Episode 21: So you want to be a Tec Diver?

title: Episode 21: So you want to be a Tec Diver?
author: DIVE TALK
contenttype: podcast
publication: DIVE TALK
published: 2020-10-30T12:00:00-04:00
sourceurl: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/divetalk/Episode_21.mp3?dest-id=1756346

word_count: 9973

Welcome everyone to dive talk. This is you know, I guess a long coming Long time coming episode, you know, we we were out for For a month. Yeah, basically at this point. Oh, we were busy. I know Yeah, and I know I think we we owe it to people listening to the show to talk about all the things that That we did I mean you did way more than me you were gone a lot more But I was going a lot like over the last over the last month. So just what do you do? Would he over the last 30 days? I tell you it's been unbelievable I have not been out of the water. That's how I want to start it now It's all been instruction related First I led a trip. That's one of the things I do for sea ventures So I was certifying a lot of divers both all the way from beginning recreational level to oh no Excuse me. It was it was an advanced wreck trip. I'm already forgetting what we did So that particular trip for sea ventures was already certified divers and we took them on a four-day Rec trip so you're diving rec rec rec rec in South Florida a lot of them got their deep wreck and advanced wreck specialties That happened to be through SSI. Yeah, that's our dive shop as affiliated with SSI So that was just a ton of fun Amazing conditions pretty high current and we had a few episodes in that where dive masters in training really learned are you ready because you see one of the things we talked about is just because we're experienced and Weed may feel like current or situation is not that Difficult you've got people that can take these advanced classes think about it after their fourth certification dive on their fifth or sixth or seventh dive they can get certified to do rec or Deep or advanced rec and we weren't so pretty high current So really really needed the assistance of those dive masters in training to make sure some of those folks were able to Get back to the line or get back to the boat for sure that happened and then was our trip while you were on your on your rec trip Which I was you know super jealous of that Doug ever saw you might have me to come down to cave country. Yeah, and do my my tech like you know cave training So I started my cave training which was kind of like part one of two of cave diving like the full CCR cave diver certification So I went there and we did I think we did like 10 cave dives all in the goal line You know just respecting the standards, but Essentially what that certification does is that it allows me to go into caves And up to 10 minutes of decode just like my regular tech 40 certification that I have for re-breathers This time around I actually can go in caves. Yes, so same thing And obviously we learn a bunch of skills just setting it up for the actual cave Training because I was like, you know, what am I doing this weekend? I remember because you were like why why don't you just wait like you have your cave training in a couple weeks Just wait and do it all at once And I'm like, but what am I gonna do this weekend like just be here and actually spend time with my kids right now and watch all of our posts on Facebook About that exactly so that's awesome. So you got that knocked out and and doesn't that really Change your level of dive and when you become cave certified I mean for all the classes you've ever taken when you have to do multiple tasks in a cave that can easily be silted out your skills really increase for sure and And that every cave is different right? I mean it's the the the same Preparation and swimming and things that you do the the the way you tackle the cave changes dramatically from one cave to another Absolutely Somehow flow some don't yeah, you're a jini. It's like just get in right however You can stay out of the current as much as you can and get in whereas a peacock you're a 60 feet There's no deco ever like you can be in there forever And if you touch that silt and peacock boy it goes in no way right So so really really enjoyed that and then I came back I was home for like a day and then we Got together and head out to The what like double training. I guess we had it was it was a combination because first me and David were helping with Megan's and Dave's CCR training right they were just becoming certified on a CCR But before we jump into that one I want to touch on one more thing on your cave experience. I don't want to close that yet I want our listeners to know that the areas that we're talking about We are blessed in that just four or five hours away from here from Atlanta is what we call high springs flarta And for those of you that don't know that's known as cave country There's even a dive shop there called cave country There's many many cave systems there and there's some of the biggest in the world And a lot of the flora aquifer system is coming up through those caves So it's really interesting to learn there You have very high flow caves What that means for those of you who are in cave divers is when you're swimming in you're basically swimming in against In some cases like an underwater river. Yeah, so you are really having to work to get in But then on the way out you get this incredible ride awesome on those high flow caves But then during your same training there you could experience just 15 minutes from their a cave with the no flow Now the advantage is there's no flow so it's easier to get in the disadvantage is Boy if you get near the bottom that fine flarta Silt if you even look at it wrong That stuff silt out the whole cave which is part of your training right you can't you can easily get lost Well you silted out where you can't even see your computer. That's why it's so important to train Learn the five rules of cave diving which I know you did And never deviate from them. So yeah, you had quite an experience on learning there Then after going through all of that now you all know what what we're talking about because we're probably gonna refer to them again in a few minutes Then go ahead then we started our next. I think it was a ten or twelve day Journey. Yeah, so I got back on sunday you got back on sunday too from from that script to the keys And then on monday we were back in the classroom with with Megan and Dave doing their ccr training getting started On their path to becoming a tech diver specifically going the ccr route the re-breather route and this episode is about Going tech and you know eventually we're gonna get to talk about that But I wanted to give everyone kind of an update on what what we've been doing So so on monday I helped out you know we did the classroom training we set up their gear There's the re-breather Dave had a brand new one So that always takes like three hours to set everything up and make sure everything is good Very jealous of the new you know improved by the way The new one it's a kiss a spirit Yeah, and what we're talking about the new for those of you that are in the know The new kiss orca spirit is now set up in a way that they call it modular basically it Changed the position of the counter lungs a little bit So they mount in a way where the scrubbers can either be back-mounted or side mount mounted So in other words the new kiss orca spirit if you order the modular one easily Can be switched to a sidewinder. Yeah, so now you're kind of getting two re-breathes at once And for those of you that don't know the sidewinder means everything is side-mounted even the scrubbers on the back So you have nothing on your back, man Absolutely, it is in caves and it's exploded the sidewinder for cave dogs worldwide really yeah So anyway, we I got in the pool with them, you know, we did you know the exercises in the pool And then I only had Tuesday off which you know David Vigiano who has been in the show before he was then helping in the pool You know with them doing the the their confine water stuff then Wednesday we just headed out for 10 days That's right epic, you know training and diving Starting with you know the guys Megan and Dave finishing their their dives Which was Wednesday Thursday and Friday Friday ended with epic dives in West Palm Beach, right? Yeah, so the journey That's let them know what we're talking about the journey that track that I guess I've sort of set up And you guys came through that certification level with me and now they did as well And you but you guys were are pretty advanced and we're helping a great deal The normal track is we do confine water work first with academics for two days So pool yeah, then we got it got on the road and we traveled back to that high springs area It has some caverns blue grotto. Yeah, very conducive with decks Now that's their first open water dives they do about four open water dives in there So they're doing a lot of skills in there. Yeah, we've got us a great place for training good visibility No current always access to the surface. Yeah But it has to and you do have some exercises you have to complete as part of you know patty Tech 40 like the rescue and the There's just some things that trying to do it out in the open water drifting And all the agencies have these same skills They happen to be get they happen to have gotten certified under patty tech 40 CCR But they really mirrors what I and TD doesn't love the others TD. I yeah, so after The blue grotto now they're not certified yet, but they're They're now ready to experience South Florida drift diving Yeah, and South Florida drift diving meaning Fort Lauderdale West Palm is some pretty serious Drift diving like you can have high current But unbelievable marine life experience which is one of the reasons a lot of people want to go tech In particular why they may want to go close circuit re-breeder Because I mean we right away we saw bullsharks Remember they'll come right in area and they it's amazing they you're on the re-breeder They really will get closer. Yeah, but those first couple days because that's when that storm stuff was kind of coming in Some pretty high current so day one of those Two drift dives we had with pervita in west Palm incredible marine life encounters, but Pretty um, oh no, it actually it was pretty mild. Oh, yeah, like the the one day the first day was mild Yeah, when we went to governor's walk You know on that It's wrecked we always get blown out of that regularly you have to hang on for dear life this time around it was like no current I couldn't be row not I mean there was not even a barely any drift it was so weird can Amazing you could just sit there on the rex. Yes No current what's our it was actually weird to have to swim Governors walk rack off of west Palm Jupiter is like you drift four rex right or three or four rex in a row. Yeah Perfectly aligned from the south to north normal current Although the current it's mild as it was actually switch directions, which is very rare on south Florida to go from north to south So we actually had to swim to the next rack and yeah, but it was unbelievable pristine conditions It was awesome and then the next day they did their graduation Which doesn't basically know Very minimal skills right they have to further SMBI belief is the last thing because they do it in every dive, but A lot of the skills have been completed at that point. So it's just having fun That's right. So that was actually the same day they weren't they finished that on that same day because we did two dives Right, so that was the eight that they needed total So day one of the south Florida portion they're done with their certification now the next day Conditions started to change. Yeah, the current was absolutely back and you wouldn't think in 24 hours But in 24 hours in south Florida that can that's an attorney. It went from no current to Here comes the ripping current again Now what did we do though on that we switched back to open circuit? Why Gus? Why did we go back to open circuit? So as part of the trip that we plan you know three of us on the trip were open water divers or sorry open water instructors And we're trying to get our specialty You know instructor certification on wreck and deep. Yeah, so we had to go back in open circuit according to the standards from SSI to Completed our specialty instructor, you know certification Open water exercises part of it because there's a bunch of other things you have to complete But that's right. So you had to basically teach skills correct In south Florida drift diving deep and wreck and I think the learning lesson there was Wow open circuit you do not have a lot of time and you're experienced divers Right can you imagine taking the students down to have to do those skills and by the way those skills Involved tie-offs with lines involve firing surface signaling devices And you can see and that was what I was really trying to convey during that You don't have a lot of time like You have like 10 15 minutes max And you're watching these people at the same time. So it's pretty serious We happen we happen to be on the deep boat so the the place For what we need to do the racks and the the deep exercises that we did we we chose You know, we did at like 90 feet. Yeah, so it was like by the time we were at the boat and we were gonna start our exercises I looked at my thing and it was like 1800 psi. I'm like what is going on one two scale for like 10 minutes. That's that you know, it was uh, but imagine now but you look the CC artist like you do but As learning to be the instructor, I think the most important point was and I think you all three eyes opened up like That was amazing that we all got through that imagine now if you guys as the instructors. I had students right so it's it's really really Yeah, it's all learning for sure good learning on that then um After that we Yeah, we went to for our hoping hoping that we get to dive you know a little bit south, but You know after a day or two we just couldn't make it work. So we decided to weather weather blue end We blew up six to nine foot seas. So that was that we had a cancel then then we All migrated back up to high springs Florida Mm-hmm More training right and this time my cave training right Gus finished up his cave training. Yeah, then which was great by the way that that I did it in two parts Like I did the tech lied whatever the first part of it because it really helped me it was the first time I was diving twin Side-mounted LP85 which are humongous uh because my calvin training I just did it with a 40 cubic feet aluminum, you know, it's my bell out of that Planning in the cat and you're like you know what I'm gonna play it safe LP 85's massive right So the first part of it was just dealing with that like how to set it up correctly So I can reach my reels and all my things too. Yeah, so by the time we went back and finish cave like I already had it down at that point So it was a lot a lot easier. You looked great Yeah, we did a few dives on the caves get the cave certification and then we focus in nor moxic So then they became you and On david became nor moxic which basically means that they're now diving a try mix with healy And so that they are now able to dive to 200 feet. That's their new deployment. That's right But somebody else also was Right in a certification finally I got to train with you right because I was I was their nor moxic Instructor but I was learning to be an instructor in or moxic I'm already a ccr instructor, but that advanced me up to nor moxic So I I taught it with dog ever saw as my instructor trainer. Yeah, so it was a great experience for me as well I was fortunate to have as my two students Gus and david because they made my job very easy They knocked out all of the skills frankly. It was fun Very easily they did fantastic and it and that involved also though Classrooms for a few days each day a lot of presentation stuff that we went over and that's what we did And that's what we didn't for laundry all because the weather was incorporating so we're like okay. Let's just do all the classroom stuff To get vantage of that and a little bit of Doug's house because yeah, it's closer up And then that we finished the water portion of your nor moxic. Yep Then after that all the certification was done you guys are nor moxic certified everybody That was with us you david me and Doug were all cave certified. Yeah, then what did we do? Yeah, so one of the things that I've talked about and I think I don't know if I talked about it in the in the show where my wife asked me ones You know what where what is the best diving in the world like where is the one place everyone wants to go And I said well that depends on the diver like someone might think that the gray bearer reef in Australia is the the mecca of Of diving and somebody might think that you know the or iscany the USS or iscany is the place where they want to go Like it all depends on what you're trying to do for me I always thought that eagles nest in Florida as a cave diver is the mecca of diving That's where I like the black belt some people call it the black belt of cave guys called the the mount Everest of of of cave diving and so After we were all certified nor moxic and you know, we were all cave divers at that point as well certified Then Doug said well if we go and we don't go into the cave because the cave is pretty deep. I think it starts Like 200 over 200 feet yet 200 plus If we stay in the cavern and we don't go over 200 you're all certified cave divers You're all certified nor moxic divers We can do it safely like let's go and and do it and Doug has been there you had never been there David I never been there I've never been there Boy that was epic boy that thing is epic You know That is the way to start it we've never been there You guys are relatively new cave divers So I've got about I don't know 45 or so outside of training under my belt So we got to get a taste of it because the cavern zone there It's a massive cavern. Yeah, it's not a little cavern It's like you can't see the ends of it. It's like a yeah, you can fit to 747s and I mean it's Hugh mungus but but it makes you want to do the cave there eventually right but you can tell and we we got a lot of respect for it And Doug certainly told us look guys you need more experience before we go into the cave section there So we at least we got to do the cavern yeah Makes us want to go back and do more cave diving to get more experience before we would ever do the actual cave portion of Eagles nest. Yeah, it was it was a great taste for you know the Mount Everest of cave diving You know you get to see kind of the two passages in the distance You know as you shine your light and you you know who knows how far those go but yeah, man I am I real that's the new goal for me like I really want to go back there and do it for real It is challenging when you think about the deco though because deco as we know it's you know It you're just sitting there And there's not a whole lot to see when you're decoing at Eagles nest because you just have a tunnel that goes all the way Not even two people wise right And you know from from the math that we did if you are a depth like a 300 300 and 10 whatever feed is Eagles nest on the cave is for every minute you spend a that depth is five minutes of deco So just imagine just going in there for 10 20 minutes now you're looking at one hour two hours of deco It's just like a 200 feet. Yeah, now that is a perfect Entry into what is tech diving? Yes, let's get into really kind of just touched on it Yeah, so I want to know what's your definition of it And then I'll tell you what what I think it is because I remember I remember seeing this meme a long time ago in one of the scuba groups where somebody says I don't know if you've seen the Steven Chowder. I think this is name Memes where it says it ends with change my mind like you make a statement Then you say change my mind and the meme was you know tech diving is recreational diving change my mind or something like that It's like it's the same thing all all diving is recreational diving Unless it's commercial that's right. So that's the statement they were making But what what is tech diving for you? Well, you know I had a conversation about this at Dima with Georgia houseman It was actually one of the sessions that she gave at Dima What is tech diving and how do you get into it and what he asked me My opinion on some important points to talk about what I talked and the topic was how do we get more people into tech diving That's right. That was the topic interesting which sort of sets up what is tech diving? So what I said to her is I don't like the word To start with tech diving I Doesn't make sense to me technical diving all diving's technical what I would so the first thing that I told her and she loved This by the way and she used it throughout her session was Why what do we it's not technical diving all diving is technical It's diving For longer periods of time than the recreational level allows Such that you will exceed your no decompression limit Silence and the story you no longer When you are doing longer diving. I'm not even going to call tech diving you no longer are able To go directly to the surface without Ad compression stop. I'm not talking about your safety stop. I'm talking about other Stops meaning you got to stop at a particular depth and wait For your computer to say you can now go up to the next level And we don't have enough time in this show to talk about that topic in itself because there's so many decompression models And as you just learned in your no moxic training. Yep. You learned all about The buleman model which uses m values so you can set up different profiles everybody has different theories on it Which issues are you on gassing deep which ones are you off gassing? What's the right profile but the simplest way to understand it is You can't go to the surface if you do You could and probably will have decompression sickness Yeah outside of that There's not much more to define it the way you do longer diving than recreational diving which I know is known as tech diving Depends I mean you may be using Doubles right so one way is to do it on open circuit But you're carrying more gas one of those is known as doubles Which has an isolator so you learn all about do I use one tank at a time Both tanks at a time what happens if one tank runs out and the other one doesn't how do I air share when we're both on doubles This is all open circuit and then another path is the rebrear path two totally Completely different ways of diving longer than the recreational limits allow I do think just to complete my answer then I want to I certainly want to hear yours Sort of conclude with this I do think that It greatly enhances your understanding of Anything related to the science of diving Because the science of diving is really all about decompression models And what are the effects of pressure on your diving Well you get a taste of that as a recreational diver But we don't really push those limits Outside of your ability to go directly to the surface Once you get into this type of diving There's no room for error you must Know how to gas plan you must understand the effects of pressure on your tissues And dive your plan or you could suffer Decompression sickness or even death Finally It's expensive I'm just going to flat out say it when you go into this realm it takes more equipment because after all Teaching people to scuba dive I always tell people really means you're teaching people how to use equipment That allows you to breathe underwater That's what you're really teaching people in any dive class You're teaching them how to use a Gear to enable you to do that dive underwater You already know how to swim So this gear that we need to do this longer diving is just more expensive Especially when you get into re-breathers And there's more of it more more complicated It's more complicated But is it awesome? I Dream about it It's that awesome It is I literally am already craving our next Deco dive, decompression dive in our case it's on the kiss re-breathers So that's my answer And what's your answer? Yeah, I mean to me I just feel like the line between recreational and tech ends where In recreation all I always felt that You never really talk about or getting to what to do Like how do you control your own fate? You can always go up You know and Of course there are things you can do to mess yourself up Like if you hold your breath Going up from 60 feet or you know 30 meters or 20 meters or whatever And you hold your breath you're gonna blow your lungs up Like there are things that are still super dangerous If you if you don't follow you know the safety procedures But for the most part like I remember the nitrox class when I took nitrox Which is one of the first class most recreational diver's take It's sort of like there's an MOD don't go past that It's never really it doesn't really go into detail about why you should in or what happens if you like It's sort of like you just analyze your tank. It does a little a little it does it give you all about C and S oxygen toxic cells who why you're trying to To to to do that But he never gives you the option to do so here's here's how I see it on the rebrea There we have a tank that is 100% O2 Something that beyond 20 feet or six meters. It's highly toxic, right Like have a seizure and die toxic. Yep. We take that to 300 whatever feet we want Because we have just like a whale way beyond you know level of knowledge and training and capability That we know What to do with a 100% O2 tank at any depth yep, and we're able to control that and I feel like when you're in recreational diving There's a lot of it like we're not gonna allow you to do that. We you can't do that You know worse with technical diving you said you can absolutely do that But the way you do it safely is you have to do these 10 other things and carry these 10 other pieces of gear And this is when you use those gears and you have to be able to do it without being Without having the effects of Narcosis now I know you fell in love with a brand new gas and that's also a part of what we're gonna call tech diving Yes Helium helium is awesome awesome in terms of how you feel it was a helium penalty that you have to balance in terms of your Decompression so that's true you learn all about that now So now imagine you're learning about not only what you said perfectly like wow I've got to know how to manage just gases that we already use yeah, but now I'm bringing in a third gas helium Okay, so why is it awesome Gus? How are you in love with it now? Well, I just thought like when we were doing that dive a view for I believe or was it yeah, it was beautiful springs One of the places where we did it and And we had to do a bailout from 160 feet up right as part of the as part of the training We you switch to Trimax and he feels even though you're at 160 our mix felt like we were at 60. Yep, so you feel I'm Which is known as your e-n-d you're right, okay, equivalent. Yeah I call it your equivalent north North do you want to feel exactly you had a mix that you would only feel as dark as if you were on 60 feet on regular air 20 meters For those who know nothing from overseas. Yeah, so you're at 160 feet, which is whatever that is But I guess around 50 meters or so But making you feel like you're at 20 meters. So from 160 to 60 feet it was amazing So you feel amazing total clarity nothing perfect. Yeah, I know exactly what I'm doing Once we got to 70 feet with switch to our 50 50 tank. That means 50 percent 50 percent Air and 50 percent O2. Yeah, or 50 percent nitrogen. I guess and 50 percent O2 right 50 percent O2 50 percent nitrogen correct And and then we finished our deco and you know and that was that and yes Obviously you pay the penalty and helium is a little bit more expensive The penalty is that helium for those of you that don't know again way too long to discuss the death But what the helium penalty is in short is that it tends to dissolve into tissues quickly Right, but it comes out of tissues quickly. So you it bubbles fast. Yeah Those bubbles are absorbed pretty easily. So that's not such a big penalty But it can give you a little bit more deco time than if you were diving without it and that's a very argumentive Point that could bring up a lot of emails that you don't need to do that everybody I don't have time to get into the Real discussion of what helium penalty. I'm just trying to keep it simple Yeah, but you know try mix which is you know helium oxygen and nitrogen on your tank the combination of those three It's one of those things that is like this big question mark this big like Like oh, I wonder what what it is It's just like air but better. I mean, I don't know how to explain it But I remember I came out of that and I'm like why do we bother with air like it's just because it's more expensive It is mainly the reason and obviously you pay the penalty for helium, but You know when he comes to deco, but it's just so much better and that's why you see that it doesn't make you narc But what's really cool about this which gets into technical diving is When you are doing this nor moxic diving up to 200 feet. Yeah, you get a mix typically. Let's call it a 1640 that means for everybody listening because this is what is technical diving well Now you just lowered the oxygen percent to 16 percent because you wouldn't be able to breathe more than that Or your PO2 would be 2i and you could could volse right but it's but You can handle 16 percent oxygen up to 200 feet so that we lower the oxygen percent Because your body only cares about the partial pressure of oxygen And you bring in 40 percent helium which is reducing The nitrogen or reducing what the balance of nitrogen and oxygen are in that tank correct That does not have any narcotic defects That's why you're bringing helium in just so you feel not NART and then you're able to also lower your Oxygen percent so now you can dive deeper Completely safe. You're not going to be NART and you're not going to have a PO2 issue where your partial pressure of oxygen is too high Yeah, that's it in the simplest form I can explain on this show Yeah, so technical diving allows you to go beyond what are accepted recreational diving limits like standard is 130 One accepted is 130 feet or 40 meters you go beyond that You want to go beyond that you have to get into technical diving You want to go into caves for example where you have to take multiple you know Multiple equipment that you probably don't need an open water that is technical diving You want to dive for longer than you're not the compression limits For example if you dive down to 130 feet or 40 meters your NBL your know the compression limit time is five minutes That is your bottom time. Oh, but there's a cool record 130 feet or 40 meters And you want to check it out for 30 minutes not five minutes Well now you're getting into technical diving so essentially anything outside of the recreational diving Limits is what I call technical diving and what I wanted to do in this show is really spend the next 15 20 minutes Whatever talking about how can people get into technical diving if they look at the limits they have and they say look I want to dive I want to dive deeper than 40 meters. I want to dive longer than the whatever you know I'm doing right now If they're looking at that and they are thinking about You know, how do I get into this? Okay You mentioned doubles earlier. There's people they're getting to side mount I know side mount is becoming very very popular these days Well, you can do doubles on side mount. There's sort of two different things the doubles has to do with carrying more air The side mount has to do with I like them on my side because it gives me better trim But obviously you're also carrying more air like I know a guy that The that I used to dive with he dove you know, twin 120 steals High pressure steals side mount so he was like you know, we did three four dives You know an open circuit and he never switched tanks like there's no point why film like two 120 high pressure steals So he yeah, he was doing he was doing great Then the other thing is obviously re-breather's so here's the one thing I hear Um, I we've received several emails and thank you all of you who have reached out to us our email addresses info divetalkmedia.com we've received several emails of people saying you know You guys keep talking about re-breather's they sound awesome. You're super excited about it I mean I am to the point. I'll admit it I don't want to dive open circuit unless I'm teaching like I still want to teach people how to dive safely And I'll you know, I'll make the sacrifice You know diving open circuit spoil you that way yeah incredible It will spoil you so if we are at that level where where you know any Fund diving that we do we want it to be in re-breather on a re-breather You know, there's people asking you know, can you do an episode about re-breather's the answer is yes We will be doing an episode about re-breather's coming up very soon with Georgia house or men with Georgia house or man who's what do you know her roll a patty Is she the director of education or how she is their head of technical dive consulting She is an examiner and she's a course director and I think she teaches I don't want to misquote either on six or seven Different re-breather's yeah, so she's way better than us. You know how much training you had just a for one Yeah, she could teach on Seven and she's an instructor trainer on most of those as well. So you're talking about Am I allowed to say badass on this show? Absolutely she's incredible So so we're gonna have her join us and talk about re-breather's and re-breather dive them because there's several of them There are different you know electronics manuals semi-close fully close Re-breather's so we'll tackle all of that the safety aspect of it agencies where to go training all that stuff But for this one is you know people also ask how do I get into technical diving and when he comes to re-breather's Should I go open circuit technical first get a bunch of experience with that before I go into close circuit re-breather's Some people believe the closer could re-breather's is something that you can't just do from just regular open water recreation Not one of those people yeah, sure So I want to talk about those myths or statements I guess that people make about when is there right time to learn re-breather's I think we both think the same thing which is anytime. I think it's anytime. Yeah, because it's a completely different way of diving You're learning how to dive again, and I mean we saw it with with Megan and Dave We saw it with me when you go through training. You're a pretty good diver already, and then you get on a re-breather Then you're all over the place your brand new diver, but but but the myth that I want to take away is look Re-breather's now are incredible. We have technology now that even 10 years ago didn't exist So for those of you out there that say oh my goodness re-breather's super dangerous. I think that's old news Okay, they are very very safe as compared to years ago The computers the redundancy built into them the type of breathing systems they now have Have unbelievably improved to allow us to do these Very deep dives for a very long time while not having to really carry nearly as much gas because we're mostly close circuit We're re-breathing our own air and when we exhale It goes in discrubers that removes the carbon dioxide and brings back Clean air again pretty awesome. Yeah, it is okay So I think the training now is also greatly improved compared to where it used to be It's a very logical path that progresses like all classes from Very easy skills and it can find water environment up through the open water I don't want people to think this is just way beyond my level and so super technical. I can't do it That's just not true anymore and there you can read the ratings on for example the kiss systems that we use Unbelievable safety ratings for sure because the training and technology has so greatly improved Yeah, however, there's always a however I Don't think you can get into re-breather diving for and I want you to just Plan on this for less than a 10 to $12,000 range on the low side on the absolute low side So you need to be prepared by the time you get your certification Get the re-breather that you want the computers that go along with it Tanks that go along with it you're really probably closer to 12 grand I'm generalizing because some go up as high as 25,000 dollars depending on the model of the one yet And then that's a whole conversation that we're gonna have with Georgia house them in why one model versus the other Why are some this price and others that price because there's a lot of discussion just on that for sure But this is answering your question. I I think if you've done some Recreational diving and you are at least a rescue diver This is Woody's opinion and some other some other dive agencies opinions I would like you to be a rescue diver and because that made you think a little bit outside of your taking care of yourself You'd be you've been educated on and not just take care of yourself when you're diving but also take care of others I think you're ready To jump into re-breather diving and And you'll I haven't met anybody yet that's gone through that training with me that hasn't Fallen in love with it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't I don't think that if you're a brand new open water You know diver you're ready to go re-breather. I mean you need you need some some practice But I don't think you need to go tech open circuit first before you have to go re-breather open circuit Whatever re-breather tech good 50 dives and maybe your rescue diver Yeah, that feels like the right spot and many agencies Happened to have that as their requirement as well Plus I feel like around 50 dives or over 50 dives you start getting like good at it good good at diving enough So you can get humbled doing the training you know for the re-breather We can just smack you back a little bit at zero But it's one of those things that's it's a it's a steep If you will it's a steep curve sure the first one or two dives Wow, wow, but then all the sudden it just clicks in your place We saw that recently with one of our students right the first couple were Tricky for but then all the sudden it was like a new person no and all is amazing all of us go through that I was taking to the vagina who was certified before me and he was like I remember my first time when I was thinking is like man what a waste of money. I just I just threw away all this money Of this dreamie that I'm never gonna learn how to do this right and then the next day You're just immediately better. It's just clicks the light bulb goes on your it's like riding a bike You sort of get it just all starts to click and then you really finally get to enjoy the re-breather Where it hums which is at about 90 or 100 feet no instructors throwing skills at you anymore And frankly it's super quiet and you're just sitting there your PO2 is just perfect Doesn't look like your buoyancy is perfect And there's this total silence and you look down and you're total time to surface you have all the time in the world That's when all of you guys were like this is awesome Yeah, exactly but you gotta be patient through the training You gotta let yourself be patient and I promise you as I've told everybody that I've trained Your aha moment is going to come just wait funny moment from the West Palm Beach dives You know we all come in the boat and you know the pure view of us a great job They have like you know soft drinks and snacks or whatever So we're on the surface interval that we have to do because we have open circuit divers on the boat You know the everyone is talking about it's like how much hair do you come up with like I have 500 I had 600 I think they're talking about oh man 480 something like they're talking about and then they asked me like they For God that I was doing a re-breather and he's like so how about you how much hair do you have and I'm like 2900 Right Yeah, yeah, you only you only used part of your air for inflation. Yeah, right on your BCD That's about it. So you started a 3000. Yeah, you had a solid 90 foot dive for a 100 PSI Yeah, all right. That's how awesome it is. It really is 2900. Yeah, I'm not switching anything So that was great. So yeah, I think that I don't think there's a need for for people to to getting to like if you I think they've already a tech diver in open circuit a lot of the concepts that you're gonna learn tech diving CCR will be good Yeah But I think you can extrapolate that to to cave diving like if you're an open circuit cave diver And now you're going to become a CCR cave diver I mean a lot of the loss line procedures All of that Five rules of cave diving for sure apply so so it is beneficial But I don't think you have to do it first. I for one refuse to go in a cave on open circuit I'll only do it on re-breeder. I think it's way way safer. Yeah, you get you have so much more time To handle a problem on a re-breeder if you're in a cave for sure way way more time Yeah, even in total failure of the re-breeder like somehow it just blows up Like the story you were telling me when the guy jumped in and scrooze rain on you I'm not gonna mention the name of that brand, but all of a sudden I'm looking down and I see the metal screws raining down I'm like I thought it was mine, but sure enough he was on the boat with his re-breeder in pieces demolished Just from the entry well if that ever happens in a cave The gas that you have you haven't been breathing on to that point you just have it to exit That's why you carry a ridiculous amount on top of that and we have each other I believe I don't I'm not a big on solo diving I'm some are and that they train we all are certified to do that But I don't do that. I won't cave dive that way at all. I watch one each other Yeah, so so it's interesting when we talk to people that believe like re-breeders are super dangerous And for me is like the up like there are things that I do on re-breeders that there's no way I do an open circuit Like that's how comfortable yeah, I am with it like I think open circuit is dangerous for some of the diving that we do When he comes to you know when he comes to going into case stuff like that Open circuit diving as compared to re-breeder diving in any diving is It's more dangerous, but you've got to be Taught and train and get comfortable on the re-breeder to get to that moment where you actually go to the other side We're we're talking right now like what re-breeders are Better for you. Yes and safer than open circuit diving when he comes to Technical diving and technical dive training. There are several agencies out there that have you know Training available for that even patty a lot of us start getting certified as Patty's ssi ssi ssi has extended range Certifications as well I am td TDI STT. I mean there's so many of them There are so many agencies that have technical dive training But to me to be honest with me it boils on and we talked about this on episode one when we talked about agencies It boils down to the instructor I think so you know if you have the right instructor the agency doesn't really matter that much. I think I totally agree Yeah Absolutely, because they all really are if you if you compare them side-by-side these skills They're the same skills. They all have the exact same skills some some agencies will have like different requirements Like somebody will require that you have I don't know 50 hours of diving on your re-breeders before they even train you and some other one We'll say you need to have a hundred so depending on the agency the the bar of entry, you know might be higher or lower and re-breeder Configuration on some of the agencies is different some absolutely require a heads-up display Some require that you have a bailout valve where you never have to remove the mouthpiece from your mouth to get on to open circuit and some don't Require those things so that for sure that can be slightly different based on different agencies for sure Yeah, so I think that you know for those of you listening and thinking about like oh I really want to get into this tech diving thing. I think focus more on The shop and the instructor that you're gonna have have someone who has credibility You know talk to them talked about their experience And maybe that they can dive with after they're done training. It's nice to Train with an instructor that frankly you can continue the voyage with that you could get to the next level with nor moxic diving But even more importantly than that you're gonna bond when you go through that together and you're gonna want to dive together for so you know That maybe locally somebody who you if you could dive with it and train with an instructor that's local to you So that you can share the journey together after that that that that that I think that's important. Yeah for sure You just have to be careful though like depending on your instructor because you can get expensive If you know if your instructor brings let's say a dpv or a scooter into One of your dives and says oh you know you want to I just got to repair you should go ahead and test it And then we proceed to tested and now we just proceeded to order $7,000 later where we wanted the best not just a dpv But we got we got expensive trip Randy Thornton's Subgravity subgravity are as dpv I'm looking forward to that that thing is amazing. Yeah, so me and Woody order dpv's right after testing Dogs dpv for like five minutes. It's we're like this is what I do in my life. I don't want to swim ever Well, I'm not where you are on that. I still enjoy the swimming part as well But let's say for example, we want to explore the arriscony. Yes. I mean Typically has high current and you can't see much of it if you're swimming How about on that dpv where you're just able to motor from one side of the flight deck to the other. It's awesome Right, it's awesome. So you're not necessarily deeper But you're just covering more ground. Boy, it's amazing for that But talk about technical diving like when we were looking at the skills that we're gonna have to do in our class Because me and we were taking the the class at the same time with my brissa Accurate from hidden worlds. Yeah, that's right springs flora. Yeah, CCR dpv diverse right Ks diver's cave divers. Yeah So but the skills were something like was like We'll be no no visibility yet no visibility. So ice closed black mass whatever out of air dpv's broken Get out of the cave and tell each other Like ones okay ones. I mean no, it's this and all of that by the way Why you're not silting out the bottom of the cave so work you and me will be humbled Which is great. It's a three day all day course and I know marissa's incredible the dpv's are like 20 kilograms 20 42 pounds They're humongous, but they're neutral under water. I know if once weighted properly You can wait them for fresh or salt water. Yeah, right. That's part of what we're gonna learn. Yeah, but um How about when you're first? Oh just gearing up the first moment where you got all that in the water Hooking up all your stuff now hook up that 42 pound bad boy and Hit the road, right? But we're gonna we're gonna Train properly and that's the message that every one of these Cool things that you add is just how I started this show you're learning how to use a piece of equipment Because think about a dpv in a cave that can get you really far back in that cave But that could be dangerous, right? What if it breaks and now you got to bail out? You may have gone Beyond your gas planning. So you got to really learn what to do in these things. Yeah for sure. I can't wait for sure Yeah, I'm super excited about that. I you know again. I think that When he comes to yeah when he comes to diving You know, there's always a next level there's always something else or so. He never ends like I want to learn how to ice dive You just go to you know on their eyes. I want to believe we're gonna learn that you know what I'm saying like there's always something There's always more more things to do and I'm you know, hopefully the people listening to this show Get excited about it too and get pumped up. I got you excited. Yeah, I'm never talking about it You know we you know we wish this tpv train was around the corner. I wish it was tomorrow. I mean anyway Um, thank you everyone for tuning in hopefully we uh answer some questions about technical diving how to get into him Again, I think that the next episode which will be about re-breathers will be We'll be able to answer a lot of those questions for those of you thinking about it You know, it's a little bit expensive when it comes to getting into it But I I guarantee a lot of people listening to this show if you can add how much you've paid over the years for all your open circuit stuff It's probably gonna be about where you you know, you would pay for a re-breather Um, at least for me it was. I mean I had so much stuff and You know, I personally love it. So hopefully we answer some questions and You know help people kind of make a decision and and decide You know, whether this is for them or not if you are super happy by the way one of Really good friend, which was one of the main reasons why I started diving I remember when I went through my open water training She was going through her advanced open water training even though she had been diving for like six years or something And she is perfectly happy with recreational diving like she's like I want to go down with water that is just super warm You know, just looking at pretty fish around like yeah, you know, whatever 20 meters 60 feet like that's all I want to do I don't want to do anything else. There's a lot of people like that Out there and there's nothing wrong with that But if you're not like those people if you want to you know dive longer deeper into places that you can't just do with a regular open circuit Hopefully we you know, we point you in the right direction and email us by the way if you have questions more specific like What exactly would I need to do to enroll in a class how long should I expect to be in the class What's the requirements and specifically on a particular rebreeding? I'm happy to answer We can get answers for that for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Would he a glad to be back Thank you see if we can get the next one in two weeks to everyone of course and yeah Thank you everyone who reach out asking yeah, where's the next episode like I listen to you guys also I love learning from you. Where is it what are you guys doing? So here it is, you know next episode. We'll see you guys in two weeks. Bye everybody