Member introductions

[Cave Diver]

The suggestion was made in another thread for us to introduce ourselves and give some basic info. That will help give us an idea of who we're talking to and some background info. I'm going to combine several posts from other areas into this thread for easier reference.

Real name: John

Years tech diving: 10
NACD Cave - 9/01
NAUI Trimix - 4/03
IANTD CCR - 3/08

I started cave diving because I was interested in wrecks and thought the skills would be beneficial. Then I got hooked on caves and mostly forgot about wreck diving. Most of my diving is done either cave diving Florida or wall diving in Grand Cayman.

 

[Rhone Man]

someone wanna start a detailed introduction thread?

I was thinking the same thing. Be nice to put in a slightly tabular format in the first post (which people could then copy) to quickly identify who does what.

Suggestion:

Years tec diving: 2
No of deco dives: ~15
Tec instructor? No
Trimix? No
Rebreathers? No
Caves? Hell no
Other comments: Slid into tec diving by accident. No facilities to support tec diving where I live, so I only do planned deco diving occasionally on trips abroad (but I enjoy them very much). Caves scare me and should be reserved for crazy people.

 

[BabyDuck]

Years tec diving: total in overhead 5, total since full cave 2. abe davis next day of cave diving!
No of deco dives: hmm, 30ish?
Tec instructor? so no it ain't funny
Trimix? planned for this summer. watch out, frank, we're thinking of the 'o' in oct!
Rebreathers? not only 'no', but 'hell, no'
Caves? hell yeah! love caves! have since ow dive #2!
Other comments: moving to sidemount. hate the process but i think i'll like it once it feels more 'home'. i like feeling competent, so anything where i'm starting fresh is put off until i can't stand it anymore. that's why i did full cave in a wetsuit - hate feeling like a noob.

 

[TSandM]

Years "tec" diving: Cavern/intro in 2007, UTD T1 in 2009
Total "tec" dives: (Staged decompression) about a dozen; Cave, about 120 now
Instructor: Hell, no.
Trimix: Not really. My UTD T1 cert is for helium mixes appropriate to the depth, though.
Rebreathers: Not contemplated.
Caves: Whenever I can . . .
Other comments: Still consider myself a total baby at all of this. I'll never be more than a cave tourist, and have no ambitions for big, dark, scary deep wreck diving, but I like having the options to go a little deeper and a little longer and do it properly (cloud sponges, anyone?)

 

[rjack321]

Deco diving: 7yrs
Caves: 4yrs
No. of deco dives: 300ish
No. cave dives: 100ish
Tec instructor? no
Trimix? yes
Rebreathers? no
Other comments: not sure??

 

[down4fun]

Years Tec diving:2 years
No of deco dives:75-100
Tec inst:no
Trimix:CCR Full trimix
Rebreathers:Yes
Caves:Yes
Other comments:I love the wrecks, slowly making my way down to the deeper and less frequently seen

 

[Slamfire]

Sheesh, I leave for work and all of a sudden the dead-due-to-inactivity T2T forum sprung to life...

• Years tec diving: 2.5
• No of deco dives: All dives are deco dives *smarta55 comment* It's really 34
• Tec instructor? No
• Trimix? Once
• Rebreathers? When my kid grows up and we can then go into giving those RB's some serious usage. As it is right now I don't think I'll use them enough to justify the cost.
• Caves? Maybe... I recognize the beauty of geological formations. I think I would enjoy enjoy the challenge. But they lack biological, archeological or historical attractiveness. I'm not rushing to get into one.
• Other comments: Got into staged deco mainly because the topography of the around BC, Canada makes it so easy to do them. Back in my native Honduras, I used to think a 110' wall was a huge wall. In many places you actually had to take a boat to get depths beyond 100'. Right here you step off dry land and right into a 700' wall. And there are lots of walls like that around here.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Years tec diving: 6
No of deco dives: somewhere in the 400-500 range
Tec instructor? Yes
Trimix? Yes
Rebreathers? Just waiting for it to ship!
Caves? Almost exclusively right now.
Other comments: trying to get back into wrecks more. It's just so much easier to cave dive.

 

[fdog]

Meh. Here ya go - don't laugh or make "old guy" comments, please!

Years tec diving ~32.
No of deco dives ~230ish.
Tec instructor Nope.
Trimix Yep.
Rebreathers A little bit, a looong time ago...enough to scare the crap out of me.
Caves No. No no no no.
Other comments Had the ...pleasure...hmm, not quite the right word....of being a test subject for lots of deco and gas studies back in the late 70's, early 80's. Diving style kinda morphed into DIR along with the times, so went ahead and took a Tech 2 class for the protocols..still never taken a fundies/essentials class.


All the best, James

 

[Kern]

Years tech diving ~5
No of deco dives ~200ish.
Tech instructor No.
Trimix. Yes.
Rebreathers. No
Caves. No.

As most of my training was a bit lacking, I'v been learning how to do it on the intrawebs. That would be too embarrassing on an open forum.

I don't know if your entry criteria really works. See comment above. Also I know of someone who, with a limited number of lifetime dives, went from starting cavern to full cave in 10 day's. At the end of training they had weights on there fins to help with trim & were asking questions on SB about buoyancy control & trim issues.