question for mid atlantic wreck divers

[mccaigk1]

Hey there,

Being a new diver completely bitten by my new hobbie, a message board such as this has stoked the fire to dive wrecks sometime in the future. By this i mean above my current skill level ( advanced naui diver with 11 dives under my belt, want to get nitrox certified soon) Was wondering how many years/ dives after you first took up this hobbie did u think it was reasonable to get the training/ backplate dual tank setup and go over the no deco limits. Im doing a very shallow wreck dive off deleware at the end of this month but i understand most of the dives in this area are too deep to be realistic.

as always, thanks

-Kevin

 

[ChrisA]

Hey there,

... how many years/ dives after you first took up this hobbie did u think it was reasonable to get the training/ backplate dual tank setup and go over the no deco limits. ....

-Kevin

I'm kind of thinking like you are. I may want to learn decompression diving to extend my bottom time of some wrecks. I have no interrest in going much deeper then the 130 rec. limit but the very short NDL times at 110 to 130 are frustrating. I might look into geting into this kid of training in about a year. By then I should have about 250+ dives logged

I think the route to take is to dive a lot and at the same time take "baby steps" into more and more challenging conditions within the scope of rec. dving. Eventually you will become comfortable in say two foot viz at night in cold water. Eventually you will find that _you_ are more experianced than many of the divers you dive with. Also I'd exaust the relevent PADI/NAUI classes (rescue diver, wreck, deep, drysuit....) before thinking about pushing past the rec limits.

I don't think you can state how many dives you need to gain the required experiance. But at some point you may become one of the more educated and experianced rec. divers and there are some dives you want to make that are outsie your limits. I'd say wait untill that happens

The other question to ask yourself is "how frequently do you dive?" For example I might want to get trained in cave diving but I won't. The reason is that there are no caves in So Cal. I could only dive in one if I traveled and in my opinion once a year is not enough to keep my skills up. So think through that part of it too. The more complex the dive the more frequently you will need to do it

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Was wondering how many years/ dives after you first took up this hobbie did u think it was reasonable to get the training/ backplate dual tank setup and go over the no deco limits. Im doing a very shallow wreck dive off deleware at the end of this month but i understand most of the dives in this area are too deep to be realistic.

Adopt a patient attitude. The wrecks aren't going anywhere. Give yourself at least one year, or one diving 'season', to develop some fundamental experience doing shallow dives. But do them right - plan them, track your gas consumption, get your bouyancy and trim spot on, practice emergency response skills, take a Rescue course together with the First Aid/CPR/Defibrillator sections, and dive frequently: at least two or three dives per month.

Responding successfully to underwater "issues" is 95% mental - that is, keeping your calm and thinking your way through the problem. The other 5% is having the items with you (including team members) that are needed to execute a successful response. Experienced divers have already discussed their response plans with their buddy/teams and have run over them numerous times in pre-dive discussions, so when something goes counter to the plan their first response isn't "holy crap, what should I do now?" Its more a matter of putting into practice the response options you'd already pre-planned and rehearsed. It doesn't always go that smoothly, of course, but you get the idea.

So...how soon should you expect to be ready for more challenging dives? When you can plan them and execute them efficiently and effectively. Give yourself a full season to begin putting things together, get some training, and work at it diligently. It may take significantly longer. You'll get there when you get there...it isn't a race.

Dive safe,

Doc

 

[Flodiver]

I think the route to take is to dive a lot and at the same time take "baby steps" into more and more challenging conditions within the scope of rec. dving. Eventually you will become comfortable in say two foot viz at night in cold water. Eventually you will find that _you_ are more experianced than many of the divers you dive with. Also I'd exaust the relevent PADI/NAUI classes (rescue diver, wreck, deep, drysuit....) before thinking about pushing past the rec limits.

I don't think you can state how many dives you need to gain the required experiance. But at some point you may become one of the more educated and experianced rec. divers and there are some dives you want to make that are outsie your limits. I'd say wait untill that happens

I agree with what ChrisA said above. I think you just "know" when you are ready to take that next step. Work your way to it and don't rush - a combination of dives and training will get you to that point