what to learn next?

[lcatahan]

Hi all,

I'm at 40 dives, PADI AOW certified, and at the stage where I realize how much I don't know that I don't know.

I work in a highly technical, safety-first field and I would like to work towards the same degree of expertise and comfort under stress while diving. I had the same instructor for OW and AOW and she was fantastic, but I felt the training was aimed at new divers, follow-the-DM with your buddy style diving.

My question is what more advanced courses should I be looking at? I've been reading the threads in the knowledge base forum on most frightening moments and panic, and I liked the safety cone described by Thalassamania. Beyond more diving, how can I best gain the knowledge and heuristics to deepen and widen my cone? My ultimate goal is self dependence, whether diving solo or in a group. I'm in the San Diego area if anyone has specific recommendations.

Thanks in Advance,
LC

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

UTD & GUE have workshops without the gear requirements.

Isn't that instructor dependent? As a new CCR diver, I have a healthy respect for this machine as being complacent, cutting corners, can easily kill me. So I asked a GUE instructor to do a workshop of just trim, buoyancy, finning, you know the basics. He refused as I don't dive a GUE configuration JJ (Prism 2 instead). I would think that many of the same concepts apply, but that was his call. I do want to have workshops with multiple instructors along the way.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Isn't that instructor dependent? As a new CCR diver, I have a healthy respect for this machine as being complacent, cutting corners, can easily kill me. So I asked a GUE instructor to do a workshop of just trim, buoyancy, finning, you know the basics. He refused as I don't dive a GUE configuration JJ (Prism 2 instead). I would think that many of the same concepts apply, but that was his call. I do want to have workshops with multiple instructors along the way.

GUE is only workshop friendly when handing out the free crack at the single-tank level, I believe.

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

Come back to the forum once you have hit 100 dive mark and ask yourself whether the question is still relevant.

 

[lcatahan]

These are all fantastic replies. Thank you all for keeping scubaboard an amazing resource! Now I'm going to go dive.

 

[SlugLife]

If you want to maximize safety, I'm going to highly recommend the Rescue & Solo ("Self Reliant") classes. Both of these classes are useful during both solo-dives and buddy-dives.

The vast majority of Accidents and Incidents I've seen tend to follow a sort of "three strikes" pattern. In order for an incident to become an accident, 3 things usually go wrong at the same time. For example, (1) ignoring well-established safety standards (2) a completely random equipment failure, then (3) panic causing one to run out of air faster and not respond appropriately.

I'm a massive advocate of redundancy. Redundancy can come in many forms. What do you do if....

• You run out of air
• You experience a 1st, 2nd stage, or hose failure.
• You lose a fin, mask, dive-knife, etc
• Your flashlight, dive-computer, etc dies (dead battery, water-intrusion, etc)
• One of your arms gets entangled and cant be used for cutting the entanglement.
• Your BCD won't hold any air.

In open-water you're taught buddy-diving, because that tends to be fairly extensive redundancy. However, that's only good if your dive-buddy is competent, paying attention, nearby, and able to help. Even if you have a buddy, isn't it better to be able to switch to your backup supply, than depend on your buddy who just swam to look at a fish 20ft away?

The way I describe redundancy is "ability to handle a failure, in sub-optimal conditions." For example, your regulator is free-flowing while also entangled and you're having a hard time seeing because of the bubbles.

How you handle a scenario can be an equipment-redundancy, but is not always equipment. For example, lets say you jumped in with your air-off and BCD deflated. With proper weighting, you should be able to surface, manually inflate, and swim back to a ladder or boat.

Example redundancy may include:

• Proper weighting.
• Having a competent dive-buddy nearby
• Redundant independent air-supply of sufficient size.
• Proper equipment maintenance
• Paying close attention to yourself and your surroundings.
• Able to do an emergency ascent
• Backup equipment, including additional cutting-devices, flashlights, masks, depth-gague, etc
• A DSMB as a buoyancy device.
• Staying within your training, experience, and equipment.
• Proper and consistent pre-dive checks.

You don't need to look like a Christmas-tree to achieve "redundant everything." For example, I only bring redundant flashlights and masks on night-dives. You can start on your redundancy path before taking the self-reliant course too, but the self-reliant course will make sure you're not missing the common scenarios.

 

[SlugLife]

I'm always hesitant about recommending training through GUE or UTD to open water divers who might otherwise enjoy an amazing undersea life without religion.

GUE looks neat, but I'm too much of a wild-card and enjoy sidemount too much to justify paying for the classes.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

GUE looks neat, but I'm too much of a wild-card and enjoy sidemount too much to justify paying for the classes.

That's fair. The only good WRSTC agency certification course I have taken was from a guy who went through GUE but ultimately wound up going sidemount for caves (well before GUE's SM program). This was a sidemount course. That's the kind of person you may want for a buoyancy/trim/finning/etc.. workshop that could be similar in skillset to what is requires to earn a GUE tec pass, but tailored to what is important to you.

 

[RonaldP]

After my AOW I did navigation, I I lost my group or DM I should be able to return to my starting point and also comes in quite handy when solodiving.
Next I did Nitrox, I believe it relieves a bit the stress of diving on my body, I am past retirement age and last I did rif renewal, a fun course wich made me feel good giving something back to nature by helping restoring the corals. My plan is to spend each dive vacation one day to this good cause. As a bonus, it is a also a good training in maintaining buancy when when working on the baby corals in the nursery, you have to very steady at one height to clean them, harvest them or hang new baby corals in the tree’s

Whats next: Solodiving after I have hit my 100 dives, I am now at 60, so 2 vacations to go.

I am considering finning technics in my next dive vacation in 2023. If I learn to “swim” more efficient by a different finning method, this means less air usage albeit more divetime.
I have considered buyancy, but in discussion with my instructor concluded my buancy was fine, not much to gain with this training.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

After my AOW I did navigation, I I lost my group or DM I should be able to return to my starting point and also comes in quite handy when solodiving.
Next I did Nitrox, I believe it relieves a bit the stress of diving on my body, I am past retirement age and last I did rif renewal, a fun course wich made me feel good giving something back to nature by helping restoring the corals. My plan is to spend each dive vacation one day to this good cause. As a bonus, it is a also a good training in maintaining buancy when when working on the baby corals in the nursery, you have to very steady at one height to clean them, harvest them or hang new baby corals in the tree’s

Whats next: Solodiving after I have hit my 100 dives, I am now at 60, so 2 vacations to go.

I am considering finning technics in my next dive vacation in 2023. If I learn to “swim” more efficient by a different finning method, this means less air usage albeit more divetime.
I have considered buyancy, but in discussion with my instructor concluded my buancy was fine, not much to gain with this training.

If you have skin thicker than a walrus, you can post videos of your trim/finning online to get feedback.

Hopefully not everyone will be a pr!ck and you get some useful tips. But I guarantee there will be some abuse.

I plan on doing this while on my rebreather, but only to a select few.

 

[Justinshepa]

Hi all,

I'm at 40 dives, PADI AOW certified, and at the stage where I realize how much I don't know that I don't know.

I work in a highly technical, safety-first field and I would like to work towards the same degree of expertise and comfort under stress while diving. I had the same instructor for OW and AOW and she was fantastic, but I felt the training was aimed at new divers, follow-the-DM with your buddy style diving.

My question is what more advanced courses should I be looking at? I've been reading the threads in the knowledge base forum on most frightening moments and panic, and I liked the safety cone described by Thalassamania. Beyond more diving, how can I best gain the knowledge and heuristics to deepen and widen my cone? My ultimate goal is self dependence, whether diving solo or in a group. I'm in the San Diego area if anyone has specific recommendations.

Thanks in Advance,
LC

New diver here based san diego aswell, I am going to school right now and im 22, but saftey is important to me to, if your still looking to advance your skill set hit me up id be down to dive and learn off eachother I think thats the best way to go about it without throwing loads of money at diving