Recommendations for AOW electives

[*Floater*]

Ok- how would you plan your dive to 45m? What would be your bottom time - would you need deco?
How much gas would you need for the dive? Would you have enough gas to get you or your buddy to the surface safely? If your computer fails could you manage a safe ascent without it? How good is your reg? Is your bouyancy good enough such that you could hold your safety stop(s) - would you be able to see well at depth?


Since you most likely will be narced to some degree, can you be confident that you could handle 1 or more problems at depth? Could you rescue your buddy? Could you rescue yourself for that matter if you lose bouyancy control?

BTW these are some issues - instructors can think of many more scenarios. To do that sort of dive requires a lot more training and your fundamental diving skills need to be second nature.

Yes some people have dived to those depths and managed - others haven't and died.
All I am suggesting is that you need to seek an experienced instructor to get more informed on what it takes to do that sort of dive safely. I could do a 45 metre dive quite easily but I might not survive to tell the tale.

All good questions and you demonstrate the point well about greater risks at 45m. In my case, I would have relied on the dive instructor to plan the dive and set up the amount of air correctly in the tanks for the appropriate dive length. My own training is limited to using the dive tables, which would be useless since they suggest ~0 minutes at 45m. Based on my discussions with some of the dive masters there I expected the bottom time to be about 15 minutes.

Not sure about the narcosis effect and how it would have impacted my abilities since I've never been below 30m. But if one plans dive below 30m, then there has to be a first time.

As for rescue skills, I just know what I learned from OW and AOW courses, which is to say air sharing, emergency ascent techniques (following the small bubble to judge the right ascent rate, using body position to slow ascent speed if vest has been inflated or weights dropped for an emergency ascent), removing buddy's weight belt if need be, clearing mask, and removing/putting on equipment at depth and so forth.

If I need a different set of emergency skills for 45m, then I would not be prepared and should take the deep diver specialty course. I'm just afraid the course will be another few chapters from a book and a bunch of dives for $40 each, which would otherwise have cost me $17. On the otherhand, if the course if full of useful information and training, then I would be happy to pay for it.

To people here who took the 40m specialty course, how much did it cost you per course dive? Would $40 per dive be considered a reasonable price (for the required 4 dives)? Did you learn a lot, or was it just another way for the dive agencies to cash in?

 

[detroit diver]

And I request that you stop calling my form of diving a religion.

.........

I have no qualms about you diving the way you do, you're probably a very safe diver, what I do request is that you stop your bashing of equipment that doesn't conform to your religion's template*.

Tachyon

(*My apologies if you're not a DIR Disciple(tm), but your choice of people to quote tends to point in that direction)

 

[StSomewhere]

All good questions and you demonstrate the point well about greater risks at 45m. In my case, I would have relied on the dive instructor to plan the dive and set up the amount of air correctly in the tanks for the appropriate dive length. My own training is limited to using the dive tables, which would be useless since they suggest ~0 minutes at 45m. Based on my discussions with some of the dive masters there I expected the bottom time to be about 15 minutes.

NEVER rely on someone else to manage your dive plan. If your air tables show 0 minutes at 45m, that's your first clue that you are going beyond the NDL. Work with a real tech instructor (not PADI, more like IANTD or TDI), they'll be able to explain the progression to tech diving and what it entails.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I've never had a dive computer fail on me.

I have ... twice.

The first time the computer continued the dive ... even while I was putting my dive gear in the car and driving back to the dive shop to ask them what the heck was wrong with the computer.

The second time I was on a dive in a rather shallow dive park (max depth about 40 fsw), and my computer was telling me I was at 161 fsw. Needless to say, I decided to ignore what it was telling me.

All good questions and you demonstrate the point well about greater risks at 45m. In my case, I would have relied on the dive instructor to plan the dive and set up the amount of air correctly in the tanks for the appropriate dive length.

That statement alone tells me you're not ready to do a deep dive ... even with an instructor. No certified diver, at any level, should go on a dive without knowing in advance they have adequate gas to complete the dive plan.

In my AOW, I provide my students with a dive plan for their deep dive, and they are responsible for telling me how much air (or nitrox) they'll need for that dive. They are also responsible for following the plan once we're in the water. In AOW, your instructor is not there to plan your dive and lead you around, he or she is there to assure that you have assimilated adequate knowledge to do your own planning and execute the dive according to your dive plan.

If you haven't yet managed a working understanding of air management, you have no business being that deep ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DrDuktayp]

I agree with Bob, you should ALWAYS actively participate in the dive plan and if you are the type to just leave it to some else you should not be in the water. I even make my diving kids participate in the preparation for the dives we do together. As certified divers they should be responsible too... after all who knows they could be pulling my tush out of the water!

One thought on night dives that most folks dont think about is that it is more than just seeing what is out there at night, but a great way to learn to dive in limited visability.

Since you want to go to 45m maybe you should also think about a NAUI intro to tech course.

Susan
(oops just saw that I was logged in as my hubby.. )

 

[*Floater*]

That statement alone tells me you're not ready to do a deep dive ... even with an instructor. No certified diver, at any level, should go on a dive without knowing in advance they have adequate gas to complete the dive plan.

In my AOW, I provide my students with a dive plan for their deep dive, and they are responsible for telling me how much air (or nitrox) they'll need for that dive. They are also responsible for following the plan once we're in the water. In AOW, your instructor is not there to plan your dive and lead you around, he or she is there to assure that you have assimilated adequate knowledge to do your own planning and execute the dive according to your dive plan.

If you haven't yet managed a working understanding of air management, you have no business being that deep ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Fair enough though detailed dive planning and air management was unfortunately not covered in my AOW course. The dive resorts I've visited generally use the rule of thumb of 3 dives a day, separated by 2-3 hours each, with tanks filled up to about 190-230 bar, and ascents start when someone reaches 50 bar. Of course, this is after doing some dives with said resorts, so they know the rate at which members of the dive group use up air and probably fill the tanks accordingly to time the dives; their planned times generally coincide with the time it takes for the first diver to run low on air.

I could of course plan my dives using the SSI dive tables, and I always fill in my log book using those tables, but I routinely exceed the limits on them for repetitive dives following the dive master's or instructor's dive plan. If I adhered to the SSI tables strictly, then I would in fact just choose to do one dive a day. For example, about a week ago I did a dive to 21m with 40 min BT and a 3 min safety stop at 5m. 3 hours later I completed another similar dive. According to the SSI tables the second dive should only have been half as long, but the dive master seemed comfortable with a full 40 min dive. Had I planned according to the tables, I would have decided against doing the second dive, as a 20 min long second dive would not have been worth it for me. I guess I assumed it was okay to exceed the SSI table limits since I assumed the dive masters knew what they were doing, but perhaps people on this board will disagree.

Going back to the question of the 40m dive, if I took PADI's deep diver specialty course would I then be ready for it? Would I be ready if I did X more regular dives? Should I just forget about going below 30m as I may never gain the necessary skills from these courses?

I have no problem taking the specialty or doing more dives if that's what it really takes to be ready. I was just asking this question because I do not feel that my AOW course prepared me to go down to 30m any better than I had been prepared prior to taking it. Indeed, based on my experience, I feel that someone who just has the OW certificate, but has done 100 dives is probably more prepared to go down to 30m than someone that has completed the AOW, but has only done 10 dives, all else equal of course.

 

[MEL-DC Diver]

Floater,
Be patient, learn what you need to learn, practice, repeat. Deep will take you to 40m. Get an instructor that will have you do your dives in the 30-40m range. Pass the class, practice, then prepare to learn again. Tec territory should not be taken lightly. There is no sense in a mad rush to 45m. Hit the dive site when you have the skills to do so. The site isn't going anywhere, but if you rush it *Floater* might not be just your username..

 

[StSomewhere]

*Floater*, you may or may not have been OK based on whether you were diving square profiles or multilevel profiles. Was that 21m for the whole 40 minutes? If not what was the profile like?

Let me preface this by saying I'm not familiar with how liberal or conservative the SSI tables are compared to the PADI RDP. IIRC -- and someone check me on this -- to get multilevel credit on the PADI Wheel from a 21m (70') dive you'd have to do the second part of the profile at 15m (50') or less, and to get multilevel credit from 15m (50') you'd have to do the second part at 12m (40') or less. I don't know whether the SSI tables even allow for multilevel dive profiles?

You don't necessarily need to take the PADI multilevel class to understand the Wheel and how to plan multilevel dives (whatever you do don't buy the video!). In fact, the book for the specialty class is a little long in the tooth and can actually be hard to come by. But depending on what you wanted to cover in your AOW, if it helps you to really understand how computers give you extra time then it might be worth it to you. See if your instructor wouldn't loan you his Wheel for the class (its required for PADI DMs and instructors so they'll have one laying around), then laminate a copy of Charlie99's Flat Wheel after you understand how it works.

IMO, whatever you do take a good nitrox class (not part of the AOW) if you are going do repetitive dives like 21m for 40 minutes.

 

[*Floater*]

Floater,
Be patient, learn what you need to learn, practice, repeat. Deep will take you to 40m. Get an instructor that will have you do your dives in the 30-40m range. Pass the class, practice, then prepare to learn again. Tec territory should not be taken lightly. There is no sense in a mad rush to 45m. Hit the dive site when you have the skills to do so. The site isn't going anywhere, but if you rush it *Floater* might not be just your username..

Admittedly I have been somewhat eager because my parents currently live in the Philippines, so I'm able to combine my visits home with excellent scuba diving. However, they won't live there forever, maybe a year or two more, so I'm trying to explore the Philippino dive sites as much as possible right now, and the deeper I go the bigger the sealife there seems to get, thus I'd like to gain access to the 40m dive sites as well. But your advice is sound of course in the big picture, and I'll stick to the 30m sites for now. If the opportunity presents itself, then I'll go below, but I won't push it.

 

[ScubaBabe22]

Admittedly I have been somewhat eager because my parents currently live in the Philippines, so I'm able to combine my visits home with excellent scuba diving. However, they won't live there forever, maybe a year or two more, so I'm trying to explore the Philippino dive sites as much as possible right now, and the deeper I go the bigger the sealife there seems to get, thus I'd like to gain access to the 40m dive sites as well. But your advice is sound of course in the big picture, and I'll stick to the 30m sites for now. If the opportunity presents itself, then I'll go below, but I won't push it.

Have you considered Fish ID? I loved mine...saw some HUGE (2ft diam) crabs and such, but no scorpion fish (turns out, there wasn't one there)