Realistic tec diving goals for a non-professional diver

[ccrprospect]

I am writing to see if anyone on board here has been in a similar place or, as an instructor, can shed some light using their experience and what they saw from their students/customers.

Specifically, I dive for about one weekend every month with the occasional longer trip/course every now and then. In a given year, I likely average around 50 dives. I have taken a few tec courses already, but still have significant ambitions for my training (think CCR cave). I train with the best and to a very high standard as I don’t like to short change myself in training. I don’t care much for the c-card itself, but more about the development of my skills as a diver.

I have a full-time demanding career (it pays for my diving!) and in view of current commitments, the 50 dives per year is the limit to how much diving I can realistically accomplish. Given the high standards I train to and the fact that I am not often in the water (at least relative to a full-time dive industry professional), this often makes my courses quite a challenge to complete.

I am interested to hear from folks on here as to what their experiences have been as to how much one can accomplish as a tec diver if you are not a dive industry professional. Again, diver and instructor perspectives are both welcome.

 

[Jackie Treehorn]

I was in a similar situation as you a while ago. I eventually went beyond in my level of training (tdi trimix) of what I regularly chose to dive. I then felt like my goals were no longer student oriented and became more diver oriented.

I then took my knowledge and started focusing on experiences and experience.

I'll never not be a student, but I'm much more of a diver now.

 

[rjack321]

50 dives a year is not a lot, but it is also not trivial. (I currently do about 45 to 65 dives a year, some only 45mins long, some 3 or 4 hours). How long do you think is reasonable to reach your goal dives? 50 dives a year for the next ten years is 500 dives, you can accomplish a lot in 500 dives.

Regarding CCR cave in particular, what cave dives are you doing now that are marginal on open circuit? Why do you need a rebreather?

 

[lermontov]

any sport needs dedication to excel at - diving is no different and also involves significant $- some find learning the skills easier than other people and if your wired for it the maths and dive planning is not that hard - what you cant short change is time in the water - 50 dives per year is ok but what counts is the make up of those 50 dives. 50 reef dives tropical waters in 3mm wetty is no comparison to even 10 cold dark dry suit dives in difficult waters if you get my drift.

next add the mental fortitude of doing difficult or demanding dives - I see many divers who are very competent in their skill but simply dont dive more difficult dives regularly enough to get comfortable and seem to plateau in their development - which is fine if thats where they are happy at, but I sense thats not you. The balance (for all of us 'type A's ) is to push while staying safe

 

[KenGordon]

I am writing to see if anyone on board here has been in a similar place or, as an instructor, can shed some light using their experience and what they saw from their students/customers.

Specifically, I dive for about one weekend every month with the occasional longer trip/course every now and then. In a given year, I likely average around 50 dives. I have taken a few tec courses already, but still have significant ambitions for my training (think CCR cave). I train with the best and to a very high standard as I don’t like to short change myself in training. I don’t care much for the c-card itself, but more about the development of my skills as a diver.

I have a full-time demanding career (it pays for my diving!) and in view of current commitments, the 50 dives per year is the limit to how much diving I can realistically accomplish. Given the high standards I train to and the fact that I am not often in the water (at least relative to a full-time dive industry professional), this often makes my courses quite a challenge to complete.

I am interested to hear from folks on here as to what their experiences have been as to how much one can accomplish as a tec diver if you are not a dive industry professional. Again, diver and instructor perspectives are both welcome.

It is tricky keeping up skills and processes when not diving constantly. This has been very obvious to me in the past year. Even in a good year my chances of getting more than a handful of dives deeper than 60m is very low. What I do is keep that in mind and try very hard to warm up before trips or deeper dives.

As a club member I do a lot of dives where I am teaching brand new divers or looking after quite new divers. This means I do get in the water but the scenario is quite different to tech dives, but at least I know my drysuit works etc etc. A danger is assuming that means I will be perfect bailing out on CCR at 80m owning an hour of deco.

That you are asking the question means you are probably ok.

On this board you get the impression of lots of people doing lots of exciting stuff. Remember it is the Internet

 

[Celt]

The way to get experience is to vary the conditions you dive in. The more demanding the conditions the more you learn. Also you’re the same person on land as in the water so find a sport like hillwalking cross country running that lends itself to improving your fitness to dive.

 

[jale]

Hi
As said already, a lot of full time diving pro got a lot of time uw but it is often a repetition of the same experience.
if I may say, I would stop "the training part" and just use that time to get more different kind of diving.
Having different experiences is more important than number of dives.
And then eventually, commitments, goal, training, all would click.

 

[ginti]

I am going to be in a situation very similar to yours. However, I have an advantage: I will move to another city, and I have a bit of choice here. I am thinking this way:
- I'll try to choose a city close enough to diving sites; right now I am thinking about Geneve (Switzerland, on the lake, it's my top choice), Brussels (between 1 and 2 hours from diving sites, but I still need to double-check whether these sites are enough for me), and maybe Paris or Lyon
- my goal is to maintain 50 non-training dives per year, as evenly distributed during the year as possible (ideally, one per week; realistically, one every two weeks + some short trips); I do not like to stay one entire month without diving, I feel too rusted after so much time to dive at my level
- long trips are only for training, once or twice a year, depending on job conditions

The thing that would scare me most if I were you is the "dive only one per month" part.

I dive for about one weekend every month with the occasional longer trip/course every now and then.

I do not think it's enough. If you want to maintain significant skills (e.g. OC ascent for tech diving, various procedures in case of cave diving) - you need to be a little bit constant in my opinion. But I might be wrong...

 

[UCFKnightDiver]

I'm not sure what being an instructor has to do with tech diving. Most instructors are teaching open water type classes that aren't really equivalent. Just enjoy the dives is my recommendation and progress if you're gear or training is limiting the dives you want to do. 50 dives per year seems like enough to stay proficient if a good number of them are tec dives

 

[VikingDives]

I am writing to see if anyone on board here has been in a similar place or, as an instructor, can shed some light using their experience and what they saw from their students/customers.

Specifically, I dive for about one weekend every month with the occasional longer trip/course every now and then. In a given year, I likely average around 50 dives. I have taken a few tec courses already, but still have significant ambitions for my training (think CCR cave). I train with the best and to a very high standard as I don’t like to short change myself in training. I don’t care much for the c-card itself, but more about the development of my skills as a diver.

I have a full-time demanding career (it pays for my diving!) and in view of current commitments, the 50 dives per year is the limit to how much diving I can realistically accomplish. Given the high standards I train to and the fact that I am not often in the water (at least relative to a full-time dive industry professional), this often makes my courses quite a challenge to complete.

I am interested to hear from folks on here as to what their experiences have been as to how much one can accomplish as a tec diver if you are not a dive industry professional. Again, diver and instructor perspectives are both welcome.

If you can work as a part-time DM, it might give you some (free) local pool time. I spent a lot of time as a DM just watching classes and practicing skills. I could watch a class of OW students and work on my helicopter kick, or back kick while they were doing their thing.