Recreational diving versus Technical? diving

[lamont]

How often did you really experience a buddy or a nearby diver unexpectedly started to panic and you had to hand over an alternate air supply? And how often did you manage/try to calm him down within the first one or two minutes??? Over the last almost 20 years I've experienced this a number of times...

so far I've not been overly impressed with OOAs involving an octo:

http://www.northwestdiver.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6607

 

[Nemrod]

If you were to forget about all the tech vs rec. stuff and just consider it scuba diving and then just consider that you would pick/select the proper gear for each dive as needed and as is suitable for that dive then all of these fake demarcations cease to exist. Of course, they (they being whatever baloney alphabet organization you wish to consider) would have to go back to providing actual "scuba diver" instruction instead of breaking it up into boutique courses, the sum total of which are less than the whole. N

 

[Diver0001]

Indeed, it doesn't!!! Glad you do understand my reasoning...
Indeed, I was referring to the fact that this single example of Lamont, of a careless diver who didn't check his reg after being "hit", is no argument pro (nor con) the LH...

I would agree with that. There are other reasons to consider it but that's not a really good one. It is, however, a good reason to keep your octopus clipped off correctly.

Actually... in most cases it did happen in the Oosterschelde... being "overrun" by countrymen of yours... grin... since in a number of cases I did remember their outfit and when coming back at the car I noticed these folks standing next to their car talking with a weird accent and funny coloured license plates on their cars... :14:

I know what you mean. It makes me wonder sometimes what, if anything, is going through their mind.... it's like they dive with their eyes closed or something.

I have to agree with you about the accent thing. The Flemish accent is much sweeter to listen to than the Dutch accent and it makes Belgian women sooo sexy :blinking: . In my mind it's even sexier than a sultry French accent

Unfortunately it makes Belgian men sound like Belgian women but that's another story.... LOL (just kidding).

R..

 

[Luc Dupas]

so far I've not been overly impressed with OOAs involving an octo:

Are you referring to the equipment or to the (lack of) divers skills ? One can own a great Lexus SUV and still be an awfully lousy driver, while your neighbour with a 20 years old small Lada maybe is a superb driver... but I indeed can imagine that the Lexus driver is not overly impressed by the Lada... :14:

 

[Luc Dupas]

It is, however, a good reason to keep your octopus clipped off correctly.

YEP!!! Unfortunately I do see a lot of people with a dangling octo swimming around... dragging it over the bottom... collecting sand... and I'm quite sure they even never ever did try to breath from their own octo underwater to check if it works properly or not...

 

[verybaddiver]

Thanks for some of the responses, especially Rick, which i thought was well thought out and has some intriguing ideas.

The question was very weighted and i knew this when i posted it, i have just completed GUE DIR-F training and know alot of the view points of DIR. I simply didn't want the same view points expressed by GUE trained divers, but this post did seem to turn into a discusion between the two views. Whether you use a long hose or a short hose is a totally mute point and really avoided the original question. I was just hoping to find out view points of people who weren't [tec] trained or who didn't have input from [tec] agencies (eg. GUE). I was hoping to see if people had many different ideas between the two different terms. I am currently in the view that GUE is the right way of thinking about diver progression. But without taking the course i think divers could misinterpret the step up from [rec], ie mimimum deco, no artificial/real overheads.

 

[mirrocraft]

everyone has very good view points on this topic and i want to thank everyone for there postings very interesting read. as many have said moving to tech diving from rec.diving is harder for some and easy for others. its very expencive and alot more gear but once you learn it its just like rec. diving you have to covers all the basics and to go in to tech from rec. you have to master the rec. basics because if you dont have them down youll never get the more advanced ones down

 

[victor]

As someone who is thinking of moving to Trimix this has been a very interesting thread.
The strength of feeling some people feel over 3ft of low preasure hose can be surprising.

Hopefully I can find a teacher who is into teaching real solutions to problems, not just repeating dogma. If not then I will just to keep looking.

There is not a one stop solution to all problems when diving, different situations require different solutions.

Why do I want to dive trimix; well some of the wrecks I want to dive are to deep for a realistic bottom time on air and I don't want to fight being narced for most of my dive time on the wreck.

 

[ianr33]

Why do I want to dive trimix; well some of the wrecks I want to dive are to deep for a realistic bottom time on air

That makes no sense to me. How does trimix increase your bottom time? Deco requirements with trimix are not very different than those for air.

 

[victor]

That makes no sense to me. How does trimix increase your bottom time? Deco requirements with trimix are not very different than those for air.

I did not explain myself very well.
As I want to have an extended time on the wrecks at depths between 150 to 200 ft. I believe it would be best to dive trimix for the following reasons

I will be taught to use mixed gasses including O2 of > 50% thus reducing deco stops and increasing safety
The use of helium means I will not be as narced when I am at depth
Reduced O2 at depth will reduce the chance of Oxygen toxiciy

While I could do a bounce dive on air to 160 / 180 ft I would have a very limited bottom time on a 1 tank air dive.
I could use twins and sling an 80 all with air and risk being narced at depth, use my old deco tables to guestimate my deco stops and just wing it. :shakehead

Instead I will be trained to dive doubles, use mixed gases, learn how to plan my gas consumption, learn which gasses are suitable at what depths.
Or I won't do the dives.