Where does "technical" begin? (or Why get AOW certified?)
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Ahh, I might contend that a little, but I understand your point
MD
bwerb
Hoser/English Translator, eh
The three courses which you really should take are:
OW, AOW, Rescue...they are more or less three parts of the basic dive education (or equivalents from other agencies).
OW introduces you to the sport.
AOW exposes you to some new techniques and dive skills under direct supervision...they are experience dives which broaden your in-water experience.
Rescue helps you to start to look at the other divers in your team and yourself in a more objective light, to prepare for what to do when things go wrong and how to prevent them from going wrong in the first place.
If you are interested in the "tech" road...heck, even if you just want to have the bar for your own dive skills raised...take a DIRF.
OW, AOW, Rescue...they are more or less three parts of the basic dive education (or equivalents from other agencies).
OW introduces you to the sport.
AOW exposes you to some new techniques and dive skills under direct supervision...they are experience dives which broaden your in-water experience.
Rescue helps you to start to look at the other divers in your team and yourself in a more objective light, to prepare for what to do when things go wrong and how to prevent them from going wrong in the first place.
If you are interested in the "tech" road...heck, even if you just want to have the bar for your own dive skills raised...take a DIRF.
ScubaRon
Contributor
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Nonsense, you're a good scuba diver when you are OW certified and know how to utilize the skills learned in the OW class. That usually takes 10 or 20 dives, but some people never learn it...
AOW is a class I highly recommend to anyone and can help you get there. There are plenty of great divers who never took AOW.
Nitrox has nothing to do with being a good or bad scuba diver. It is good if you want to do certain types of diving that require extended bottom times. If you are interested in that, take the course, if you're not, don't.
ScubaRon
bwerb
Hoser/English Translator, eh
MechDiver once bubbled...
See! I TOLD ya not to do those sissy classes
I'll dive with you if you have a boat...
MD
How about if the "boat" is actually submerged? I'll take you to my "boat" if you want...
End of October...you have the dates...see you in the water!DeepTechScuba
Guest
In your basic open water class, hopefully you were taught to think your way though any problems that arise with:
STOP
BREATHE
THINK
ACT
In your advanced open water class, hopefully you learned about navigation, night diving, deeper diving, boat/beach diving, currents and tides, and got an introduction to all the many other specialites available in scuba diving, such as hunting, photography, caves, and shipwrecks etc.
In your basic nitrox class, hopefully you learned about the drawbacks of scuba diving with air as a breathing mix. The NOAA mixes of EAN32 and EAN36 are far superior to air as scuba breathing mixes.
Up to this point, you did not really focus on emergencies underwater.
RESCUE normally covers emergencies underwater in depth (no pun intended).
In a rescue class, you are taught about monitoring stress in yourself and in others and minimizing stress, and about self-rescue, and also about buddy assists and buddy rescues.
Emergencies are best avoided in the first place, that is the first step. That is usually accomplished in the planning stages of a dive before you ever go into the water.
Emergencies are best dealt with by staying relaxed, controlling your breathing, thinking before you act, planning what you are going to do, then executing your plan.
If the emergency involves your equipment, normally you would have some backup equipment available to you. If it involves your buddy's equipment, you need to present yourself to assist him/her.
If the emergency involves another diver, he/she will depend on you most likely for assistance as their buddy, unless he/she is totally self sufficient and therefore extricates him/herself from the problem. If the emergency involves you, hopefully your buddy will come to your aid.
No matter what the emergency, you still need to:
STOP
BREATHE
THINK
ACT.
If you take a rescue class, you will be better able to deal with emergencies when they happen while scuba diving.
STOP
BREATHE
THINK
ACT
In your advanced open water class, hopefully you learned about navigation, night diving, deeper diving, boat/beach diving, currents and tides, and got an introduction to all the many other specialites available in scuba diving, such as hunting, photography, caves, and shipwrecks etc.
In your basic nitrox class, hopefully you learned about the drawbacks of scuba diving with air as a breathing mix. The NOAA mixes of EAN32 and EAN36 are far superior to air as scuba breathing mixes.
Up to this point, you did not really focus on emergencies underwater.
RESCUE normally covers emergencies underwater in depth (no pun intended).
In a rescue class, you are taught about monitoring stress in yourself and in others and minimizing stress, and about self-rescue, and also about buddy assists and buddy rescues.
Emergencies are best avoided in the first place, that is the first step. That is usually accomplished in the planning stages of a dive before you ever go into the water.
Emergencies are best dealt with by staying relaxed, controlling your breathing, thinking before you act, planning what you are going to do, then executing your plan.
If the emergency involves your equipment, normally you would have some backup equipment available to you. If it involves your buddy's equipment, you need to present yourself to assist him/her.
If the emergency involves another diver, he/she will depend on you most likely for assistance as their buddy, unless he/she is totally self sufficient and therefore extricates him/herself from the problem. If the emergency involves you, hopefully your buddy will come to your aid.
No matter what the emergency, you still need to:
STOP
BREATHE
THINK
ACT.
If you take a rescue class, you will be better able to deal with emergencies when they happen while scuba diving.
Boogie711
Guest
Deep Tech Scuba might be related to a former poster on this board?
Dude - you haven't been solo-diving under the ice lately, have you?
Dude - you haven't been solo-diving under the ice lately, have you?
DeepTechScuba
Guest
There is no ice diving along the California coast, dude.
Wrong sock puppet.
Wrong sock puppet.
phree337 once bubbled...
I'm still new to diving (cert OW in July '03), so I'm gonna ask this question. Hopefully it doesn't come out sounding like a troll....
At what point does a dive become a "technical" dive from a "recreational" one? Is it when a decompression obligation occurs, or perhaps a specific depth? Something else?
The line between recreational and technical diving isn't as great as it used to be - but techical diving can be summarized as non-commercial diving outside recreational limits: dives in overhead environments (and that includes virtual overheads, where decompression issues keep you from a direct ascent to the surface), and; dives using specialty gases (such as >EAN40 and/or any gas with helium in it.) Some would categorize and dive that requires gear such as doubles, drysuits, lift bags, etc. as a technical dive. Others would qualify black water, fast water and cold water dives as technical While there are some specialized skills that are needed for all of these, I think calling any dive in a drysuit a technical dive or any dive in black water a technical dive is overly parochial. A dive in cold, black water that requires a dry suit...well, that might be close enough. In the old days, any EAN dive would have been a technical dive, but things change.
I ask this because I am considering which direction to steer my diving education. Oh sure, I'd love to get cave certified--but that may not be for me; I'm still thinking about how I would handle an emergency underwater in a cave. I would definately like to experience deeper depths with longer times than my current experience would dictate (~20 dives total to date, ~80fsw max depth). So what's the next step? Since I already have the EANx taken care of, I wonder what the value of AOW would be. Since the max recreational diving depth is ~100 feet, why not just go ahead and learn ALL the aspects involved in a dive of that depth, instead of just getting a card that says I can be at 100 feet for 5 minutes?
Why would you love to get cave certified? This is actually an important question that you should ponder carefully - inspect your motives critically. Planning ahead is always a good thing, but especially this early in your diving it probably makes a lot of sense to remain as flexible as possible - who knows what you're going to like? I agree with some of the others; I don't think most folks become competent divers until they have at least completed OW, AOW & Rescue and have 100 dives or so in their log. As with any generalization, there are problems with this. For instance, someone who has successfully completed DIRF will probably be a better diver than someone who has completed AOW, but will have missed the glimpse into the world of photography, night diving, etc. One of the biggest mistakes new divers make is to go card crazy - slow down, learn to enjoy your dives and master the skills you have been taught before you move on to the next step.
OK, the real question should be why get AOW certified? Is there something important in the class that needs to be understood before making the step into the "technical" world? Or would it be better to just spend the money on diving and gaining proficiency and experinece, work on getting into/maintaining physical and mental fitness, and then take a staged decompression course?
The purpose of AOW is to introduce you to a number of different dive situations and to get you to spend some time with an instructor to cover basic skills that may have gone wobbly since OW. It is definitely NOT the last step before technical diving - you have to have ALL of the fundamental skills mastered BEFORE you proceed to technical diving. It really doesn't much matter what you do in the water with the instructor, just that you spend some quality time being evaluated and critiqued and taught. I think it's invaluable, but there are other options that are just as good, if not better. You need to spend the money on diving and gaining proficiency AND taking the AOW class. No way you should even be considering decompression diving at this point. No way.
Does any of this make sense? :lol: I'm open to your input.... Please don't think I'm rushing things--I'm not looking to jump into anything soon. I know there is no substitue for experience. I just don't want to waste time or money getting something I really don't need or will be covered better in a later course.
There's no substitute for experience. Likewise, there is no substitute for instruction - it's the best way to gain a lot of experience in a short time. One of the "big rules" of technical diving that applies to gear and to training is to make no compromises - if you can't afford to do it right, don't do it. I'll repeat: slow down and smell the roses. Diving is the lazy man's extreme sport, so take it easy and please remember to worry more about missing a step than repeating one.
One other thing: twenty dives a year and you will never gain the proficiency with basic skills that will allow you to move into technical diving - practice, practice, practice.
Thanks!!
You're welcome.
Steven
I'm still new to diving (cert OW in July '03), so I'm gonna ask this question. Hopefully it doesn't come out sounding like a troll....
At what point does a dive become a "technical" dive from a "recreational" one? Is it when a decompression obligation occurs, or perhaps a specific depth? Something else?
The line between recreational and technical diving isn't as great as it used to be - but techical diving can be summarized as non-commercial diving outside recreational limits: dives in overhead environments (and that includes virtual overheads, where decompression issues keep you from a direct ascent to the surface), and; dives using specialty gases (such as >EAN40 and/or any gas with helium in it.) Some would categorize and dive that requires gear such as doubles, drysuits, lift bags, etc. as a technical dive. Others would qualify black water, fast water and cold water dives as technical While there are some specialized skills that are needed for all of these, I think calling any dive in a drysuit a technical dive or any dive in black water a technical dive is overly parochial. A dive in cold, black water that requires a dry suit...well, that might be close enough. In the old days, any EAN dive would have been a technical dive, but things change.
I ask this because I am considering which direction to steer my diving education. Oh sure, I'd love to get cave certified--but that may not be for me; I'm still thinking about how I would handle an emergency underwater in a cave. I would definately like to experience deeper depths with longer times than my current experience would dictate (~20 dives total to date, ~80fsw max depth). So what's the next step? Since I already have the EANx taken care of, I wonder what the value of AOW would be. Since the max recreational diving depth is ~100 feet, why not just go ahead and learn ALL the aspects involved in a dive of that depth, instead of just getting a card that says I can be at 100 feet for 5 minutes?
Why would you love to get cave certified? This is actually an important question that you should ponder carefully - inspect your motives critically. Planning ahead is always a good thing, but especially this early in your diving it probably makes a lot of sense to remain as flexible as possible - who knows what you're going to like? I agree with some of the others; I don't think most folks become competent divers until they have at least completed OW, AOW & Rescue and have 100 dives or so in their log. As with any generalization, there are problems with this. For instance, someone who has successfully completed DIRF will probably be a better diver than someone who has completed AOW, but will have missed the glimpse into the world of photography, night diving, etc. One of the biggest mistakes new divers make is to go card crazy - slow down, learn to enjoy your dives and master the skills you have been taught before you move on to the next step.
OK, the real question should be why get AOW certified? Is there something important in the class that needs to be understood before making the step into the "technical" world? Or would it be better to just spend the money on diving and gaining proficiency and experinece, work on getting into/maintaining physical and mental fitness, and then take a staged decompression course?
The purpose of AOW is to introduce you to a number of different dive situations and to get you to spend some time with an instructor to cover basic skills that may have gone wobbly since OW. It is definitely NOT the last step before technical diving - you have to have ALL of the fundamental skills mastered BEFORE you proceed to technical diving. It really doesn't much matter what you do in the water with the instructor, just that you spend some quality time being evaluated and critiqued and taught. I think it's invaluable, but there are other options that are just as good, if not better. You need to spend the money on diving and gaining proficiency AND taking the AOW class. No way you should even be considering decompression diving at this point. No way.
Does any of this make sense? :lol: I'm open to your input.... Please don't think I'm rushing things--I'm not looking to jump into anything soon. I know there is no substitue for experience. I just don't want to waste time or money getting something I really don't need or will be covered better in a later course.
There's no substitute for experience. Likewise, there is no substitute for instruction - it's the best way to gain a lot of experience in a short time. One of the "big rules" of technical diving that applies to gear and to training is to make no compromises - if you can't afford to do it right, don't do it. I'll repeat: slow down and smell the roses. Diving is the lazy man's extreme sport, so take it easy and please remember to worry more about missing a step than repeating one.
One other thing: twenty dives a year and you will never gain the proficiency with basic skills that will allow you to move into technical diving - practice, practice, practice.
Thanks!!
You're welcome.
Steven
100days-a-year
Contributor
Good question,I asked myself the same questions as well as why all those specialties that some agencies offer.
1.Rec diving blends into Tec at the point you plan to enter intoan environment that basic scuba skills are insufficient to cope with.Deep,multi-gas/mixed gasses,acclerated deco,cave,cold/ice,lo-vis and rebreaters covers most of it.
2.A lot of the money I would have spent on all those courses went for actual tech training.This allowed me also to purchase the requisite gear.
3.There is no substitute for experience,most agencies require 100's of logged dives prior to beginning tech training.Being comfortable and versed in skills at depth is crucial.Being comfortable with your gear is so important that some agencies require some of those dives to be in the appropriate gear for that type of diving,sort of an incremental approach.
4.Motivation is important as well.Why do all this hard work,spend lotsa cash and increase your chances of returning to room temperature unless there is some pay-off.Just to be cool or impress your friends?Buy a Porshe ,it'll cost less.To see unseen things and challenge yourself,cool.
5.The field is dynamic and change is inevitable,15 years ago most eveyone dove deep air,today only idiots and spearfishermen routinely surpass 130' on air and less for some.The spearfishermen can name valid points for it,somewhat.Rebreathers now have mixed gas and are more dependable and safer.
There's more but I'll see what else gets mentioned.
1.Rec diving blends into Tec at the point you plan to enter intoan environment that basic scuba skills are insufficient to cope with.Deep,multi-gas/mixed gasses,acclerated deco,cave,cold/ice,lo-vis and rebreaters covers most of it.
2.A lot of the money I would have spent on all those courses went for actual tech training.This allowed me also to purchase the requisite gear.
3.There is no substitute for experience,most agencies require 100's of logged dives prior to beginning tech training.Being comfortable and versed in skills at depth is crucial.Being comfortable with your gear is so important that some agencies require some of those dives to be in the appropriate gear for that type of diving,sort of an incremental approach.
4.Motivation is important as well.Why do all this hard work,spend lotsa cash and increase your chances of returning to room temperature unless there is some pay-off.Just to be cool or impress your friends?Buy a Porshe ,it'll cost less.To see unseen things and challenge yourself,cool.
5.The field is dynamic and change is inevitable,15 years ago most eveyone dove deep air,today only idiots and spearfishermen routinely surpass 130' on air and less for some.The spearfishermen can name valid points for it,somewhat.Rebreathers now have mixed gas and are more dependable and safer.
There's more but I'll see what else gets mentioned.
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