What do you wish was taught during your tec classes?

[seeker242]

Probably the vast majority of us at one time, before the Shearwater predator made massive inroads on the previously lame wrist computer market about 8-10 years ago.

I was mostly referring to now. Where everyone has a shearwater, sometimes even 2.

 

[jadairiii]

I went from Jr Scuba diver to Trimix, then years later did cave. If some aspiring tech diver came to me now, I'd tell him/her to take Cave 1, regardless if they never, ever wanted to cave dive.

Should be the prerequisite for tech training. (my mix instructor told me that, and I didnt believe him, he was right)

 

[Germie]

I have done 4 dives over 100m depth with just a written plan and no computer. Sometimes I still have students without a trimixcomputer. But you can still do the course of course.

2 computers makes students sometimes also lazy. I know by head for most dives up to 120m depth a plan by head that brings me at least with a big probability safe to surface. That is what people don't learn anymore when only using computers.

 

[beester]

I have done 4 dives over 100m depth with just a written plan and no computer. Sometimes I still have students without a trimixcomputer. But you can still do the course of course.

2 computers makes students sometimes also lazy. I know by head for most dives up to 120m depth a plan by head that brings me at least with a big probability safe to surface. That is what people don't learn anymore when only using computers.

This is very true! If students only practice diving a plan during the course and after always use the computer they don't have an ingrained sense of what deco should look like in a certain depth range, in the end you end up again as a non thinking diver just following his computer (albeight vs 10 years ago this time a good computer ;-) )

 

[Wibble]

I have done 4 dives over 100m depth with just a written plan and no computer. Sometimes I still have students without a trimixcomputer. But you can still do the course of course.

2 computers makes students sometimes also lazy. I know by head for most dives up to 120m depth a plan by head that brings me at least with a big probability safe to surface. That is what people don't learn anymore when only using computers.

Hmmm

On very deep dives one extra minute on the bottom equates to far more decompression time. Computers calculate your decompression profile in real-time using the exact dive profile based upon your chosen gradient factors.

A pre-cut plan necessary is conservative and completely inflexible to any changes in the profile. It’s also very inefficient, requiring you to remain in the water longer than necessary.

Of course there’s the calculate-on-the-fly-in-your-head maffmatiks for Ratio Deco which, again, is an approximation and simplification of the full algorithms. Woe betide anyone off their face with narcosis or having an hypercapnia incident to screw up the arithmetic or forget their numbers.

Ten years ago that was pretty much standard practice as dive computers weren’t reliable.

Nowadays we have Shearwater and other computers that actually work, are reliable and are very easy to use. We dive with two or three of them and can spend our spare "brain time" enjoying the dive, especially as we approach max bottom time, or even max TTS. Better still they take into account our PPO2 as well as exact depth profile.

I don’t see anything lazy or slovenly about using the right tool for the job.

I don’t play music by dragging a rock over a plastic groove either.

 

[Wibble]

This is very true! If students only practice diving a plan during the course and after always use the computer they don't have an ingrained sense of what deco should look like in a certain depth range, in the end you end up again as a non thinking diver just following his computer (albeight vs 10 years ago this time a good computer ;-) )

You, or at least I, play with MultiDeco planning scenarios all the time. I have rough rules of thumb to approximate the decompression profile. I know my max dive time and approximate bottom time before I jump in. I let the computer run the ceiling calculations as I ascend. I keep an eye on the TTS as the dive progresses.

It doesn’t need a tedious dive plan profile hand written with +3 options where I make transcription errors.

It also means I can abort the dive and get the heck out of Dodge as fast as possible should needs must.

Teaching profiles through writing out dive plans is the diving equivalent of learning your times tables: once two is two, two twos are four, three twos are six…

There has to be a better way than that to learn.

 

[beester]

Heya Wibble,

You might not need this, but what about people without any experience just starting doing normoxic lvl dives? Is it wise to just dive your computer without any understanding (except the few dives you planned otherwise in your course) to just follow the computer?

10-5 years ago the answer would be absolutely not! Now it might be more ambigious because computers have become much better.

Next doesn't need to be very tedious, a typical plan for me has more bullet points on gas management than deco for a typical normoxic dive.

For getting out of dodge,yes I'll have my shearwater on and I always have GF % on my main screen so if push comes to shove I can skip stops and make a faster ascend, but I can do the same with a bottom timer that shows average depth.

Tomorrow evening I leave for a couple of days of wreck diving in Croatia, all normoxic dives. I'm accompanying someone taking her first steps in the normoxic range. She doesn't even have a technical diving computer (yet). So we just dive a plan, and she can use my computer as a backup (and for her comfort), I'll just dive my BT.