Vacation Tech Divers

[Rick Inman]

We’ve all heard the phrase, Vacation Divers, which refers to recreational divers who only dive infrequently while on vacation, usually in warm water tropical destinations. But you usually don’t think of technical divers this way, at least I didn’t, until a couple days ago.

I’m currently on vacation in Florida, and I signed onto a charter to do some technical dives. They were wrecks, one located in 170’ of water, and the other at 200’. The boat was just like any cattle boat you might find, a big pontoon boat that could hold up to 40 divers. There were 12 of us on this boat, a few RBs and the rest OC.

And that is where I met the vacation tech divers (not all the divers on the boat I would classify as vacation tech divers, BTW).

These divers told me they got Trimix certified while on vacation in the Cayman Islands. They only do tech dives while traveling to warm water tropical dive destinations. They mentioned several, including the Caymans, Philippines and Truck.

I got no problem with that. Everyone enjoys different kinds of diving locations.

But the skill set I witnessed were typical recreational diving level. For example:

No gear checks. Put it on, clip it on and jump in. Buoyancy and trim issues. Vertical descents and ascents. Slamming down onto the wreck. Kicking off marine life. Hands all over everything. Little or no communication or buddy awareness.

During deco, I watched these divers holding their stops by staying heavy and then, while vertical, kicking non-stop to maintain depth. I also witnessed two of them, while tasked, make an uncontrolled ascent from 100’ to 30’ without knowing it was happening, and then after getting control at 30’, swim back down and continue the deco as planned.

No long hoses were clipped off during deco, and one guy’s 7’ hose (as he hovered vertically, kicking to maintain depth) hung down behind his back.

After the dives on the boat, there were high fives all around, as if all this was SOP.

Many of these folks travel as a group to do these vacation tech dives together. But they don’t dive at home (or very rarely).

I always knew that there were recreational divers who only dived a few times a year while on vacation, but was surprised to find like-minded tech divers. It’s a mindset I’d never seen by tech divers, but I guess as trimix diving has become more mainstream, it is to be expected.

What say you? Has this been common and I’m just discovering it? Or is this a new type of diver? Any problems with this? (Those who know me already know what I think)

 

[Meng_Tze]

I have not seen/ heard about these. It IS surprising though.

 

[TSandM]

Reading this just makes me shake my head in bafflement. My buddy and I were out yesterday doing a skills dive, and practicing valve drills in midwater, and air-sharing ascents. We were beating on ourselves for exceeding a 3' depth window doing these skills, because that's how we have been taught. We won't even be ACCEPTED for technical training until we can meet those parameters. And I know the NAUI Tech instructor here has the same standards.

Say what one will about GUE, but they take great pains to make sure their tech divers have solid skills. Judgment is something they can't ensure (and some of that undoubtedly comes with time), but solid buoyancy and the ability to remain stable under stress is something they beat into you. And they should, I think.

On the other hand, I can sure understand the motivations of somebody who wants to do their tech class in warm, clear water -- Dsteding and I have talked repeatedly about going down to Grand Cayman for Tech 1

 

[JeffG]

Doesn't surprise me one bit. I've seen similar divers and there are more than one SB "Tech" divers that I would guess are in that category.

 

[texdiveguy]

I am all for tech divers taking a vacation.

 

[piikki]

Guess they took some tech training, and are utilizing 'some' of the tricks (maybe gear too unless they dive that gear recreationally other times) that they heard about during the training to make some deep dives while on vacation... I don't think they quite qualify to be called tech divers....

 

[Diver Dennis]

I've actually seen Vacation Rebreather divers as well. Makes me cringe to think about it but seeing RB divers with very poor buoyancy control, lying on a reef to take photos, I pulled one of them off, and general awkwardness diving was a sight to behold. They too just dive RBs on vacation for a couple weeks a year. Quite arrogant about their equipment as well, they had little time for me when I asked a couple of questions while they were figuring things out.

Not saying they shouldn't dive RBs but geeze, at least have the basic dive skills first...

EDIT: Here in the Philippines we always dive at resorts and you'd be surprised at all the stuff we see.

 

[HowardE]

One other interesting thing to note.

I spoke to the dive operator (since I know them) and was just chatting...

They said how the other divers were "accomplished" and "good divers"

The operators don't usually know if the divers are really - not so good - since they don't always get in the water on these kinds of dives. The diver goes down. They come up - alive - and not bent... they're good divers.

This kind of relates to a topic that John Chatterton and I were talking about a couple of weeks ago, which is "accomplished bad divers"... People with poor skills, who have survived years and years of diving. Maybe even just by dumb luck. They have enough technical knowledge to make them dangerous, but somehow have eluded accident - over and over again. Then they think that they're good divers because they've done the dives and lived...

 

[Diver Dennis]

Blind ignorance is bliss howard?

 

[Rick Inman]

I spoke to the dive operator (since I know them) and was just chatting...

They said how the other divers were "accomplished" and "good divers"

Yeah, I can see that. These guys usually cater to the vacation recreational diver (I was told they sometimes put 40 divers on one boat). You can imagine having to babysit a small percentage of divers on every dive, helping them screw their regs on, replacing bad yoke O rings, helping with weighting, hauling some of their butts back up the ladder, people popping up early without buddies... standard fare on a cattle boat.

With our tech charter, the divers were actually able to gear up and execute their dives in what would seem from the boat deck perspective as "accomplished."
And again, it was only a handful of divers on this charter that fell into the category I'm describing.