As I mentioned upthread, NAUI has separate certs....
Technical EANx Diver
Decompression Techniques Diver
Technical EANx Diver
Decompression Techniques Diver
Next step for longer bottom times on deep dives?
- Thread starter jf3193
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Most agencies here in Europe, such as Cmas, Bsac, Fipsas, Fias train for light deco on back gas in their recreational programs.
No need to go tech for this...
And what is taught here is that planning and conducting a dive slightly beyond the NDL results in a much safer dive than riding the NDL limit, with the hope (often missed on a wreck dive) of not surpassing it.
Not how true it is, but I’ve heard stories of non-deco trained divers wanting to do deco dives off tech charters in the US, and they were not allowed to dive.
Quite obvious, without a deco certification.
But my recreational Cmas *** certification is for buddy diving down to 50m with deco in air...
My point is that most people in US identify deco with tech diving.
Instead deco diving can be done without technical training, you just need traditional recreational training as it has always been done here in Europe since the fifties...
And how is still being done nowadays.
This always comes down to semantics. How do you define "recreational diving" in Europe? Here, the dividing line is simple - if you have a deco obligation, we call it tech diving. But I do understand that you could have a system where you can learn how to do back gas deco up to an arbitrary limit and call it recreational. I have no problem with that, but of course that simply implies that you are moving some of what we would call tech training into a rec course.
Perhaps we should stick with the stricter definition of recreational diving - just to cause more confusion! It's recreational if no one is paying you to do it.
barth
Contributor
Global underwater explorers is located in the us. Rec 3 is 15 minutes deco and not tech. ;-)You don’t even need tech skills for 15 minutes of deco...
But I cannot remember when I did my last backgas deco dive. I always bring decogas for a deco dive. With a decogas I can have a longer bottomtime.
There’s plenty ways the OP could extend his bottom time. The simplest would be carry enough bottom gas to do 10 minutes of deco. But seems his hands are tied if he wants to use some charter boats to the wrecks he wished to dive: He needs a teck cert, so why not bite the bullet and get the training.
I agree entirely... But my point is not about naming the "light deco" diving as rec or tech. My point is that this "light deco" is a SAFER way of diving than "riding the NDL"...
This is taught here since the first OW course. The concept is that it's wrong to consider the NDL as a "safety limit"; and that going beyond NDL is not as safe as staying within it.
When we are dealing with these not trivial dives, beyond 30 meters, always very close to the NDL for maximizing bottom time, and with environment not particularly easy (wreck, current, limited visibility, rough sea, etc.) a dive planned to be sharply within the NDL is, in my opinion, quite hazardous. Any minimal inconvenience and you are in deco, without being properly trained, equipped and scheduled.
So here we train rec divers to deal with deco obligations properly, carrying enough gas (even if not a dedicated bottle with high oxygen percentage, as it gives almost no advantage for a deco obligation of 10 minutes in air, which reduce perhaps to 6 minutes in pure oxygen), proper redundant air source (so a CESA is never a need), and proper procedures for conducting deco stops in safety (deco bars below the boat, with additional bottles, etc.).
I did always find quite misleading the US approach which states that NDL is a safety limit, and going beyond the NDL is hazardous and requires tech equipment and training. This pushes people to try to stay sharply on the edge of NDL, instead of learning proper deco procedures. So they plan the dive with not enough gas (according to our standards), with not enough redundant equipment (a simple octopus reg on an AL80 is not enough for me), and without setting up proper facilities for conducting safely deco stops even in a rough sea.
A simple definition of "Recreational decompression" would only be on your backgas and for a limited amount of time.
Adding cylinders and other gasses is technical -- needs sorted core skills plus additional skills (gas switching, planning, etc.)
As mentioned above, some European agencies (and others?) include limited decompression in their training. BSAC allows 15 mins as the local conditions generally require deeper diving (wrecks).
For whatever reason PADI doesn't allow this. One could speculate as to why - US litigiousness; better training sandards required; avarice - to sell more courses...
Adding cylinders and other gasses is technical -- needs sorted core skills plus additional skills (gas switching, planning, etc.)
As mentioned above, some European agencies (and others?) include limited decompression in their training. BSAC allows 15 mins as the local conditions generally require deeper diving (wrecks).
For whatever reason PADI doesn't allow this. One could speculate as to why - US litigiousness; better training sandards required; avarice - to sell more courses...
I'm not an instructor, so I defer to pretty much everyone else here on these topics. But I do just want to stand up for the US approach to teaching the NDL as a bright line.
The argument you really want to have is why are we letting people with limited training scuba dive in the first place. And we all know that the VAST majority of people with C cards are very casual divers who might do it on holiday if time permits. Who would have absolutely no idea what their SAC rate is. Who couldn't explain the physics or math behind basic recreational nitrogen loading at gunpoint. Who don't know what the computer is actually computing. Whose dive plan is "follow the DM and surface when he tells you to".
I'm not trying to be arrogant or elitist. I'm just describing reality of scuba diving on planet earth. These people aren't here on SB, and the people in this thread probably don't dive with them. But the agencies know that this is their audience. So given all of that, it's probably safer to just tell them at the basic levels of training "don't exceed NDL" than to say "if, despite your planning you DO exceed NDL, this is what is happening and here is how to do a safe, staged ascent with a minimal deco obligation".
The small percentage of people who actually become scuba divers as a hobby will learn more. But I can see the advantage of this approach to teaching OW divers, assuming that we are no longer doing the six week long YMCA style entry-level courses that were taught in the 60s.
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