Quickest path to deco diving?

[clownfishsydney]

Y

I asked the local PADI shop, and was told "deep diver" was the intro to DECO.

I went home and was researching the course, and found this was incorrect.....

I am never going to do cave diving, but would like to do some of the very deep wreck dives beyond 130 but less than 180.

Yo have done less than 50 dives, need far, far more experience before even thinking of doing over 100 feet.

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

Yo have done less than 50 dives, need far, far more experience before even thinking of doing over 100 feet.

If I recall from memory, you said the same thing about Dave Shaw. Although, his 333 dives may enumerate into 1500 hours of diving if you take into account decompression time.

 

[Blackcrusader]

I asked the local PADI shop, and was told "deep diver" was the intro to DECO.
I went home and was researching the course, and found this was incorrect.....
I am never going to do cave diving, but would like to do some of the very deep wreck dives beyond 130 but less than 180.

Scoobert I am along time diver of 36 years. I did BSAC sports diving course which back in 1986 which was deco on air.
Deco does not mean deep depths. You could do a deco dive on air or on nitrox at 15m depth. The question being is your air consumption good enough. I can easily do a dive to 15m on nitrox 32% for 90 minutes and have plenty of air to complete my deco obligation on a single AL80. I know others who will not make it to the NDL Time of 81 mins required to get past NDL as their gas consumption is a lot more than mine. My advice is to spend more time diving build up experience at depths to 30m then decide if you want to do the course like padi tec 40 or the TDI ANDP.

If you dive with an instructor on a training deep dive they will take you deeper than 30m and possible to 40m but the Padi Deep dives doesn't really teach you much as it's just a deeper dive within NDL.

I suggest the TDI ANDP. You can do the Advanced Nitrox first which certifies you to 40m and do the Deco Procedures later on. Or you can do as a combined course then continue into the additional courses. You will certainly learn a lot more and find out what skills you need to improve on. As others have noted, you really need to get a lot more dives in before going on deep deco dives. Even for me doing deco dives to 35m I was not an experienced diver back then and found on some dives I got quite anxious. No dive computers back then just watch and depth gauge. Long deco stops in open ocean water were not really any fun at all as the wrecks we dove were not close to reefs.

PS Maybe look for the BSAC club in Sydney and go and see how they do things. I found being in a BSAC club was a really good way for me to get continual training. Sydney Sub Aqua Club

Training may be arranged with individual instructors, who are often happy provide training to students at their own pace and at no extra charge beyond the BSAC membership and BSAC training fees..

Become a Certified Technical Diver

TDI is the largest technical certification agency in the world. As one of the first agencies to provide training in mixed gas diving and rebreathers, TDI is seen as an innovator of new diving techniques and programs which previously were not available to the general public.

www.tdisdi.com

 

[Wibble]

The main point is you need to do a slow and steady progression, perfecting your techniques as you progress.

It’s not so much the number of dives as the number of dives that you improved your skills and experience.

If you’re changing something, then don’t change other things. If doing a pinnacle dive for goodness sake don’t change other things.

"I’m diving to 300ft for the first time and using 3 ali80s for the first time and these new thick dry gloves and this new computer…". What do you expect to happen? Don’t expect any sympathy from experienced divers following your near drowning as you were overweighted. Although if you were to do that, learn from the experience.

 

[Tribal]

I can easily do a dive to 15m on nitrox 32% for 90 minutes and have plenty of air to complete my deco obligation on a single AL80.

That’s like 1 minute of deco?

 

[Blackcrusader]

That’s like 1 minute of deco?

A bit more than one minute depending on your GF settings.

Don't want new deco divers surging into long deco obligations lol

 

[lermontov]

Y

Yo have done less than 50 dives, need far, far more experience before even thinking of doing over 100 feet.

• Minimum age 18
• Minimum certification of SDI Advanced Adventure Diver, Advanced Diver, or equivalent
• Proof of 25 logged open water dives

from TDI fro deco course

 

[BlueTrin]

If you're doing any real amount of mix diving, I think the payback is becoming really short. If I was a decade younger, I'd be all over one. As it is now, I am planning to spread a large, floating tarp over the dive sites we use mix on, to trap the bubbles. I just need to figure out how to suck it back into a tank...

then you would need a pocket in the tarp with a scrubber

 

[clownfishsydney]

• Minimum age 18
• Minimum certification of SDI Advanced Adventure Diver, Advanced Diver, or equivalent
• Proof of 25 logged open water dives

from TDI fro deco course

That may be accurate, but it is not what it should be. Far more experience is really needed.

 

[clownfishsydney]

If I recall from memory, you said the same thing about Dave Shaw. Although, his 333 dives may enumerate into 1500 hours of diving if you take into account decompression time.

Yes, Dave Shaw was really an inexperienced diver, almost all his dives were done on courses, very few were done without supervision by someone more experienced. Hours do not count when 75% of the time is doing decompression. That is easy an not a problem.