PADI Wreck Specialty

[grazie42]

Take the class, but IMO, you want to take a cavern/wreck course before you think about penetrating a wreck.

A advanced/technical wreck course or intro to cave/cave would be a good idea before you start doing "serious" penetration.

I managed to survive a few years of penetrating wrecks without training, knowing what I know now, I´d say it was just dumb luck.

YMMV

 

[Hal]

Thanks. I wasn't viewing this as the only step to start penetration diving but a first step. What wasn't clear to me was whether this was a useful first step. Sounds like, assuming instructor is good, it will be.

Hal

 

[DBailey]

I took the wreck class two summers ago with a very experienced and knowledgeable instructor. I will agree that the instructor (like with every class) is the important feature. In addition to the wreck dives, we spent a lot of time on tying line (without silting) and general bouyancy with some overhead (under training platforms) to exmaine our kicks and silting.

PADI's wreck class is a good gerenal introduction to wreck diving. If you like spending time around wreck, then I think it is a very worthwhile course. I like to be armed with more information than I will actually need. I am not into wreck penetration, but you will learn the basics of it in the PADI course.

To sum it up, I think PADI's wreck class is great for those cabin cruisers and school buses sunk in various quarries. It is good for many of the easy wrecks that have been "made safe" for divers. Anything more advanced than these types of wreck, I feel that one needs to find additional training.

 

[Hal]

Thanks.

 

[super opus]

im taking the class my self this may from all ive looked in to most places i need a basic befor i can do Advanced Wreck Diving ii just love being around wrecks i ve done some in the door but nother past that i just want to keep going so i got the bug haha

 

[Lake Mead Tony]

I would go for you deep diver card first, if you don't already have it. Most wrecks are deeper than 60ft and I would hate to see you miss out on a great wreck because of the depth.

 

[hlsooner]

I recently did the PADI Wreck course. Overall, it was a very good course that introduced many aspects of wreck diving in a controlled fashion. A summary of the dives:

Dive 1 - look over a wreck and practice looking for entry/exit points and hazards.
Dive 2 - survey a wreck and draw a sketch on a slate marking entry/exit points.
Dive 3 - dive a wreck and practice using the reel around the outside of the wreck.
Dive 4 - dive the wreck I sketched in Dive 2 and penetrate 50-70 feet using the reel.

On the penetration dive, we purposely kicked up a large amount of silt during the deeper part of the penetration to practice low viz silt out procedures.

Do I feel qualified to go salvaging artifacts from deep inside wrecks, hell no. But it was a good introduction to what is involved in more serious wreck diving and only makes me want to get more advanced training to further my skills.

 

[pir8]

When teaching the class I make sure to emphasize that it is only an introductory course. I am not going to make you JOE WRECK DIVER in 4 dives and some classroom sessions. The class is designed to get you started and try to introduce you to safety concerns involved with wreck diving. Remember that you learn to dive by diving. Nothing beats experience, but this class will give you a starting point to build on.

 

[Hal]

Thanks for all the thoughts. Just back from St. Thomas where I did the class. Since I had done dive 1 during AOW class, had 3 to do. I found it to be marginally useful. I thought it helpful to learn about how to use a reel and get some practice doing it on on dives 2 and 3. We did nothing like intentionally kicking up silt. Would have been a good idea.

In sum, was a decent introduction to wreck diving. I look forward to the next step towards real penetration diving. Question is, what is the next step? A cave/cavern class? PADI rec. tec?


Tony, not sure I understand the benefit of a deep dive class. I'd guess that about 1/2 - 1/3 of my dives have been 'deep' - below 60 ft. Quite a few below 100. Since the AOW (perhaps even OW) allows for diving to rec. reational limit of 130, why is there any need for another PADI class? Are there places that won't allow divers to go out without the deep diver class?

Hal

 

[capt_mark]

Just keep racking up some dives. The more experience you get the better a diver you'll be. Reading books and internet sites can be helpful, but there is at least as much bad info out there as there is good. Regardless, keep in mind wreck diving involves an overhead environment full of entanglement & disorientation hazards. Progress slowly, the best way to get better at wreck diving is to survive to dive again another day.