Do training dives (at depth) count as your dive count for Tech cert?

[Yoyoguy]

All,
I am in a location which there are only so many spots to dive with out a lot of travel/expenses involved which means I routinely dive the same places (lakes and quarries). All these places have varying depths from shallows of 20ft all the way down to 200+ feet, I stay in the 130ft or less range due to my current certifications. Because of this, many of my dives are in the same places so to keep things interesting many of my dives become dives where I am practicing skills. For example: air sharing with buddy, valve drills with doubles, lift bags/DSMB deployments, mask removal...etc while maintaining neutral buoyancy (this part definitely is one I am focusing on now). My question is someone once told me that doing 30 dives at the same location is really just doing 1 dive over and over which does not really count towards your dive count. I can see what they are saying BUT because of these repeat dives, I focus a LOT more on training so I would think they would still count and maybe be even more important since I am focusing on skills rather than just making a dive. Right now I just logged my 100th dive (PADI requires 100 dives, 15 deeper than 100ft, and 25 Nitrox dives) in order to even think about their tec 40 through 50 courses. I will be making more dives before my tec training but what say you...do my dives count or not? If not, then I will have a REALLY long time before I reach the 100 mark with many more locations added in. FYI, all but a handful of these dives are freshwater COLD dives using either 7mm wetsuit, hood, gloves or drysuit which I would think would even add more skill than someone who has made many of their dives in warm waters with less or no exposure protection needed.

 

[tbone1004]

talk to your instructor. If all of your dives are similar, in the same location, you are practicing and getting repetition, but not a varying degree of experience which is why you have heard otherwise. They absolutely count towards your total dive count though, it's just up to the instructor whether or not they want a more diversified experience before they take you into the class.

 

[Yoyoguy]

talk to your instructor. If all of your dives are similar, in the same location, you are practicing and getting repetition, but not a varying degree of experience which is why you have heard otherwise. They absolutely count towards your total dive count though, it's just up to the instructor whether or not they want a more diversified experience before they take you into the class.

Thanks. No instructor yet. Just starting to look into the tec courses. I definitely understand having a more diversified experience and will continue to do so. I would say right now 30 of my dives are in one location (cove of a lake), 20 more are in other locations in the same lake, 20 are in one rock quarry and another 20 are in a different quarry I dive. Of course the one of those quarries is Dutch springs so there is quite an array of things to see there. The last 10 dives were in the ocean off the coast of NC. So as you can see I have a tiny bit of diversity but yes, I do need more. thanks for your comments.

 

[thez_yo]

This sounds like the perfect excuse to take a vacation to Key Largo and go do the Spiegel Grove. Or come out to San Diego and do Wreck Alley including the Yukon.

 

[Yoyoguy]

This sounds like the perfect excuse to take a vacation to Key Largo and go do the Spiegel Grove. Or come out to San Diego and do Wreck Alley including the Yukon.

these places sound amazing but right now all my cash is spent for trips this summer haha. I will get them on the list.

 

[boulderjohn]

My question is someone once told me that doing 30 dives at the same location is really just doing 1 dive over and over which does not really count towards your dive count.

The dives count.

Whoever told you that was likely just voicing an opinion of what he or she thought should be a rule.

You are referring to the standards to start PADI Tec 50, not PADI Tec 40. Tec 40 only gets you to the point that you can extend a recreational depth dive with up to 10 minutes of deco. You only need 30 dives to start that course. The prerequisites grow as you progress through the series of courses.

The number of dives required to start the courses or where you did them is not that important, to be honest. What matters is your ability to perform the required skills by the end of the course. For example, the biggest hurdle for most people I have taught is doing the valve shutdown drill in 45 seconds. If you can't do that, it doesn't matter how many dives you have. You also need to maintain good buoyancy control during deco stops, and by Tec 50, that means handling two deco bottles while maintaining those depths. You have to show the instructor that he or she can trust you to go out and do decompression dives safely. I'm not going to let you leave my course if I think there is a chance you will fail to perform an important skill properly when needed and thus become a statistic. The number of dives gets you into the course; your performance gets you out of it.

 

[Yoyoguy]

The dives count.

Whoever told you that was likely just voicing an opinion of what he or she thought should be a rule.

You are referring to the standards to start PADI Tec 50, not PADI Tec 40. Tec 40 only gets you to the point that you can extend a recreational depth dive with up to 10 minutes of deco. You only need 30 dives to start that course. The prerequisites grow as you progress through the series of courses.

The number of dives required to start the courses or where you did them is not that important, to be honest. What matters is your ability to perform the required skills by the end of the course. For example, the biggest hurdle for most people I have taught is doing the valve shutdown drill in 45 seconds. If you can't do that, it doesn't matter how many dives you have. You also need to maintain good buoyancy control during deco stops, and by Tec 50, that means handling two deco bottles while maintaining those depths. You have to show the instructor that he or she can trust you to go out and do decompression dives safely. I'm not going to let you leave my course if I think there is a chance you will fail to perform an important skill properly when needed and thus become a statistic. The number of dives gets you into the course; your performance gets you out of it.

Thanks for your comments. There is one instructor in my area, who if he thinks you are competent enough, will roll all the tec 40, 45, and 50 into basically one large training session. Something like 8 classes and obviously multiple dive days or so I have heard. I have not spoken to him directly. In order to do them this way you obviously need to have the credentials for TEC 50 upfront and just like you he states that there is no guarantee of coming out of the course with certification.

I am able to do the valve drill while maintaining a hover (it is a bit sloppy and I raise and lower a few feet while doing it). I have not timed it yet but I can say this that it is hard closing and opening the left valve with my left arm (non dominant arm) which drastically slows me down. these are things I would like to be proficient at before class so do you happen to have any tips? FYI I have some slight left shoulder damage so it is slightly painful doing the drill as well. if I had to rate the pain from 1-10 it is about a 3 so not really painful but it does hurt a little. I can close and open it all the way but it is definitely the limiting factor for my time.

Second question is for the valve drill, how perfect does your buoyancy need to be? Obviously good is good and better is better BUT what would fail you? or is only the time the failing portion?

 

[KevinNM]

Interesting. The GUE requirement isn't based on time, it's doing it right, doing it stable and maintaining situational awareness while you do it. I'm told that eventually there does become such a things as doing it too slow, but not until the follow on courses.

 

[boulderjohn]

Thanks for your comments. There is one instructor in my area, who if he thinks you are competent enough, will roll all the tec 40, 45, and 50 into basically one large training session.

The course materials all come in one package, so there is nothing to stop someone from going straight through, but that would be one big class! I certified a diver a year ago who started with enough dives for Tec 40, (almost 45) then got up to enough dives to do Tec 45, and then did a lot of diving to get to Tec 50. He did it all in less than a year.

Second question is for the valve drill, how perfect does your buoyancy need to be? Obviously good is good and better is better BUT what would fail you? or is only the time the failing portion?

It does not have to be perfect, but you need to be within a few feet while you do it. You really do need to stay horizontal, whether it is a requirement or not. The main reason people can't do it when they are first working at it is their legs drop and they go out of trim. They suddently can't reach the valves as well, if it all.

 

[boulderjohn]

Interesting. The GUE requirement isn't based on time, it's doing it right, doing it stable and maintaining situational awareness while you do it. I'm told that eventually there does become such a things as doing it too slow, but not until the follow on courses.

The valve drill is something of a pet peeve of mine. I have had to do it with several different agencies, and I disagree with all of them.

I first got it down in the GUE/UTD fashion, which is a beautiful work of art taking forever. I can't even remember how many actual steps it took to complete it. When I crossed over from UTD to TDI for trimix training and was asked to do it, I focused hard and did the very best UTD valve drill I had ever done. I wished someone had videoed it. Back on the boat, my instructor told me that it was just plain horrible--I would have to work hard to improve that. He was all about speed. He did not care if I flashed my teammates at each step and told them to watch me do the valve drill. He did not care if I clipped off my primary after switching. He did not care if I breathed each of the regulators down after shutting off the valve. He wanted me to show that I could open/close those damn valves in a hurry in case of an emergency. Once I figured that out, I could do it to his satisfaction. I actually got to nearly 30 seconds when I got my TDI instructor rating, and I did that in a very non-UTD way. While my right hand was turning my right post back on, my left hand was closing the manifold. While my right hand was opening the manifold, my left hand was shutting down the left post. It was not pretty, but it was fast.

What is the purpose of a valve drill? It is not something that will ever be done for real on any dive. There is no real point in doing the entire drill in terms of learning a skill. The purpose of it is to make sure you can open or close those valves in a hurry when you need to, without crashing into the silt or rocketing to the surface. To me, that means you need to be able to get to ANY of the valves in a hurry, but I don't see the point in getting to ALL of the valves in a hurry. I don't see the point in all the superfluous beauty of the GUE/UTD process, none of which will happen when there is caca on the fan. That is why I disagree with both approaches.I do follow the standards, though, in part because I know that once the student is certified, he or she will get a survey asking if they had to do the valve drill in 45 seconds.