Why did you go Tech, or not?

[oldogre]

"The urge to panic has to be absent, and the first instant of emergency awareness must always be the immediate flood of possible optiimal solutions."
I think Dan,s comment applies to any Serious (as I would put it) or Extreme (as others might) Sport. Be it Climbing, Sailing, Skiing or Diving. Well put!

 

[RonFrank]

There are some clarifications that should be called out: diving with doubles, diving nitrox, using a long hose.....

Technical diving is more about procedures, training, preparation and execution than it is about equipment or environment.....

The equipment is as important as the training. Scuba is an equipment based recreation. You can have all the procedures and training you want, but you will be unable to do a dive without equipment. In fact if you do have the equipment you are able to do a technical dive with no training. It may be a very bad idea, but that is the reality.

I dive within my training and experience and that is my choice. However preaching at folks is generally not taken well by a target audience.

 

[j yaeger]

...all i need is to stay a little longer,,,,,
there's just tooooo much to see!!!
have fun
yaeg

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't really understand the current idea of, "going tech." Tech is not a thing, it is not a set of rules, it is not a uniform, it is not a gear configuration, it is not a philosophy, nor is it a curriculum. It is simply and solely diving in any situation that does not permit a normal direct ascent to the surface, thus most cave diving, and most wreck penetration, and all decompression diving, is technical diving. I have been diving, routinely, below 130 feet since at least 1972 (maybe earlier). Back then, there was neither a concept of a 130 foot recreational limit nor of technical diving. Going deeper than 130 was possible, within the no-D limits, it just meant short dives and we dove down to 190 fsw, carefully avoiding decompression. When we had to stay longer it meant significant planning, preparation and practice, but had nothing to do with black drysuits and blue drygloves, it had everything to do with the aforementioned planning, preparation and practice. It had nothing do with some separate and/or unique codex that is passed from apostle to acolyte that alters the diver's state of consciousness and suddenly solves the deadly problems encountered by the uninitiated at 131 fsw.

 

[RonFrank]

I don't actually have a hard limit. If there was a cool dive that started at 140' I would likely do it, but I keep the 130' limit in the back of my mind as a limit I generally do not want to exceed without a good reason. As I have not been diving much I would need to get back into shape so to speak before I even hit 110'.

We hit 119' diving the Channel Islands, and that was plenty deep and cold and in the sand, but it was a fun dive. Deep does not make the dive all that different, but things can go wrong faster for sure.

 

[Thalassamania]

The equipment is as important as the training. Scuba is an equipment based recreation. You can have all the procedures and training you want, but you will be unable to do a dive without equipment. In fact if you do have the equipment you are able to do a technical dive with no training. It may be a very bad idea, but that is the reality.

I dive within my training and experience and that is my choice. However preaching at folks is generally not taken well by a target audience.

Bantha po-du ... Peter and Joe dove the Andrea Doria in wetsuits with double/doubles: double tanks (old LP steels) and a single double hose regulator each, no BC, no Octopus, no lift bag, no computer, no helium, no training, no certification cards, but plenty of skill, knowledge and practice. Anyone what to say that was not a "technical dive" because he was not sporting all the requisite gear?

"As we swam down . . . we were stunned and awestruck at the immensity of the ship as she took form beneath us."—Peter Gimbel, 1956


At 160 feet, Peter took this extraordinary photograph of Joe Fox clinging to the stern of a lifeboat tethered by lines, but floating upended on the buoyancy of air chambers, bearing the name of home port to which the Andrea Doria would never return.

 

[TSandM]

I think James makes an extremely good point. If I lived on Maui, I'd probably feel very little draw to technical diving, because the shallower diving is so easy and so rewarding. But if Monterey is what you have to dive, there are limited sites, and some of the best topography and richest critter-watching is in relatively deep water (deep recreational range, where dive times are quite limited until you are willing and able to incur deco).

We have such good diving in even the shallow recreational range around Seattle, I find not much motivation here to do staged decompression diving. People who love wrecks, on the other hand, have a lot of motivation, as many of the interesting wrecks are at technical depths.

You do what you have to do, to do the diving that's available or attractive to you, I think.

 

[tbone1004]

So have you gone Tech - deco, caves, wreck, and deep? Or is there plenty keeping you occupied in the first 130' of water?
yes, yes, yes and yes. Who says you can't do deco in under 130 :-D? I've done the majority of my deco dives above 130. Tongue in cheek obviously
I got into caves because while in college and grad school it was cheaper than wreck diving and most of my buddies did it. I love it and while I will still choose wreck over cave, I will never turn down the opportunity to slither thru a rock tunnel.
Got into wreck diving because that's about all there is in NC, and plenty of the good ones are sub 130, but without doing any decompression, that's not a whole lot of time, so deco is obligatory for me. It's worth sitting on a hang line to have the extra time to actually see and do stuff.

As far as real deep stuff, I'll do it, but it's not worth all the extra money in fills to me. certainly not yet. may change one day, but who knows. Breather will happen eventually once.

That all being said, I don't consider myself a tech diver. I consider myself a diver. Where I work, we don't distinguish between the two. Our OW students look the same in the water on their second day of OWT that most tech divers do after fundies or whatever. They are allowed to dive doubles any time after they receive their OW certs and it has never been a big issue for them other than getting used to the extra weight on land. I'd feel more comfortable cave diving with some of our students just out of OW than I would with the people that I see in the caves with formal cave training. My bosses don't certify them unless they feel comfortable that their skills are on par. We have that luxury at a university that no dive shop could ever come close to. So while I may look like a tech/cave diver, most of my diving is purely recreational because I do it for my "personal leisure and enjoyment" so say the wikipedia article on recreational diving. NOAA claims that tech diving is any diving that takes the diver beyond the recreational depth and time limits, and by that definition not a whole lot of my dives are technical. A fair amount are, but a lot of them aren't. Some also say any solo diving is "technical" in which case almost all of my dives are because I rarely consider myself truly buddy diving. I treat every dive as a solo dive regardless, but will be aware of my buddy. This stems from seeing too many near accidents with buddies not paying attention and I'd rather trust myself to save my own butt than rely on anyone. Neither here nor there. Point is you have to decide what the definition of "Tech" is and what type of diver you consider yourself.

Cards were mentioned, I have my Nitrox diver card, rescue diver card, and technical cave cards. That's it... The cave card only comes out when I need it, other than that they see the nitrox card. I'm not one for "formal" training and hate the concept of C-cards. My boss is a firm believe that the progression should be, diver, cave diver, and instructor. He's old school, and well old, but I don't need classes and cards to prove that I can dive, nor does anyone else and frankly, most of the people I've seen with extend-o-wallets full of C-cards are downright terrifying in the water. We push our students and make them do stuff unheard of in any other open water class by the agencies, but the mentality of the tech divers was mentioned earlier, and unless our students have that mentality, they won't get their basic card. Again, advantage of a university where we can certify one person out of 3 classes of 16 each and there is no harm to the salaries. Cool thread though overall, some interesting experience mainly from the old guys that were around before all the certifying nonsense


Just saw that gear was mentioned. I can baretank breathe quite comfortably so in a pinch I could easily do a "technical" dive with no regulators, no bc's etc. It would certainly not be ideal, but it would be possible. Awesome mention of the Doria dives. Poor buggers must have been narc'd out of their mind without helium, but shows what you can do with minimal gear they had

 

[mathauck0814]

The equipment is as important as the training. Scuba is an equipment based recreation. You can have all the procedures and training you want, but you will be unable to do a dive without equipment. In fact if you do have the equipment you are able to do a technical dive with no training. It may be a very bad idea, but that is the reality.

If I were setting a line, my hedge would be on the diver with tech training and inadequate equipment over the guy with the equipment and none of the training.

 

[Colliam7]

I never thought of 'tech' as a transition to a different type of diving. Rather, it seemed that what was included in the category of 'technical training' was simply important aspects of diving in general that were not easily found elsewhere - decompression diving, the use of doubles, and the use of breathing gases other than air and 40% nitrox being three specific examples. I didn't have a particular dssire (at the time I pursued technical training) to go deeper, or to penetrate wrecks, or enter caves. I just thought that the training would make me a more complete diver. I dove a drysuiit for several years before I started technical training. I had already set up doubles and was diving them before I started. I had been using a slung 40cf pony bottle for a few years - and practicing gas switches as a safety measure - before I started. (And, I am very glad I did these things before starting, because it meant that the significant task loading was not quite as overwhelming as it might have otherwise been.)

Once I started, I realized there was a considerable emphasis on attitude, of which I had not really been aware. The emphasis on procedures, specifically dive planning and gas management, was greater than I expected. And, the emphasis on buoyancy and trim control was also a particularly eye opening, and beneficial, experience. Overall, the training helped me become a better diver, which was the goal. The majority of my diving continues to be 'recreational' in the sense that it is shallower than 130ft, and does not involve decompression or a physicial overhead. But, I feel as comfortbale dropping off a boat and going to 200 ft (with appropriate equipment, gases, AND dive plan) as I do jumping off a dock and going to 50 ft. in a quarry (with appropriate equipment, gases AND dive plan). Neither dive has any room for a cavalier attitude, lack of mental or physical fitness, poorly maintained or improperly functioning equipment, or failure to plan.