Technical diving refresher
Technical diving refresher
Sometimes it can be difficult to find the time to dive. Before you know it, months have gone by and you’ll be rusty when you next get in the water. Most technical divers are good at recognising this and are rightly cautious to go decompression diving after a long time out of the water, because the consequences can be very serious if things are missed. There is no such thing as a formal technical diving refresher course. Yet, you can usually arrange to go out with an instructor to practice your skills.
Most instructors would be happy to take you fun diving whilst offering a bit of informal coaching. If you think back to all the things you learned during your course- theory, dive planning, equipment, skills, how long it’s been since you last did a tech dive will determine whether you do a few warm up dives or need to retake a full course.
The most important thing is that you recognise your own limits, and don’t simply assume it will all come back to you on a dive. If you really don’t want to obtain the services of an instructor, then at the very least you should do some shallow dives in very forgiving conditions, with a buddy who is not rusty and is at least at the same level of certification as you.
Skills practice
In this clip from my YouTube channel, Oliver has just completed staging and retrieving the left cylinder in sidemount. He didn’t remove the long hose before putting the short hose around his neck. This is not normally a problem, as you wouldn’t normally stage or retrieve the left cylinder during a dive. However, it can be common to forget to attach the LPI, and then attach it over the long hose once in the water. So, whether it’s the LPI or the short hose that’s inhibiting proper deployment of the long hose, it’s a problem if a diver needs to share your gas.
The best way to get the point across was to allow him to complete the left cylinder retrieval, and then show him how that causes problems when I am suddenly, as if by magic, out of gas.
Contact me if you have any questions about refreshing your tech diving skills.
