Skills to practice Wreck/Deep Dives

[tursiops]

Scared to ask what agency certified him for wreck diving.

Doesn't really matter; all the recreational agencies have a Wreck course, mostly composed of swimming around it, looking for hazards, and perhaps some line laying (outside) and following. PADI at least has 4 dives required, with possible (depending on the wreck, the student, and the instructor) small penetration on the fourth dive. Some agencies do not even have a fourth dive. All are minimal courses; none prepare you for real penetration....which is more like a cave dive with many restrictions and sharp, rusty, metal edges around you.

 

[Robert H. Diver]

Scared to ask what agency certified him for wreck diving.

“Wreck diver” is almost a pointless course, but it is a prerequisite for advanced wreck.

 

[boulderjohn]

Scared to ask what agency certified him for wreck diving.

As other have said, recreational wreck diving courses are not exactly a big deal. He has said nothing to merit your pejorative comment.

 

[NothingClever]

Good advice above.

Like @tursiops said above, wrecks have lots of sharp, rusty edges and protrusions of all shapes and sizes. They are also repositories for a lot of sediment. You need your buoyancy control to be bombproof.

Get your finning techniques down. You really want to be able to maneuver precisely inside a wreck. Big, sustained movements from the hip not likely. From the ankle, definitely.

Get your consumption rate down. You should be grumbling about having to surface at the 60 minute mark with charter boats because you still have air to burn before hitting your ascent pressure (50 bar / 500 psi).

Get some real training. Shooting pop cans off the fence post at 50 yards doesn’t make you a sniper. Are you firing a long barreled rifle? Yes. Using a scope? Yes. Using some good ammo? Yes. Despite the similarities to the real thing, neither of those make you a sniper.

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

Practice shutdown drills. Mask removal and swap. How to handle a stage tank and regulator.

 

[Tigerpaw]

For any diving requiring you to explore enclosed spaces that might have silt, you want to have kicking mastered. That includes regular frog kicking, modified frog kicking, modified flutter kicking, helicopter turns, and even back kicking. Working on those will take a lot of practice.

OUTSTANDING!!! I only listed frog kick and back kick. I will add those other kicks to my list!

 

[Tigerpaw]

Buoyancy, trim, fining techniques, redundant air, reel/spool deployment and retrieval, air consumption. Certs are worth about as much as the card they're printed on. Training and practice what you're taught are what matters. Dive more and blow fewer bubbles.

Yes, that is my plan for next year

 

[Tigerpaw]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Gently, comrades. Gently.
A bold but honest question from a second year diver.
The OP may not yet know how brutally honest y'all can be at times.

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Glad you asked, @Tigerpaw !
Every single comment above was valuable info.
Take the hard edge of some comments and know that some folks were brutally honest because this next step has a bit of a jump in risk to it.

You'll get lots of good (and some bad) advice on this forum. Just have a thick skin. And get a second opinion. My 2 cents? Learn the term "Rock Bottom Pressure".

Thank you so much, yes I am going into my 2nd year but I don't mind the honesty, I have thick skin, plus the honesty may save my life or someone else's. I've gotten some good information to add to my list!

 

[Celt]

I think the most important skill with wreck diving is learning to deal with silt not avoiding it. If you're going into wrecks silt is inevitable sooner or later and until you learn to deal with silt you're never going to be comfortable. The way to deal with silt is to make controlled dives in poor vis on guide lines. The more you dive in poor vis the better.

 

[happy-diver]

Here you go chief you got some time, here's an expose on some conflagrational Scubaboard confluence

Video from a Training Dive with John Chatterton

Two buddies and myself recently completed John Chatterton's Advanced Wreck diving course in Florida. As the final dive of that trip we descended to 165' on the wreck of the Hydro Atlantic. We penetrated the wreck in a couple places and ultimately made an ascent with decompression stops. Why is...

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