What would recommend as a path to Wreck Diving in the North East and Great Lakes?

[billgraham]

It would be a good idea to get hooked up with some of Doppler's courses. I'd get the rescue cert, it's a good class, and then Nitrox and Advanced Nitrox, which teaches you the physics of diving. I wouldn't worry too much about gear right now, other than to get rid of that yoke attachement. Try to find some wreck dives shallower than 100 feet and do those for a while, most boats have "shallow days" where they take out newer divers. Good luck!

 

[616fun]

I live in Indiana and dive year round, hitting the wrecks of the Great Lakes more than a time or two a year. Also frequent the quarries to stay up on skills. Currently adv nitrox/deco, but not all charters I hit are tech. Hit me up when you get to the Hoosier state and we'll work on getting you out diving. I can also recommend a few good instructors in the area for continued education

 

[windapp]

Dive dive dive. There are so many things you can teach yourself just by diving and practising. Wreck diving, for instance, does not need to involve penetration to be fun. Formal training is not required as long as you are familiar with the hazards of diving the outside a wreck,most of which are entanglement hazards in freshwater. There are wrecks with deep cargo holds that you can enter without ever leaving open water. There will be some dives, such as wreck dives where you will want a reliable dive buddy even after you have learned to be self sufficient. A pony bottle won't do you any good if you are hopelessly entangled and nobody is around to help you. Use scubaboard, your LDS, and local dive club to network with people. You will find that around the great lakes, people don't have the same bad attitude toward diving with a buddy as they do in some other regions.

 

[00wabbit]

Thanks guys. I'm definately going to do rescue in the spring. It will be in one of the quarries in Indiana or Ohio. I don't mind low vis at all and would rather not spend a vacation in the carribbean training.
Once I get up there and get settled I will hook up with the Clubs.

I found a din conversion for my cressi mc9 reg. I'll pick that up soon and switch it over. I would like to dive steel tanks anyway so I can carry more air and less weight. I'm a big guy so less weight in my bcd is nice. With my dry suit and using an al100 I use 28lbs of weight after my peak bouyancy dive.

As far as side mount I am still very interested in it. I will look into an intro to side mount type class or something so I can feel it for myself.

 

[Akimbo]

A big part of wreck diving is mental preparation. Although you will rarely seek zero-visibility diving conditions, a wreck diver will experience it — probably at the same time other things go wobbly.

Find some shallow ink-black water in a safe location to practice in. Like a blind person, try to perceive as much as possible from your other senses. If that is too difficult, start by blacking out your mask with tape. Virtually all divers will be apprehensive at first. Becoming comfortable in these conditions well in advance of being faced with them during a crisis can turn a deadly situation into an inconvenience.

Perhaps more important, constant fear of finding yourself in a silted-up compartment makes dives too scary… a little scary is good. Really scary is distracting and primes you for panic. If you are a Testosterone-fueled thrill seeker, it will bring you back to reality. The experience will also make your pre-dive and contingency planning far more realistic. You would be amazed what you can learn in 8' of water.

Debating equipment configurations is premature, highly variable, and useless unless your head is in the right place. Research is also a huge part of wreck diving. You can spend days with books learning about how ships are made and how they deteriorate. That knowledge is of great value and generally applies to all wrecks. Besides, it allows you to advance your skills during the dead of winter for a lot less money than actually diving.

Finally, you would probably enjoy reading Shadow Divers

 

[00wabbit]

Literally just finished Shadow Divers last night and that prompted me to make this post.

I live in NJ so it's cool to read about all of this happening right here. Chatterdon even did a wreck course at my local shop. I am not the cut from the same cloth as him and the others. I know I won't go to those extremes. Deep penetration won't be for me I don't think. Maybe light penetration I could see doing.

I was reading about the truk lagoon and I would love to have a high enough skill level to visit those wrecks. It seems that some of them are outside the recreational depth limits but not too extreme. I would love to visit and see those myself. I am not a huge adrenaline junkie. I don't think I would want to dive the Andrea Doria.

Hopefully that gives you a little more info about what I am thinking.

I would like to do some cave diving as well, but again I don't think I would want to do extreme penetrations or very deep depths. I will leave the exploration of the unknown to others. I would like to follow in their footsteps and see a little of what they saw.

After reading Shadow Divers I think Bill Nagle wouldn't like me much but that is where I stand.

 

[lowviz]

...//...I live in NJ so it's cool to read about all of this happening right here. ...//...

I'll suggest two boats, the Sea Lion and the John-Jack for starters.

Lakeland Divers offers an "Intro to NorthEast Diving" course that is legendary. Includes a dive trip on the Sea Lion with your peers. First-rate.

this course is not obvious on their website, so I copied it:

INTRO TO NORTHEAST DIVING

Have you ever wondered what North East Diving was really like??
Not ready to commit to the Advance class?
Don't know if you want to spend an entire day on a Dive Boat?
Find out why Northeast divers get so excited about diving off the Jersey Coast.
​

This class will introduce you to Northeast Wreck Diving.
There are over 5000 ship wrecks off the Jersey coast between New York harbor and Cape May.
Nearly every one of them may produce artifacts,lobsters, sea bass and exciting dives.
Your Instructor will take you on a tour of some of these wrecks.

* Learn Dive Boat etiquette,
* The proper way to load and unload your gear,
* How to get on and off the boat... and much more.

At the end of this class you will feel comfortable planning your first Northeast dive.

This Class includes 3 hour classroom and one single tank afternoon wreck dive aboard the SEA LION

COST of this class $150.00 includes SEA LION wreck dive. Call Lakeland and reserve your space now!


The John-Jack also has history but is now very newbie friendly. Call Cap'n Rich and get on the list for an introductory dive next year.

Dive both boats, they are very different and will give you a good appreciation of your local "charter diving" scene.

...//...I think Bill Nagle wouldn't like me much but that is where I stand.

Then talk to his son, Andrew. One of the most decent and laid-back divers I've ever met...

 

[Wayne at DiveSeekers]

Being that you are in NJ, stop by the shop and I will be glad to personally explain all the ins and out to local wreck diving, tec, gear config and course path. One of the first questions I have for you is How is your Control (maintain 5' window) in the water? Are you proficient in all the advanced Finning techniques (Frog/Mod, Flutter/Mod, Heli turns, Reverse Kick)? If the answer to either of these two questions is NO then you need to do a Quality Buoyancy Class. I know you have done some other classes but if you just followed an Instructor around or was told that everything you did was Great, your skills may not necessarily be where you think they are. If you can answer Yes to the questions then I would actually say to take our basic Wreck Diver Class (I prefer to call it a Core Skills Class). This Class will cover Buoyancy, Trim, Propulsion Tech, Air Shares, Gear Config, Redundant Air System, Mapping, Lift Bags, SMB's, Reels, Light Comm, Wreck Penetration, etc... and will highlight the areas you need to work on. After that class you will be prepared to Dive off NJ. Balance this with Skills Oriented Practice dives, get some Experience Dives in, then move on to Rescue. It is not good to just take class after class and not get the experience dives in. This is just one example of the discussions we will have. BTW, your Knighthawk BC is not meant for doubles. Call to schedule appointment and when you come to the shop, bring your gear so that we can look at it as well.

Hope this is helpfull and we are worth the drive!

 

[00wabbit]

Thanks for the info. I am moving away form NJ but I will return for business. I will make sure to plan enough time to do some training in the area when I am ready.

As far as your questions about skills. I only have 24 dives to date (+3 discovery dives but I don't count those) I practice my bouyancy and kicks constantly and I watch tons of videos online to help reinforce the ideas.
I can keep my bouyancy within a 5' window when concentrating. I think when task loaded I may get out of the window. I know once I had an ascent of about 10ft or so when using a compass. That shocked me and caused me to really focus my bouyancy a lot more. I know I need to get more experience so that bouyancy and depth control using my lungs is more second nature to me.

For kicks. I use the frog kick a lot. I prefer it over the flutter kick. I have tried the modified flutter kick on occasion. I need to get some more time in the water to work on the helicopter and reverse. Usually when I go to Dutch with my regular buddy we dive until we hit our turn around PSI then head back to the platforms. There I practice my kicks while maintaining bouyancy back and forth along the platforms until we hit our psi to ascend. During my AOW course my instructor was very impressed with my bouyancy control and mentioned that if I wasn't moving away they would want me to keep going into their divemaster program.

For this season I am done with official training. I am going to dive as long into the winter as I can and get more experience. Then in early spring I will do rescue diver and begin looking into a wreck course for early next year.

Thanks for the advice. I was starting to see from the PADI course materials that they may be a little too casual for the type of diving I wanted to do and rather than stay on their path it might be time to look for training form other sources.

Being that you are in NJ, stop by the shop and I will be glad to personally explain all the ins and out to local wreck diving, tec, gear config and course path. One of the first questions I have for you is How is your Control (maintain 5' window) in the water? Are you proficient in all the advanced Finning techniques (Frog/Mod, Flutter/Mod, Heli turns, Reverse Kick)? If the answer to either of these two questions is NO then you need to do a Quality Buoyancy Class. I know you have done some other classes but if you just followed an Instructor around or was told that everything you did was Great, your skills may not necessarily be where you think they are. If you can answer Yes to the questions then I would actually say to take our basic Wreck Diver Class (I prefer to call it a Core Skills Class). This Class will cover Buoyancy, Trim, Propulsion Tech, Air Shares, Gear Config, Redundant Air System, Mapping, Lift Bags, SMB's, Reels, Light Comm, Wreck Penetration, etc... and will highlight the areas you need to work on. After that class you will be prepared to Dive off NJ. Balance this with Skills Oriented Practice dives, get some Experience Dives in, then move on to Rescue. It is not good to just take class after class and not get the experience dives in. This is just one example of the discussions we will have. BTW, your Knighthawk BC is not meant for doubles. Call to schedule appointment and when you come to the shop, bring your gear so that we can look at it as well.

Hope this is helpfull and we are worth the drive!

 

[Rooster In Ohio]

What would recommend as a path to Wreck Diving in the North East and Great Lakes?

Interstate 90 (sorry, I couldn't resist).