TDI VS PADI as a path to 130 feet plus.

[dab]

What wrecks are you diving?

Off the top of my head some of the more recent deeper ones would be the Florida, Windiate, Barney, Kyle Spangler, Audobon (spelling?), and Typo in Huron, the Vienna in Superior and palnning a Isle Royale trip this summer.

 

[Laser]

We frequently dive Great Lakes wrecks between 150' and 175' on air. We don't make bad decisions, have the proper training for what we do, never feel "awful" after a dive and are able to see some of the most spectacular shipwrecks in the world. I will admit our memory afterward would be a little sharper on trimix, but experience makes a difference with your ability to deal with narcosis. Below 180' we would use trimix, but that adds a whloe different dimension to your dive.

Ya right.

Pm me.

 

[Laser]

Off the top of my head some of the more recent deeper ones would be the Florida, Windiate, Barney, Kyle Spangler, Audobon (spelling?), and Typo in Huron, the Vienna in Superior and palnning a Isle Royale trip this summer.

And their depths would be??

 

[dab]

And their depths would be??

It make no difference weather or not you believe me. I know where the bottom is on the deeper wrecks, and I never said we touched it. In fact we never went below deck level on the Florida or Windiate, with 175' being the max depth. We dive regularly with our instructor who's boat is "Steele's Legacy". If you have any credibility then you will recognize the boat.

 

[akscubainst]

If you've only taken ADV and Nitrox you need to probably take the Rescue course along with an O2 provider course of some sort. You might even want to go ahead with Divemaster before Tech.

Then,
If you are interested in Technical Diving; go talk to local people in your area. Interview some instructors and find one that you are compatible with. Sitting around comparing PADI vs. TDI vs. Naui vs GUE vs IANTD won't get you anywhere. A good instructor can take any outline and make a good class out of it. Find an instructor who has done and is doing the dives. Then look into an Advanced Nitrox class and take it from there. Do you dive a Drysuit? You'll need one and you'd better be very comfortible in it and with it's use.

There are lots of very good instructors in FL and you aren't that far from NC wreck country. Heck, we've considered flying to NC from Alaska to dive wrecks.

Don't be in a big hurry, 65 dives might feel like alot but when you are talking decompression, mixed gases, double tanks plus deco bottles, drysuits, reels, bags, spare this, spare that, 65 dives ain't nothing.

Most of all are you ready to spend a boatload of cash? cause you're about to. Just gas for a single dive can cost $100 or more.

Typical basic equipment list:
Double Tanks , Manifold, Bands,
2 High Performance Regs,
BP/W
Can Light
Argon Bottle an Reg
Deco Bottles and a reg for each one. plus rigging
Drysuit
Reel
Spool
Lift bags
SMB
etc. etc. so on and so forth, the list is endless. You can spend $10,000 without blinking an eye.

It all sounds really romantic but in reality, it's alot of hard work and very expensive not to mention cold, dark, and easy to screw up and get yourself killed.

Dave

 

[H2Andy]

If you've only taken ADV and Nitrox you need to probably take the Rescue course along with an O2 provider course of some sort.

hey, there's an idea. Rescue would be a great class for you to round out your
basic skills.

also, how about Advanced Nitrox? that could get you introduced to deco diving,
sort of ease your way into it.

 

[Quetzal]

If you've only taken ADV and Nitrox you need to probably take the Rescue course along with an O2 provider course of some sort. You might even want to go ahead with Divemaster before Tech.

Then,
If you are interested in Technical Diving; go talk to local people in your area. Interview some instructors and find one that you are compatible with. Sitting around comparing PADI vs. TDI vs. Naui vs GUE vs IANTD won't get you anywhere. A good instructor can take any outline and make a good class out of it. Find an instructor who has done and is doing the dives. Then look into an Advanced Nitrox class and take it from there. Do you dive a Drysuit? You'll need one and you'd better be very comfortible in it and with it's use.

There are lots of very good instructors in FL and you aren't that far from NC wreck country. Heck, we've considered flying to NC from Alaska to dive wrecks.

Don't be in a big hurry, 65 dives might feel like alot but when you are talking decompression, mixed gases, double tanks plus deco bottles, drysuits, reels, bags, spare this, spare that, 65 dives ain't nothing.

Most of all are you ready to spend a boatload of cash? cause you're about to. Just gas for a single dive can cost $100 or more.

Typical basic equipment list:
Double Tanks , Manifold, Bands,
2 High Performance Regs,
BP/W
Can Light
Argon Bottle an Reg
Deco Bottles and a reg for each one. plus rigging
Drysuit
Reel
Spool
Lift bags
SMB
etc. etc. so on and so forth, the list is endless. You can spend $10,000 without blinking an eye.

It all sounds really romantic but in reality, it's alot of hard work and very expensive not to mention cold, dark, and easy to screw up and get yourself killed.

Dave

Thanks for your suggestions.
Allen

 

[mania]

Allen
As it was written before - I would advise rescue first and then advance nitrox. I'm planning to do the last one with IANTD and honestly - not complaining a bit. But it first of all depends on the instructor. I can understand your goals but I started having them when I crossed magic 100 dives. Till that moment I was simply trying to get really comfortable uw. I mean really comfortable - although when I had 60 dives I thought I'm which was not true.
what's my point? I think you are setting the goals too early. Take one step in time. Get more dives, do rescue, maybe some overhead ones (wreck or at least cavern), advance nitrox and then start moving to normomix trimix and deep dives.....
Mania

 

[Tavi]

Yes it looks like there is one in Atlanta thats 3 hours from here.
I see by your profile you just finished Tech classes w/NAUI what did you think of them? Did you choose them because you are a NAUI instructor or for other reasons?

I thought the course was excellent. We had 1 whole day of classroom. Then a weekend at the quarry. The first day we did Nitrox with O2 for deco. We demonstrated we could hold our stops, So the next Day was Helitrox for the deeper dive, and then an afternoon dive to do some skills in shallower water. After that we had weekend dives in Lake Erie and the St Lawrence River. AWESOME Wrecks in the River!!
I'm certified to 170' and looking forward to taking Trimix later this year.

I was ready to go the TDI route. The owners at ther shop I work with found a NAUI Tec Instructor that was willing to travel. There were others that wanted the training too. This way we could keep our certs NAUI and eventually some of us could go on to teach it. I'm glad it happened the way it did.

 

[ppo2_diver]

One thing that wasn't really mentioned here is that you can take a DSAT Discover Tec program. It will introduce you to the equipment and the knowledge needed to become a tec diver. Plus, if you have a good instructor, you can try out the equipment in the pool. After that experience, you can then decide if it is right for you. This can save you a lot of time and $$$ in case tec diving isn't your thing. I am currently starting the DSAT Tec Rec Deep diver course. I didn't chose the training agency, I chose the instructor. I waited till I had around 250 logged dives before I started thinking about tec training. I thought long and hard on it for about a year, and 100 more dives later I decided to do it. So get VERY, VERY, VERY comfortable with your skills and the types of diving you do (i.e. overhead environment, etc.)

One thing that akscubainst didn't mention in his equipment list was that there is an extra cost to maintaining O2 clean equipment. I pay $50 just to have my O2 deco tank cleaned a year. Plus I have to add an additional $75 per regulator to get it O2 cleaned on it's annual service. This can also add up your annual expenses. So keep that in mind as well.