What Defines a "Tech" Diver

[tursiops]

How about dropping below 165 (as I had in my post)?

 

[tursiops]

It is no criterion. It is only one of the many ingredients that is possible to mix into / make a tech dive, but depth on its own does not qualify as a tech dive.

Perhaps we need to distinguish between what "is" a tech dive, versus what "should be" a tech dive. I'm sure there is some depth below which you agree it ought to be treated as a tech dive, with associated planning, redundancy, etc.

 

[EFX]

So, it appears that there are many definitions that can describe a technical dive including these:

1. Depth: <130 ft vs. > 130 ft.
2. Environment: open vs. overhead.
3. Gases: air or nitrox vs. trimix or heliox or hydrox.
4. Training: any but not vs. AN/DP, cave, deep wreck penetration, etc.
5. Gas source: OC vs. CCR.
6. Equipment: single vs. redundant.
7. Dive profile: non-deco vs. mandatory deco.

When I tell people I dive caverns (I have a cavern cert) some say "Oh, you're a technical diver." I say, "No. I'm a recreational diver who occasionally does technical dives." Of the seven categories above, I would say that number seven (mandatory deco) by itself is the best defining characteristic of technical diving.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

How about dropping below 165 (as I had in my post)?

still no. Are bounce dives, technical dives? Surely you don't believe they are.

 

[inquis]

Are bounce dives, technical dives?

In my view, yes. Whether you approach/plan/execute it as such is a different question.

An equivalent question: if you go into a cave with a single cylinder and one light, is it a technical/cave dive? Damn straight, but a very poorly executed one.

 

[Robert H. Diver]

 

[EFX]

still no. Are bounce dives, technical dives? Surely you don't believe they are.

I believe that bounce dives below 130 ft can be technical dives only if they result in mandatory deco. However, given the depth limits for recreational diving, some agencies may consider any dive below 130 ft to be a technical dive.

 

[Celt]

Well there are tech type dives and rec dives, very different dives, so yes there are such 'things'.

Well, if your doing recreational dives you are doing recreational dives, you might be a 'tech diver' but you ain't tech diving. Just like someone diving air doubles and doing air deco is not doing a tech dive either, unless in a cave or wreck (but does anyone even do that anymore? Air deco I mean?), nor is a CCR user swimming around in the ocean inside NDL limits / no overhead environment. But go into a cave like Tracy's example above, even if only at 1m / 3ft and you are 'tech diving'.

Not for me , any dive can very quickly change given the right circumstances. If a diver becomes entangled on the bottom of a river is that a rec or tech dive. Like I said there, s no such thing as a tech diver or rec diver, there,s just divers with experience and divers without it. No one can predict when a dive might become a so called tech dive. Very bad idea to assume a dive will just be another so called rec dive.

 

[MichaelMc]

In my view, yes. Whether you approach/plan/execute it as such is a different question.

An equivalent question: if you go into a cave with a single cylinder and one light, is it a technical/cave dive? Damn straight, but a very poorly executed one.

If you add a small back up and reel and stay in the light zone, that is a cavern dive, which is recreational. (10 to 30' deeper for a moment but within NDL with redundant gas vs a few feet into that hole but within cavern dive limits and cert.)

Entanglement and redundancy on gas are solo diver issues, which is a rec cert. General issues are any dive, not tech dive specific.

There is a band between rec and fully/complex tech, if only we had a word for that

 

[Alwayslearning2dive]

The amount of backplates you own, followed by bolt snaps.