Need Some Training Advice

[Hipshot]

Hello everybody. I have been doing minimal decompression dives now for about five years although I am only trained as an advanced diver. I know, I know, we shouldn't be doing decompression dives without the training, and that is precisely the reason I came to this forum, to get some info on where to go about getting the training. I almost always dive in frshwater lakes in Texas but most of my dives are done below 100' and some to 150' or so, and last anywhere from 45-80 minutes. I began doing these deeper longer duration dives after meeting a new dive buddy about five years ago. He was a retired commercial diver that worked in the Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska for about 12 years. He really took me under his wing and tried to make me a better diver(which he did), and he also tried to teach me the basic ins and outs of decompression diving and dive safety in general and I thank him for what I have learned over the last five years. Well, I lost my dive buddy and good friend of five years to a drunk driver about two months ago in a nasty car accident, and I have decided that if I am going to continue to do this kind of diving I need to get more training from a recognized agency. Herein lies the problem, I don't know who to go to. I signed up for what was supposed to be Tec-rec class for doing dives like I have been doing with a PADI instructor whose name was given to me at a local dive shop. After starting the class it became very clear that this guy had less experience than I did and had horrible dive skills and habits. He told me that in order to do any dive over 80' that we would have to go to a saltwater location where we cold find 50' plus visibility and warmer water. This seemed kind of odd to me since right in my backyard we have a lake that is 136' deep although the viz is usually about 5-10ft and temps on the bottom are about 54 degrees, but we dive it all the time. He also tried to sell me TransPac BC along with some other Dive Rite gear. Now I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with the gear he was trying to sell me but it seemed like that was more important to him than the rest of the class and I just decided that we should part ways.I currently dive in a Stainless backplate w/Oxycheq wing, double alum 80s, Zeagle Flathead VI regs, and Zeagle dry suit. Anyways, I live about two hours from the Dallas Ft.Worth area and would love to be able to find a reputable knowledgable Tech instructor with whom I can train. Any recommendations would be aprreciated. Thanks!

 

[ScubaG]

Check out the following thread:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=114495

An alternative would be to make a visit to the Cave Country and get certifyed here.

 

[Diver0001]

Hipshot.

IANTD and TDI are both agencies with their roots in training technical diving. It sounds like what you're looking for. I don't know much about the TDI system but if you follow the IANTD way the course you're looking at taking Nitrox & Deep/Advanced Nitrox. The basics of staged decompression are introduced in advanced nitrox.

R..

 

[MikeFerrara]

Herein lies the problem, I don't know who to go to. I signed up for what was supposed to be Tec-rec class for doing dives like I have been doing with a PADI instructor whose name was given to me at a local dive shop. After starting the class it became very clear that this guy had less experience than I did and had horrible dive skills and habits.

Unfortunately this happens. Just like other divers getting ready to become a DM or instructor I've seen candidates doing bounce dives in quarries to rack up the 25 staged decompression dives that PADI requires instructor candidates to have. Some people want to teach before they do and racing through certification requirements sometimes results in a diver who hasn't developed the skill and certainly not much in the way of meaningful experience.

He told me that in order to do any dive over 80' that we would have to go to a saltwater location where we cold find 50' plus visibility and warmer water. This seemed kind of odd to me since right in my backyard we have a lake that is 136' deep although the viz is usually about 5-10ft and temps on the bottom are about 54 degrees, but we dive it all the time.

I did some of my tech training in cold deep quarries. That makes perfect sense for some one getting ready to wreck dive in the cold deep dark great lakes. I even know an instructor who primarily trains budding great lakes wreck divers and conduct all his technical courses in cold water. However, an instructor shouldn't teach in conditions he isn't comfortable teaching in. I dive plenty of sites where I wouldn't care to teach.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Hipshot.

IANTD and TDI are both agencies with their roots in training technical diving. It sounds like what you're looking for. I don't know much about the TDI system but if you follow the IANTD way the course you're looking at taking Nitrox & Deep/Advanced Nitrox. The basics of staged decompression are introduced in advanced nitrox.

R..

I've taken both IANTD and TDI courses. I was also a IANTD Advanced Nitrox instructor. While I did run into a couple real lousy IANTD instructors there are things about the agency I always liked...though their QA department needs to get on the ball. My advanced trimix course was TDI but I chose it for the instructor. I think TDI texts and some of their attitudes need a good revamping and I almost laughed myself silly zipping through the written tests. Questions something like..."plan a dive using this equipment, this table and these gases to this depth". Given the equipment and gas mentioned my answer was that no one could make me dive that way if I didn't want to and I'd stay out of the water if that's all I had. I finished by describing the gasses, equipment, gas plan and decompression schedule that I would use for the dive. I would have taken a class with a different agency before changing my answer but I didn't have to. LOL.

I never recommend ignoring the agency because agency DOES MATTER but I do recommend picking a technical diving instructor who does real technical diving in a manor that you agree with and want to learn more about. We are now seeing "recreational technical" diving marketed. Just as we have thousands of divers who need to follow a DM we are going to have the same thing going on beyond recreational depth and time limits. I can't stop it and I don't know if I want too but I wouldn't have anything to do with it either on the business end or the consumer end.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

........... I think TDI texts and some of their attitudes need a good revamping and I almost laughed myself silly zipping through the written tests. Questions something like..."plan a dive using this equipment, this table and these gases to this depth". Given the equipment and gas mentioned my answer was that no one could make me dive that way if I didn't want to and I'd stay out of the water if that's all I had. I finished by describing the gasses, equipment, gas plan and decompression schedule that I would use for the dive. I would have taken a class with a different agency before changing my answer but I didn't have to. LOL.

ROFLMAO......too friggin' funny.

Mike, why do you have to be such a pain in the *****? LOL

I swear the next exam, I'm gonna do the same thing and see

 

[Hipshot]

Thanks for the information guys. How do I go about finding an instructor for one of the tech agencies? I don't know how long classes last but if they aren't more than a week at a time I don't mind traveling somewhere else to take them, I have lots of fly for free miles. I am very interested in getting the training, and I can't wait to find out how much of it I already do or don't know through diving and unofficial training with my buddy. When we started diving together my buddy taught me how to dive nitrox and decompress on both 80/20 and O2 as well as do my own fills. Since his death I have aquired a 12x12 insulated climate controlled metal office building that has his custom built fill station inside. I have been doing my own fills for a couple of years but always under his supervision, so that is something else I would like to get some training on if it is available. Also, the fill station has the boosters and everything needed to mix helium-ox and tri-mix. I may or may not sell that part of the equipment. If I reach a point where I start traveling out of state or to saltwater where deeper diving is available and there is something I want to see at those depths I realize that tri-mix is the way to go. Thanks guys!

 

[Diver0001]

To find an IANTD instructor in your area you can use their search function:

http://www.iantd.com/search/instructors_search.html

Sounds like you have some nice toys.

R..

 

[CD_in_Chitown]

http://www.5thd-x.com/index2.html

 

[loosebits]

There are a couple of shops in DFW that do adv nitrox/deco.. Tucker's Dive Shop and Lone Star Scuba.. I know the instructor that teaches deco through Tucker's does his work in Lake Travis.