Intro to Tech - Cost

[boulderjohn]

What do you mean by the "regular course"? I understood the original post to show a breakdown of that shop's regular course into four topics.

A standard Intro to Tech course should cover decompression theory.

 

[Lorenzoid]

A standard Intro to Tech course should cover decompression theory.

By "standard," you mean the certification agency's minimum required curriculum? Isn't it possible from what @boriss said that this shop's course goes into the topic deeper than the agency's curriculum? It may be an "added extra," as you put it, only in the sense that they spend more time on it and get into it in more depth than the minimum the agency requires. Who knows. I'm trying to make sense of it all like everyone else here.

 

[Mergulhador do Delray]

OP, based on where you're located (I am in Leesburg) I would agree with this post. Submerged is a good shop and they can structure your technical training differently based on where you are/what you know already. You don't need a $300 class to learn to use a shearwater.

I'm taking a wild guess that the original dive shop you contacted was within 10 miles of you?

No. The original shop is not up north here. And I am not likely to go to a shop here for the simple reason that all of my gear is in Florida. It occasionally makes a northern journey, but not often. I am not a fan of cold.

 

[boriss]

By "standard," you mean the certification agency's minimum required curriculum? Isn't it possible from what @boriss said that this shop's course goes into the topic deeper than the agency's curriculum? It may be an "added extra," as you put it, only in the sense that they spend more time on it and get into it in more depth than the minimum the agency requires. Who knows. I'm trying to make sense of it all like everyone else here.

Basic decompression procedures are part of the online training portion. Here's the section on that:

So in a sense decompression is covered, but it's basically a few high level paragraphs. We went a lot deeper into actual theory and it was all connected to our computers and setup as well.

I've found that what was covered was also dependent on the student, since this is essentially private instruction. Even though we covered a lot of theory, I've already watched hours upon hours of Simon Mitchell video's, read the scientific research and watched every single Shearwater video prior to taking the class (I doubt most people do that). Despite that, I still managed to learn a lot. The instructors just took what I already knew and filled in the gaps and covered additional topics.

It's all relative and you get what you pay for. Technical diving gets expensive really fast. I think people need to be honest with themselves about the costs and where they want to end up as a diver.