unless you 'really' know what you are doing it is better to let the pros do it.

The typical commercial dive school takes 3 to six months of 5 or 6 days a week just to get you to entry level skills and knowledge`.

In short, Tech Diving is anything in the gap between recreational diving as defined by the recreational agencies and commercial diving as defined by OSHA/USCG or other organization in charge of working dive regulation in your region.

I don't think that technical diving is between recreational and commercial diving at all.

In reality very little of what a diver learns in typical recreational training is of any value at all in technical diving beyond simple things like clearing water from a reg or something.

Much of commercial diving is completely different that recreational or technical diving. As you know, much of the equipment is completely different and so are procedures.

However, while a technical diver may not be a welder, plumber or be equiped to handle many of the jobs that commercial divers are trained and equiped to handle, much of technical diving is mission oriented. When the dive has a mission, as you say, the diving is just a way to get to the site. Much of technical training concerns mission planning.

I guess the thing I'm getting at is I don't think we can describe diving on a scale from recreational to commercial since the only thing the three really have in common is the water. In each case the skills and equipment are largely exclusive.

 

[diverbrian]

Or..how often you do it yourself. LOL

Around here with the depth and access of some of the wrecks and caves most serious technical divers are doing dives that bump the 300 ft mark. Certainly 200 to 250 or so is very common. We have quarries that go to 350 and you need to get below 200 just to get a trimix card and there's lots of those out there.

I think that open circuit dives much below 300 ft are still pretty rare just because of the large gas volumes needed.

I can't say that I know that many people who dive helium or 200 ft routinely. Helium is expensive and training in it is difficult to get where I live.

As far as an excuse to not teach people to dive, it is also an excuse to avoid liability. My DiveCon cert runs up if I take a dive into any amount of decompression obligation, breathe any gas that isn't a mix of Nitrogen and Oxygen, or go below 130 ft. There are no exceptions in SSI policy. Oh, let me throw ice and cavern diving into that at all. We are not allowed to do ANY diving with an overhead if we are DM'ing.

That is why I had to go to IANTD to get my Advanced Nitrox. When I incur a decompression obligation intentionally, I go past my certs through SSI and can no longer sue them if something happens. Or if I lead a dive (with experienced deep divers, even) that involves overheads/deco obligations and someone gets hurt, I might as well just give my house and car to the victim. My liability insurance through SSI is worthless as I just violated SSI policy.

I happen to agree with the definition that says that recreational diving ends when you can't go to surface to solve an underwater issue for any reason. The stakes just went up on the planning when that happens.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I can't say that I know that many people who dive helium or 200 ft routinely. Helium is expensive and training in it is difficult to get where I live.

With most of Michigan being surounded by the Great Lakes which are full of deep wrecks there are lots of mixed gas divers and instructors. There's also a good number of tech charters that are full of divers doing deep wrecks every week during the season.

As far as an excuse to not teach people to dive, it is also an excuse to avoid liability. My DiveCon cert runs up if I take a dive into any amount of decompression obligation, breathe any gas that isn't a mix of Nitrogen and Oxygen, or go below 130 ft. There are no exceptions in SSI policy. Oh, let me throw ice and cavern diving into that at all. We are not allowed to do ANY diving with an overhead if we are DM'ing.

My instructor insurance permits me to teach or lead anything that I'm certified to teach regarless of depth, gas, decompression or overhead. Also there is no additional cost or special riders.

When I teach an Advanced Nitrox class (or anything else for that matter) I do usually have to re-teach most of what the diver should have learned in previous training. Generaly, recreational training doesn't seem to do a very good job of preparing a diver to begin technical training.

 

[diverbrian]

My instructor insurance permits me to teach or lead anything that I'm certified to teach regarless of depth, gas, decompression or gas. Also there is no additional cost or special riders.

Your instructor insurance covers you to work within the organization that you teach for, which is IANTD. I my case (and the case of the others at the shop) it is SSI. SSI rules are clear. NO SOFT OR HARD OVERHEADS and NO DIVING BELOW 135 FT. The one instructor that we have that teaches IANTD just got certified to teach Normoxic Tri-Mix. Because the shop is SSI, the owner won't even handle the money for the classes anymore (even though he took Adv. Nitrox just before me and did that type of diving long before I did). You pay the instructor directly and the helium in the back room is mantained by the tri-mix instructor. The shop didn't even buy it.

There are two other area shops that teach IANTD, but the one that claims that they have access to a tri-mix instructor can have severe trouble locating him. The other only teaches to Adv. Nitrox. Oh, there is a NAUI instructor, but he buys his nitrox from the shop that I work with so forget about Helium.

Once you get to the level of working with helium, most of the classes are by "instructor invitation only". You don't ask. The instructor asks the student when they think that they are ready. Heck, the Normoxic Tri-Mix instructor that a couple of our guys were going to use flew up here to interview the guys to ensure that he wouldn't be wasting his time taking them on as students.

In theory, the deep wrecks arguement holds up. But, not when you work with a shop. Our LDS owner is a great guy, but if expect to use my DiveCon for cash, I don't talk about any diving around the shop that involves deco obligations or doubles (even though he is quick to point out that myself and certain instructors out of the shop dive together with deco obligations so that he can impress the class with his staff). I also don't discuss buying something from elsewhere else that is diving related (even if he doesn't carry it, but that is a topic that gets covered on this board ad nausem).

 

[MikeFerrara]

Your instructor insurance covers you to work within the organization that you teach for, which is IANTD. I my case (and the case of the others at the shop) it is SSI. SSI rules are clear. NO SOFT OR HARD OVERHEADS and NO DIVING BELOW 135 FT. The one instructor that we have that teach IANTD just got certified to teach Normoxic Tri-Mix. Because the shop is SSI, the owner won't even handle the money for the classes anymore (even though he took Adv. Nitrox just before me and did that type of diving long before I did). You pay the instructor directly and the helium in the back room is mantained by the tri-mix instructor. The shop didn't even buy it.

I understand but even the PADI insurance will cover tech if you're qualified. I don't remember if I had a rider or not but that's who I was insured through when I started teaching IANTD classes. I didn't switch until the prices went through the roof.

Once you get to the level of working with helium, most of the classes are by "instructor invitation only". You don't ask. The instructor asks the student when they think that they are ready. Heck, the Normoxic Tri-Mix instructor that a couple of our guys were going to use flew up here to interview the guys to ensure that he wouldn't be wasting his time taking them on as students.

I disagree. While most good technical instructors don't work through a shop there are plenty who would love to get a phone call from a perspective student.

In theory, the deep wrecks arguement holds up. But, not when you work with a shop. Our LDS owner is a great guy, but if expect to use my DiveCon for cash, I don't talk about any diving around the shop that involves deco obligations or doubles. I also don't discuss buying something from elsewhere else that is diving related (even if he doesn't carry it, but that is a topic that gets covered on this board ad nausem).

As a rule, when it comes to technical diving, a shop is often the wrong place to get started. They spend most of the time training entry level divers and organizing trips to tropical locations.

Most of the technical divers that I know don't rely on shops for much of anything at all (especially knowledge). Usualy in the process of taking early technical training and doing a few dives you get introduced to the local tech community which. as I said, is pretty independant of any shop.

Some shops don't like to have a lot of technical talk around the shop because once a diver starts tech training they have little use for many of the courses that the shop teaches or most of the equipment that they sell. They also find out how common it is for divers to maintain their own gear and even mix their own gas. They're out a customer. I know that if I was plugged into the technical community earlier I would have saved thousands of dollars in useless classes and equipment. I simply didn't know what was available. I knew I wanted something more but I really didn't know what.

 

[diverbrian]

Some shops don't like to have a lot of technical talk around the shop because once a diver starts tech training they have little use for many of the courses that the shop teaches or most of the equipment that they sell. They also find out how common it is for divers to maintain their own gear and even mix their own gas. They're out a customer. I know that if I was plugged into the technical community earlier I would have saved thousands of dollars in useless classes and equipment. I simply didn't know what was available. I knew I wanted something more but I really didn't know what.

Once my LDS sold me the DiveCon course, I was done with any courses that they could sell (except my every two year renewal of my CPR/O2 provider) if I hadn't gone with another agency. The one instructor that I was referring to flew up from Florida. That was how far these two students looked to find a guy that could teach the course. And that was by referral to the instructor.

The technical community just doesn't seem to be very active in this part of the state. And BTW, we have two instructors that are more into tech diving than I am and they do more pushing of shop gear than I do. I DiveCon for them frequently as we are about the only three that do working dives in doubles and with our stage bottles for deep dives. My policy is simple. I will "push gear" around the shop that I believe in. If I don't believe in it, I won't bash it, but I sure as blazes won't help the LDS owner sell it. Most of our instructors are that way as well.

As to mixing my own gas, when the store has all of the supplies, I simply don't have the need to buy anymore stuff just to fill my own tanks. It is just as simple to take my tanks to the shop, tell them the mix that I need and have them do it. If I had the training, I could even do that with Helium.

But, let me say that if I hadn't gone the route that I did, I would be done buying gear (see your trailer comments, LOL) and that gear came out of the shop. So, he made good money by offering these classes out of the back-room.

 

[MikeFerrara]

As to mixing my own gas, when the store has all of the supplies, I simply don't have the need to buy anymore stuff just to fill my own tanks. It is just as simple to take my tanks to the shop, tell them the mix that I need and have them do it. If I had the training, I could even do that with Helium.

That's easy to say until you have to pay their price for trimix. Even the places in Florida that are though of as having cheap gas are WAY off the scale when it comes to helium. They charge as much per cubic foot for the whole mix as I used to sell just the helium for. They are insane and they can take their pricier than gold mix and suck it down themselves.
There are some deep wrecks and caves in Florida that we want to dive but I'm going to arrange it so I take the gas I need with me because I will not pay what they want for gas. To put in in perspective trimix for my wife and I for a couple dives will cost more than the whole rest of the trip. Last week we had a bill down there of over $200 and that was just nitrox and air for 11 dives. If we had done a couple deep dives it would have more than doubled that.

My next purchase is going to be a booster so I don't need as many bottles of helium in the garage.

We're trying to put an Isle Royal trip together this year and hauling enough gas is going to be a problem that a boster will partly solve.

While we're at it the cost per dive should probably be added to the definition of a tech diver. For what it costs us to do a couple wreck dives in the Great Lakes or a weekend in Missouri we could just about buy a cozumel trip. We just wouldn't have as much fun.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Once my LDS sold me the DiveCon course, I was done with any courses that they could sell (except my every two year renewal of my CPR/O2 provider) if I hadn't gone with another agency. The one instructor that I was referring to flew up from Florida. That was how far these two students looked to find a guy that could teach the course. And that was by referral to the instructor.

The technical community just doesn't seem to be very active in this part of the state. And BTW, we have two instructors that are more into tech diving than I am and they do more pushing of shop gear than I do. I DiveCon for them frequently as we are about the only three that do working dives in doubles and with our stage bottles for deep dives. My policy is simple. I will "push gear" around the shop that I believe in. If I don't believe in it, I won't bash it, but I sure as blazes won't help the LDS owner sell it. Most of our instructors are that way as well.

The tech community is spread pretty this because there just aren't that many of us. Lets face it, only a small percentage of the population dives and only a very small percentage of those are technical divers. As far as I know there are only about 6 divers in the county I live in and my wife and I are the only technical divers. When I think of the local tech community I'm thinking of Indiana, Ill, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio. Otherwise there aren't enough to consider a community. LOL

Off the top of my head there are 2 technical instructors that I would recomment in your "general" area. One is Greg Such who lives in 2 Rivers Wisconsin and the other is Steve Louis (doppler on the boards). Neither live in your town but both are way closer that Florida.

My equipment opinions made it hard for me to keep any dealerships when I had a shop because as far as I'm concerned most of what they demand that you sell is junk

But, let me say that if I hadn't gone the route that I did, I would be done buying gear (see your trailer comments, LOL) and that gear came out of the shop. So, he made good money by offering these classes out of the back-room.

Yes but if I hadn't spent all that money on recreational crap it would have more than paid for the things that I still need but don't have.

 

[BigJetDriver]

That's easy to say until you have to pay their price for trimix. Even the places in Florida that are though of as having cheap gas are WAY off the scale when it comes to helium. They charge as much per cubic foot for the whole mix as I used to sell just the helium for. They are insane and they can take their pricier than gold mix and suck it down themselves.

Mike, et al,

You could always get a re-breather. The diluent bottle is SO much smaller, and you use SO much less of that precious "gold-in-gas-form"!!!!

 

[MikeFerrara]

Mike, et al,

You could always get a re-breather. The diluent bottle is SO much smaller, and you use SO much less of that precious "gold-in-gas-form"!!!!

Yes but I'm not sure I'm ready for the culture shock. LOL

I think the day is comming though. If helium is going to be the gas of choice we'll almost be forced away from OC.