going tech the wrong way

[irishsquid]

...Never been beyond 39 meters and I wanted to check how my body, mind and equipment behave at 6atm for a few secs.

My own answer would be: don't be stupid and wait untill you can affoard proper training before doing anything like this. Even if this can take a year or two.

I have zero Tech Training and plan on doing it someday, (buying a little at a time, reading, and saving $$$ for training). As an Instructor, you were quilty of "Do as I say, not as I do". Don't take this wrong as I don't mean it in an unkind way, but; in this instance your mind wasn't behaving properly at even 1atm. Your quote shows you know and understand the answer to your own question. You got away with this ONE. Be patient and take your own advice.

 

[ShakaZulu]

Woohaaa, ignorance is bliss....that is what scare me the most, What do I "think" I know, when in fact I'm an idiot and don't realize it. Unfortunate, experience teaches you the lesson first and the class after

 

[lowviz]

................I read as much as I can on the internet (from trustable sources, of course) and try to learn as much as possible without getting the proper training I know I should get.

............... Just want to read what's in your minds after reading this post.

Since you asked, I would recommend that you start taking a more glacial approach to technical diving. Tech diving is all about discipline. Small steps over time will get you far. Know what your range is now and master it. Use your drive to mimic portions of technical training within recreational limits. Become a technical recreational diver first. Learn the physiology behind decompression diving, master gas management, dive planning, and buoyancy. If your life is that important to you, save up for real training. This has been my plan, I'm taking my first real tech course this year. Still alive, diving is still exciting....

 

[RonFrank]

There is no good way to go Tech on the cheap.

You will need additional equipment. Doubles, stage bottles, additional first and second stages at a minimum. You also need O2 clean tanks, and regs. That is going to run some bucks.

You will need training. Tech training is not cheap. It becomes increasingly more expensive as you get into tri-mix gas, and O2 above 36%.

The bottom line, what do you need to see at 150'? Why did you even consider such a dive? Was it that great? There are some very valid reasons to go Tech. OTOH, it's a big UW world with a ton of things to see within rec limits.

I'd say if you want to go Tech for whatever reason, go for it. But can it be done SAFELY on the cheap? IMO... NO.

One member on SB recently did rebreather training, and is now diving on a rebreather. However the main reason he did this was not to just go deep, but to go long. Most of the diving he is doing is within rec limits, but his BT is hugely increased, and he generally has very little deco obligation. IMO that is a very cool objective, but by no means a cheap option.

 

[suprasteve]

as far as learning more about it online and other sources, before I started my tech classes I did a lot of figuring-out-the-bookwork on my own. Now before i go any farther, I never did any deco, extended range, etc dives without certification, so don't crucify me! But learning the what's and why's wasn't all that complex, almost deceptively so. I'd been diving OW for over ten years before I got the tech 'bug' you could say (pretty recently I probably should add), and I thought and had been told I was a 'good' diver. But the first few times you jump in the water and try the skills necessary for tech that you never really needed or practiced doing OW, it's a humbling experience. Looking back I definitely wouldn't have wanted to just 'jump in' and do a deco dive without having tried and gotten acquainted with the necessary skills to do so correctly. But anywho, learning the ins and outs isn't hard if you look around, but the difference between knowing what to do and doing it is something serious to consider.

 

[NorthWoodsDiver]

If you have to ask us what we think, then you know what sort of an answer you are going to get. I dont look at 50m like its that big of a deal as long as you have the proper equipment, training, and understanding of what is going on and you plan the dive and dive the plan. Obviously you didn't do at least 2 out of the 3 things on that list.

You can make diving as expensive as you want and keep things cheap too. The question is what do you give up by going cheap and how much is your life worth?

 

[ppo2_diver]

I once read that less than 1% of all certified divers posses the competence, skill, and judgment to be successful technical divers. I believe in this. With the rise in popularity of technical diving, there are many "technical" divers who shouldn't be doing the dives. A c-card doesn't mean one is a competent diver.

 

[ignacioblanch]

Ok, a some words about all this... (sorry for the lenght!)


I believe I had one of the best OW courses someone can have; since class one (of 16) my instructor educated us in all kind of aspects of scuba diving. Was an extremely complete course, so complete that a lot of people would say it was too complete. But I just loved it. For life circumstances I could only do my OW course with him.


Anyways I learnt things I consider fundamental and none of the other instructors I had all the way trough to my Instructors courses didn't even mentioned them.


Safety was always paramount for him and he was crystal clear on this with his speech and with his actions. Of course this was not all, but was for sure the main thing.


I can affirm that until 3 months ago I would never EVER have thought about diving beyond recreational limits in any sense with my current recreational training. This was rock solid on me since my OW course.


So, what happened? Why I lost it and something I had very clear suddenly became blurry?


Some time after taking my OW course life takes me to New Zealand. In this beautiful country I find the opportunity to do a Divemaster internship with a local dive center at the Bay of Islands.
I must confess that I was completely shocked when, after having all this training, I saw that they where training OW divers in just 3 days! It took me some time to accept it and, after all, I wanted to dive and this seemed to be the only way to do it often and earn some experience.


So every time I was helping an instructor in the classroom or in the swimming pool and I felt I could use some of my knowledge to make this 3-day-divers a little better the instructor would 'advice' me to stay quiet because the divers -don't need this- as the system prays.


Also when I was concerned about some safety aspects I realized that ?you are just the trainee, what would you know". As some of the instructors would point.
So things like this during a given period of time started weakening my mindset and blurring some concepts I had very clear from the start.


Now, for the past 3 months I've been living in Egypt. I came here because its reputation (well deserved) as 'diving paradise'.
If my mindset got weakened diving in NZ, here in Egypt it got wrecked (on a metaphoric way!!)


Going out on a daily basis on a boat I can tell you: you will see every kind of stupid things you can imagine. And some others you can't even imagine!
Except for a handful of serious diving centers that know what they do, you will find a lot of people using the diving business just to make some money regardless standards, procedures and common sense.


I was disappointed with myself after I did the 50m dive. I was too weak to say no. I needed to show how macho I was (yes, stupid!!) And in places like this very seldom you will find someone that tells you this is wrong. You will also seldom find somebody that never dived beyond not 40, but 50 meters lacking the training and equipment


But is a learnt lesson. Is a shame I had to experience it first hand to realize how misleaded I was. Where too many concessions and too long with the wrong people took me to.


I hope you find this message useful in some way. I hope you learnt the same lesson I did but from the safety of a desk. And most of all, I hope you learn not to betray yourself and what you believe. A LOT of brainless people out there will tell you you are wrong. Just trust your education and common sense.

 

[miketsp]

..snip..

Just want to read what's in your minds after reading this post.

Thanks a lot!

Well posting on here you got the expected majority reaction.

But when it comes down to it you didn't do anything different from dives that are being done every day all around the planet and that thousands of divers have done before you.

I've dived lots of places where divers are running up significant obligatory deco on single tanks at 40-50m on a routine basis and accident statistics are surprisingly low.
Understanding rock-bottom and having a reliable dive buddy stick close are probably the key issues.

If someone made me the offer you received I'd just spend a few minutes questioning him to sound him out and make sure he knew what he was about. If I was satisfied I'd have gone too.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Look at it this way: you successfully performed a deep dive abort maneuver --where for example, a tech diver has an equipment problem at depth; or most likely there's no wreck to be seen at the wreck site and so he has to abort the dive to recheck his surface coordinates & location reckoning (happened to me on two consecutive attempts to find a F-4 Phantom Fighter Jet in 45m depth outside Subic Bay Philippines).

Ignacioblanch, you already know what you did incorrectly by your own self-analysis, and by the advice here posted in this thread -- go get some technical training (unless all you would want to do are these short deep "touch-and-go" dives. . .)