Why did you go Tech, or not?

[knowone]

Years of snorkeling as a kid got me so sick of it
and so desperate, to get a reg in my mouth that
the surface I have always treated as an overhead
dumb luck, I don't think, with my computer the spg
until I found someone, with an extra suicide bar, and
then I set about hunting down another 72 then out of
knowhere the holy grail the key that lay in the Gestetner
of The Tables that opened the horizons when I worked up
the courage to unlock the door

Solo, except for the seemingly old, drunk bloke, that drove the boat

A few months ago, one thousand miles away, thirty five
years later, I walked into a factory out of the blue with
people I did not know and somehow the conversation
unwittingly steered itself towards my drunk chilhood
fisherman friend whom I was informed had died ten
years previously at sixty years of age undignifiedly
from drinking

Thanks Herbie

Love Emile, that feels at one with the ocean
when it courses albeit very slowly through
my wetsuit


Scuba Diving?

Skin Diving?

Frogmanship?

 

[Bob DBF]

I pretty much got it out of my system before it became Tech.

In my younger days, the NDL tables went to 190' so I assumed that recreational diving and planning for deco or emergency deco was normal for deep dives. Mixed gasses was not an option, at the time, so it was all done on air. I always liked to poke my nose into interesting places like wrecks and caverns (never actually measured the distance in), and still do to a more limited extent.

Since the majority of the dives I do now are limited by where I dive at less than 80', cold water, wetsuit, NDL, and no overhead, there is little use for a tech training card. I read about tech gear and procedures which I may incorporate into dives outside (and inside) the "recreational" envelope if they make sense to me and work with my style of diving.

Quoting from "The New Science of Skin and SCUBA Diving" revised 1962, the last paragraph:

"DIVE SAFELY, THE LIFE YOU SAVE WILL BE YOUR OWN!
Safety and survival under water are achieved by carefull planning. This must be based on a good understanding of the environment, the equipment, and the limitations of the individual."

This is as true now, in any diving endevor, as it was when it was written.



Bob
------------------------------------
I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.

 

[Ste Wart]

Why Tech? Wrecks.

I still find plenty to do above 40m. This normally falls into the category of swearing at my camera when I screw up yet another shot.

 

[Jax]

Why Tech? Wrecks.

I still find plenty to do above 40m. This normally falls into the category of swearing at my camera when I screw up yet another shot.

Sorry, can't resist . . .

"'Tis a poor craftsman that blames his tools. " Just sayin'!

 

[TMHeimer]

I'll never go tech.:
1. Too much money.
2. Too much bother.
3. Probably too old (if not, pretty soon).
4. Main reason: very few shells to collect down there that you can't collect recreationally.

 

[mathauck0814]

Yes, made the choice. Almost entirely because I wanted to be able to spend more time on wrecks (mostly in or around recreational depths; ~100-150fsw). 20 minute dives are tedious when you're spending money on charters. It started as a need to learn decompression so I could get the bottom time that I wanted. Then I got in with a certain group of people who talked about the other, deeper, bigger, cooler wrecks and it sort of took off from there.

And then I went to north-central Florida this summer and I've got a whole new bug to manage

 

[down4fun]

Wrecks. Abosolutely the wrecks

In my open water class we did a dive to a 60 foot wreck that had been an old floating restaurant. I saw that staircase leading down into the wreck and wanted to go soooooooo bad. I got the finger wave of No from my instructor. From there I was always drawn to the wrecks, penetrating the wrecks. Within 6 months i had over 100 dives and had seen all the wrecks in my area up to 130 feet. Most of them several times. I knew then I wanted to pursue technical training and see the deeper wrecks, new wrecks (or at least new to me) to penetrate wrecks.

Fast forward a few years and I am on rebreather, full trimix and full cave. But it still the wrecks. I descend on a wreck and see doorway or a hatch and my heart skips a beat. I have to see where it goes. To be inside, to explore. There is no better feeling than surfacing from a great wreck penetration dive. I am glowing form the inside out. And that is why my friends call me "the wreck ferret" if there is a hole in that wreck I'm going in.

 

[Darnold9999]

Really interesting post and replies.

Three reasons for me not going tech.

First age - diving cold water above 130 is hard enough on my body. 3 dives a day wipes me out. Also believe (with no good evidence) that deco diving is just harder on an older body and the benefits just don't offset the risks.

Second nothing there I want to see. Really don't see the attraction of old rusty steel boxes. Just don't get it, and there really isn't much else below about 80 feet that I want to see. Caves - not a chance - wet or dry - just scare the cr*p out of me. See the attraction, but no thanks. I love looking at tiny critters going about their business, the colours and shapes you just don't see on land, and the whole 3D environment. All I can do really comfortably above 130.

Third, and probably the most important, I do alot of things by the seat of my pants. Knowing that I can resolve just about any problem I get myself into on the fly. Not really a detail oriented pre-planning all contingencies kind of person, and that seems to me to likely be a bad thing when diving deep. First because a mistake can kill you and second becuase I can't count on being able to think.

 

[knowone]

Quoting from "The New Science of Skin and SCUBA Diving"
fifth revised edition 1980, the last paragraph:

"The motivation and general attitude of some aspirants make
safe diving unlikely from the outset; and those individuals who
tend to panic in emergencies may well find occasion for doing
so in diving. Recklessness or emotional instability in a diver is
a serious liability for his companions as well as for himself."

So for those that enjoyed and behave like those
since deceased in The Last Dive and miss the very
pertinent underlying message from Bernie Chowdhury
about his own quite debilitating minding his own business
brain deco injury


Unfortunately I coudn't read in 1962 and didn't in 1980

 

[BigBubbaJ]

For me where I have ended up is simple. With or without lots of fish and stuff, underwater is a hostile alien world humans have a hard time surviving in without special gear and training. I can't say I feel different about 173' (my deepest tech deco dive) or a 25 reef dive. Not saying that the deco doesn't make the deep dive more complicated, but for me the training and teams I've dove with through the technical training process have influenced my concept of how to enjoy and survive the hostile alien world. I get the warm fuzzies diving with my tech teams. I like the redundancy, and better yet have proper training to know how to make use of all available resources at 150, or 50. Bottom line is that it's hard to understand the risk until you are faced with it and have to rely on your team to survive it. Does this sound like fun? Most people say no, which is the right choice for the rec folks. Tech folks train for the worst and we expect it. To me it makes the rec dives that are easy so much better. I'm glad I went tech, and I love it.