Okay... I'll start a new thread--On Tri-mix

[Superlyte27]

I think I would look at you with a hard eye if you showed up on my boat with a ADCI card for mixed gas diving and told me that you wanted to make a 275 foot O/C dive, that you'd mixed your own heliox, and were good to go. I wouldn't necessarily say you couldn't make the dive, but we'd talk further about it, as you would if you were the dive sup and I showed up on the barge with a brand new superlight 37 and my IANTD trimix card. They just aren't the same type of dive.

I like your perspective.

 

[Superlyte27]

I won't be diving CCR for many years. I have to pay back the money i've borrowed trying to survive this economy.

When I made my last post something from my past popped up to haunt me. About 15 years ago I bought a bunch of R/C Airplanes. Of course I went really top of the line (for my budget) and one plane was more than $2300 bucks. The local hobby store saw me coming in and buy different kits, and radios and glue and fuel and eventually asked me if I knew how to fly. My answer was, I fly full scale real airplanes, so I'm pretty sure I can fly R/C. He chuckled a bit and tried to explain to me that my assumption was erroneous and I was going to crash my plane. I chuckled and said something to the affect of "you really don't know who you are dealing with". Well, I crashed the plane. Perhaps there's more in the recreational class that I can't foresee. If it's just about gas management, depths, saturations, deco etc. then i'm pretty sure I have it down, but perhaps this assumption will be more costly than the airplane. Is there a course outline anywhere?

 

[Wookie]

I won't be diving CCR for many years. I have to pay back the money i've borrowed trying to survive this economy.

When I made my last post something from my past popped up to haunt me. About 15 years ago I bought a bunch of R/C Airplanes. Of course I went really top of the line (for my budget) and one plane was more than $2300 bucks. The local hobby store saw me coming in and buy different kits, and radios and glue and fuel and eventually asked me if I knew how to fly. My answer was, I fly full scale real airplanes, so I'm pretty sure I can fly R/C. He chuckled a bit and tried to explain to me that my assumption was erroneous and I was going to crash my plane. I chuckled and said something to the affect of "you really don't know who you are dealing with". Well, I crashed the plane. Perhaps there's more in the recreational class that I can't foresee. If it's just about gas management, depths, saturations, deco etc. then i'm pretty sure I have it down, but perhaps this assumption will be more costly than the airplane. Is there a course outline anywhere?

It's more like learning to commercial dive. You can read it all, and train in the pool, and do drills in 40 feet, but until you are there in real life conditions with a mentor who is teaching you the tricks of the trade, you don't get to benefit from someone else's experience. Stupid little things like long hose stowing and deployment, SMB, liftbag, and reel use, line drills for caving and wrecking, drysuit use for extended deep dives, and stuff like that will mess you up. If it were only a matter of gas planning, blending, and management, I'd throw you a hearty hello. It's all the rest of the crap that goes with Scuba where narcosis is a real issue, you have a buddy, but not necessarily a tender who might or might not be paying attention to you, You have no coms with someone who isn't impaired, There isn't necessarily a standby diver who can throw on a hat and come get you, no one is pumping nice warm water into your suit to keep you warm.

Don't get me wrong, commercial diving is far harder physically and mentally than recreational trimix diving, but OSHA builds safeguards into the program to keep you alive. You know as well as I that some companies (not Oceaneering or Cal-dive) don't follow exactly every OSHA regulation, and without OSHA, there would be far more injuries than there are. We do this scuba thing for fun, with very little oversight. To me, trimix diving on open circuit is all about the little things, because the big things were taken care of back in training.

 

[Superlyte27]

It's more like learning to commercial dive. You can read it all, and train in the pool, and do drills in 40 feet, but until you are there in real life conditions with a mentor who is teaching you the tricks of the trade, you don't get to benefit from someone else's experience. Stupid little things like long hose stowing and deployment, SMB, liftbag, and reel use, line drills for caving and wrecking, drysuit use for extended deep dives, and stuff like that will mess you up. If it were only a matter of gas planning, blending, and management, I'd throw you a hearty hello. It's all the rest of the crap that goes with Scuba where narcosis is a real issue, you have a buddy, but not necessarily a tender who might or might not be paying attention to you, You have no coms with someone who isn't impaired, There isn't necessarily a standby diver who can throw on a hat and come get you, no one is pumping nice warm water into your suit to keep you warm.

Don't get me wrong, commercial diving is far harder physically and mentally than recreational trimix diving, but OSHA builds safeguards into the program to keep you alive. You know as well as I that some companies (not Oceaneering or Cal-dive) don't follow exactly every OSHA regulation, and without OSHA, there would be far more injuries than there are. We do this scuba thing for fun, with very little oversight. To me, trimix diving on open circuit is all about the little things, because the big things were taken care of back in training.

Here's how I see it, and tell me if I got it wrong. I have cave diving down. Been doing it along time and am usually completely comfortable in my environment.

I have Deep Diving down. Been doing it for more than a decade. I am completely comfortable in my environment.

I just want to add the two together. I have done 190' Cave Dives on air. I just want the clarity of mind and a little more depth. Hehe

 

[Superlyte27]

Unless you had a change of heart... Two things. 1. I'll probably still look at getting a HE computer. I was already considering the Nitek. and 2. While the Tri-mix class wouldn't keep me from doing a deep dive I had a chance to be on, I will break down and take the class when money permits.

Thanks for the advice guys.

 

[Cave Diver]

---

---

A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Moved to Technical Diving Specialties

---

 

[waterpirate]

I dive tables backed up with a nitek duo and bottom timer. My buddies all dive Cochrans and back up with tables in there pocket. The only complaint I have heard is that with monitoring their accumilating deco on the cochran there comes a time when the next tissue compartment fully loads and they talk about wanting that last minute of bottom time back as there deco time to surface just jumped signifacantly.
I will be diving triox this year exclusively to add another layer of safety to my dives.
Eric

 

[LiteHedded]

I cut tables and run my profiles, but because I dive caves that don't have square profiles, and because I dive caves and passages that sometimes don't have known depths, it's not always a practical thing. I still cut tables for the unknowns and simply limit myself to a specified max depth and time, but if the passage doesn't go that deep or that long, then I don't feel like doing longer deco than I need to. While I can also run deco profiles on the fly, I like the back up of a dive computer to let me know I wasn't too narced while trying to plan a decompression schedule. And I don't always have a buddy around to verify what I just did.

All that being said, I dive the Nitek He. Unfortunately, it's not made anymore. You can occasionally find one being sold used. The last 2 I bought were in the $350 range (my wife and I each have 2). If you want to go new, I recommend the Shearwater Predator. And I know where you can get one for a good deal. The nice thing about the Predator is you can get one with a Fischer connector for future use with a rebreather.

As for the qualifying certs, unless you find a guide that is also a commercial diver (don't know if any of the guides are), you will not likely get by on your commercial cert. Most of us are unfamiliar with what that course entails, but we are familiar with what the recreational agency courses entail. And when it comes down to it, that's what it's all about. You can argue it and bring all your coursework with you, but as a guide, why bother when you can just take someone who has a plastic card that says they have completed the standards the guide is familiar with? I don't know what is involved in a commercial trimix course, but I'm willing to bet there are some skills in the recreational courses that you don't cover in the commercial course.

that's why I'm not a ratio deco fan. doing math underwater just seems unnecessarily risky