How much fun do technical divers have?

[Trace Malinowski]

Technical divers are often accused of not having any fun. If you could only choose one dive to tell about how much fun you had as a diver, what would it be? Was it at the recreational or technical level? How did your tech training add to the fun of the dive?

If I had to pick one, it would be spending the night in Jules' Undersea Lodge with my girlfriend. It was the best combination of having a very unique experience, spending a romantic night together, taking a specialty course together, making 2 dives in our doubles together, doing a solo dive and taking pictures of her through the windows, playing with some marine life, being in saturation, calling friends and family from the sea floor, becoming part of the history of the habitat, eating, dining and sleeping underwater then waking to dive the next day. While the experience is open to all levels of divers, including uncertified divers (resort courses available) being trained technical divers gave us much greater appreciation for the technology involved and having our doubles allowed us less surface support and longer dive times. We emerged as PADI Underwater Habitat Specialty Divers - Woo-Hoo! The course was actually informative and partly taught by a new marine scientist who was passionate about the coolness of living underwater. When living in Key Largo, I taught there a lot. I was prepared to be bored in the shallow lagoon, but we had a lot of fun as part of a dive trip in which we did cave diving, wreck diving, dove with manatees, and did a tour of the Everglades.

 

[fdog]

Since "technical" is such a slippery term, that's tough to answer!

And anyway, I come back from pretty much every "technical" dive with a huge grin, so it must be fun. Great friends, cool new things to see, doing something difficult with precision.


...but, to your question, my best ever dive was a "recreational" one - Monastery Beach, in Monterey, as the sun rose over the hills, and wisps of fog rolled away to the accompaniment of the bells of the monastery.....to walk past ankle-slapper waves into 100'+ of vis, and all the rich life under the kelp canopy.

On this dive, the close team skills from tech made it an especially effortless, intimate one.


All the best, James

 

[Atomic_Diver]

I love all of my dives, however diving with Nitrox, and Decompression diving has givin me more time to spend on a dive site, thus exploring more and having more fun seeing more things....

 

[PfcAJ]

I have far LESS fun before the dive (more tanks, more shenanigans to break, more to lift, fill, buy, haul around) but way MORE fun in the water. I kind of enjoy predive planning, but sometimes its a PITA, so it hovers in the middle.

A few months ago before the sky opened up and rained cats and dogs on north Florida, I had an especially great cave dive. A little mudhole (its real gross, oil and stuff on the surface) in the woods opens up into a pretty good sized cave filled with tannic (15ft vis tops) water that splits left and right. Left takes you to a passage some 40ft tall and 20ft wide for about 1500ft (give or take). At 1000', a left turn takes you down a small chute and opens up to a massive room (30ft or so at the celing, 130 at the bottom) filled with crystal clear water and pristine white walls dotted with millions of tiny fossils. This distinct contrast is mind blowing.Taking the right passage (from the split in the beginning) leads to a large vertical shaft that drops from 100ft to 240ft. Looking down the pit from the upper rim leaves you speechless.

The technical training is what allowed me to be privileged enough to see something like this. Something few will see, often overlooked in the day to day lives of millions of people.

 

[HowardE]

I have fun every day, all the time. Every dive. Recreational, Tech, Working, whatever. It's all fun for me.

 

[TSandM]

One dive? No way I can pick one . . . but I can address whether I've had fun doing "technical" dives. My second out-of-class staged decompression dive was on a wreck in the Red Sea. The wreck was covered in sponges and soft coral in brilliant colors, and was colonized by spectacular lionfish. We went down to the mast, and then came up through the holds, playing in the structure. We emerged from the top of the wreck and began our "deco", which simply consisted of swimming along a spectacular, coral-encrusted wall at specific depths for specific times. At the end, we got to 20 feet and swam back to the boat there, enjoying the view and the light and the schools of anthias as we drained our deco bottles. I'd call that fun.

One of my first dives out of Full Cave was an exploration of side passages in Chan Hol. My buddy and I would jump onto one line, and follow it, and then jump onto another, and then start laughing when we realized we were back where we started. It was great, silly fun, full of the excitement of exploration and the exhilaration of having the freedom to explore.

Now, if you want to talk about 15 minutes of deco up a line in green, 41 degree water -- maybe not so much.

 

[SandyRobinson]

Last summer at Wreckfest in Key Largo with SilentWorld, we made a 1.5 hr dive (1hr BT) on the Speigel Grove. We had great viz and little current and were able to explore the exterior of the ship from bow to stern and port to starboard in addition to many rooms and corridors and the Snoopy Top Dog emblem in the 75 to 100 foot range. My bottom time on most of my previous SG dives had been limited to to NDL so it was a treat to spend a lot of time on the SG without worrying about a quick ascent.

With that said, I have had some great 1hr dives in KL in 30 feet of water but the above dive stands out.

 

[Peter Guy]

Trace, for what it's worth, the people who don't think "Technical Divers" have fun while they dive or that "Technical Dives" ARE fun just don't understand.

What can possibly be more fun than diving with companions who are "part of you" and just allow you to do a free-form ballet under water -- whether it is at 15 feet, 150 feet or 1500 feet from the surface?

 

[Hyper-limits]

This pass summer a buddy and I did a nice dive on a beautiful wall cover with cloud sponges, we spend about 50 min between a 130-150ft scootering from sponges garden to sponges garden the viz was around 80ft and the water temp around 50 degree F. We finish with a runtime of 202 minutes, I wasn't cold which is surprising with the water temp around here. I find these kind of dive a lot of fun because I don't have to rush to the surface, as long as the dive is well plan I don't mind doing 60+ minutes of deco. On a line I like to keep it at 30 minutes or less.

I do admit that some Technical diver take it too seriously, as long as everything is safe and everyone play by the rule doing tech dive are a lot of fun.

Cheers

Al

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I can't think of any dives I've ever done when I didn't have fun.

On those rare occasions when things don't go according to plan ... well ... I'm having "too much fun" ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)