If my bartender offered me free shots, I wouldn't go on a bender.
OC to CCR: After Trimix? Or after Adv Trimix?
- Thread starter stuartv
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Non-snarky comment follows..
Let's look at it like this. A person jumps into certain courses which involve both a strong academic and physical skills component because they can get it for cheap even though they do not necessarily have the experience and comfort to pursue dives of that nature. However, the person justifies taking the course now because they plan to self-police to an easier level until they're properly prepared mentally and physically do partake those more challenging dives.
The person knows they are not really ready, and they fumble a bit with the physical skills and because of distractions due to not being entirely prepared, also miss a few points during the academic portions.
My question for you is this: when the person is finally ready to go on to that kind of diving, how many would actually re-take the course to cover the material and skills they missed the first time? Do you really think they'll be prepared without re-taking the course?
Even if a person is receiving an advanced trimix ccr course for free, if they are not prepared for it, they probably shouldn't be taking it.
BTW -- This is one of the things GUE really gets right. They require an experience component before moving on to the next diving course, and they also require verification of recency to maintain those levels.
Let's look at it like this. A person jumps into certain courses which involve both a strong academic and physical skills component because they can get it for cheap even though they do not necessarily have the experience and comfort to pursue dives of that nature. However, the person justifies taking the course now because they plan to self-police to an easier level until they're properly prepared mentally and physically do partake those more challenging dives.
The person knows they are not really ready, and they fumble a bit with the physical skills and because of distractions due to not being entirely prepared, also miss a few points during the academic portions.
My question for you is this: when the person is finally ready to go on to that kind of diving, how many would actually re-take the course to cover the material and skills they missed the first time? Do you really think they'll be prepared without re-taking the course?
Even if a person is receiving an advanced trimix ccr course for free, if they are not prepared for it, they probably shouldn't be taking it.
BTW -- This is one of the things GUE really gets right. They require an experience component before moving on to the next diving course, and they also require verification of recency to maintain those levels.
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it's only normoxic at this point, it's not like he just finished ART and wants to go to hypoxic CCR next week... and GUE does only require 100 dives and a tech pass to get through Tech 1, and only 25 more to hit Tech 2. I agree that it's ideal to have some sort of experience requirement, but assuming you have good skills, you can be at 100m at 125 dives....
my understanding is basically that he has 150-200 ish dives at this point, completed ART/DP six ish months ago and is going to Normoxic right now. He has a goal to dive the Monitor. He wants to know the general consensus on going thru to full trimix or switch to CCR sometime in the next 12-18mos after which point he'll have 200-250 ish dives with several dozen in the mix range.
If he goes to CCR, to get to full mix, at least per TDI, he has to have 100hours over 100 dives on a breather, pool hours don't count, and half of those hours have to be below 100ft. That will take a while....
I wouldn't exactly consider that a bender...
my understanding is basically that he has 150-200 ish dives at this point, completed ART/DP six ish months ago and is going to Normoxic right now. He has a goal to dive the Monitor. He wants to know the general consensus on going thru to full trimix or switch to CCR sometime in the next 12-18mos after which point he'll have 200-250 ish dives with several dozen in the mix range.
If he goes to CCR, to get to full mix, at least per TDI, he has to have 100hours over 100 dives on a breather, pool hours don't count, and half of those hours have to be below 100ft. That will take a while....
I wouldn't exactly consider that a bender...
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I guess I missed the first post where he was talking about hypoxic and CCR too.
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I have no intention of doing CCR or deep monitor dives. So my comments are general ones meant in an encouraging manner. It is great that one has access to lots of courses and takes them. I like courses. However, there is a huge difference between a head full of knowledge and having lots of experience so that when a problem occurs you just know how to handle it and do not have to go searching through your mental library. Actual diving is different from classes. Take all the classes you want but it seems to me that you are rushing through your actual diving experience. 2 or 4 or 6 at a given level are not lots of experience. I would think that before you are a valued team member on a monitor level dive you should have several hundred more dives of different types. And the dives need to be under different conditions. Doing deco in a quarry is not the same as doing deco in an ocean, with current, with an 8 ft shark swimming around you (affects the sac rate usually).
I could be wrong but your many posts sounds like someone in a hurry. And the history of diving and many other things show that "haste often makes wasted" (not a typo).
I could be wrong but your many posts sounds like someone in a hurry. And the history of diving and many other things show that "haste often makes wasted" (not a typo).
BabyDuck
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i think oc comfort is very important before going to all new ccr learning. but factor in the time it will take to get *just that comfortable* on ccr. we've spent a solid year doing intro level cave dives (with respect to distance from entrance - we were doing jumps) with the ccr's though we've been full cave/trimix/dpv/etc for about 8 years. just last trip, i've felt comfortable enough to build back toward full cave dives. of course ymmv, but don't expect to take a breather course and be all ready to continue at the mix level. it sets you back, though you end up further after putting in some time.
You've already gotten some really good advice here Stuart. You'll know you've mastered OC when everything clicks. I finished my trimix this spring and it was eye-opening. Sometimes, I think the names of the courses are misleading! Going from AN/DP to trimix was a BIG step up. Adding one more stage and some additional task loading was much more daunting/humbling than I anticipated. So now I'm a trimix diver and I feel like I have a LONG way to go to "master" a two-stage 60 meter diver. I'm confident that I can do everything I need to do on those dives, but I don't feel that I can always do them "efficiently and cleanly." At this point, I'm even using my recreational dives to carry two stages and just practice some skills.
Disclaimer: The following advice is my two cents from a non hypoxic trimix or CCR diver! Given what I've learned so far, I would definitely take it slow and master OC hypoxic trimix before moving to CCR. There are a lot of moving parts with just a basic trimix dive and I would seriously want to have those fluid before making the jump to even greater complexity. I take my hat off to the folks that already have the skills to do those kind of big dives!
Stuart, go and buy a JJ now. Get the helitrox CCR qualification and go diving. You will in the end and you might as well be getting better at CCR while learning to do the deeper stuff. Otherwise you will be wanting to do 80m plus dives on CCR when you ought to be doing 30m ones.
beester
Contributor
Heya stuart,
A couple of points from my experience:
-Taking the course first and then scaling back your dives to grow slowly: I'm not sure if that works very well. Depends on you as a person of course. But the reason I do a course is to do the dives afterwards, not scale back for another year. I have had experience with a couple of courses where I didn't feel ready to do the dives after and I have scaled back then, but that had more to do with my lack of experience going into the course and the lack of quality of the course as such. I feel that after finishing a course you should be ready to do the dives on the certification level of the course. Of course if it's a "pinnacle" course (cave 2, full technical cave, T2, full trimix) you need to be a bit more cautious and need to slowly increase experience after the course but still do the dives!
Although I did have questions before starting on T2 course (full trimix), these had more to do with where and what kind of dives I could do after and if I really needed the course than with me being ready. (I even posted about this in 2015 T2 to do or not and recommendations on preparation ) I went into that course not sure if I would do a lot of T2 dives (probably more extending the bottom time at T1 (50m) depth than going deeper).
Looking back at that post, after doing T2 beginning of 2016 whenever I was wreck diving it became very easily a T2 dive, because I had options. Because the foundation (normoxic tx / T1) was very well planted, I really enjoyed having more options available, and also using them. So I'm not sure after you take classes that you can hold back.
However the other part is, experience. I went into my classes with sufficient experience to take the classes (for example I had between 50-60 normoxic trimix dives before I did full trimix). This is important because you can relate much better in the course to your own experience. You get much more out of a course if you can relate (with your own experience) to some of the stuff that's being discussed. The course becomes much richer.
I fear if you would take normoxic and full tx back to back (because you have the opportunity) that you'll miss out on some of what makes such a pinnacle course fun.
When are you ready? I don't know... I didn't know before T2 if I was ready, but I started the course and on day 1 it already clicked. Yes I was ready, it was a very laid back course (if there is any such thing in GUE courses), a lot of drills but quite easily managed, and a lot of frank and open discussions with the instructor, more like "hey guys what do you want to do, what are your goals, and let me help you get to those goals"... more like mentoring then an actual class.
Cheers
B
A couple of points from my experience:
-Taking the course first and then scaling back your dives to grow slowly: I'm not sure if that works very well. Depends on you as a person of course. But the reason I do a course is to do the dives afterwards, not scale back for another year. I have had experience with a couple of courses where I didn't feel ready to do the dives after and I have scaled back then, but that had more to do with my lack of experience going into the course and the lack of quality of the course as such. I feel that after finishing a course you should be ready to do the dives on the certification level of the course. Of course if it's a "pinnacle" course (cave 2, full technical cave, T2, full trimix) you need to be a bit more cautious and need to slowly increase experience after the course but still do the dives!
Although I did have questions before starting on T2 course (full trimix), these had more to do with where and what kind of dives I could do after and if I really needed the course than with me being ready. (I even posted about this in 2015 T2 to do or not and recommendations on preparation ) I went into that course not sure if I would do a lot of T2 dives (probably more extending the bottom time at T1 (50m) depth than going deeper).
Looking back at that post, after doing T2 beginning of 2016 whenever I was wreck diving it became very easily a T2 dive, because I had options. Because the foundation (normoxic tx / T1) was very well planted, I really enjoyed having more options available, and also using them. So I'm not sure after you take classes that you can hold back.
However the other part is, experience. I went into my classes with sufficient experience to take the classes (for example I had between 50-60 normoxic trimix dives before I did full trimix). This is important because you can relate much better in the course to your own experience. You get much more out of a course if you can relate (with your own experience) to some of the stuff that's being discussed. The course becomes much richer.
I fear if you would take normoxic and full tx back to back (because you have the opportunity) that you'll miss out on some of what makes such a pinnacle course fun.
When are you ready? I don't know... I didn't know before T2 if I was ready, but I started the course and on day 1 it already clicked. Yes I was ready, it was a very laid back course (if there is any such thing in GUE courses), a lot of drills but quite easily managed, and a lot of frank and open discussions with the instructor, more like "hey guys what do you want to do, what are your goals, and let me help you get to those goals"... more like mentoring then an actual class.
Cheers
B
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