TDI Intro to Tech course
Technical diving has been seen in a mysterious light for many years, with participants being secretive about their actions and often showing unhealthy affection for their gear, of which there is always a lot.
To get into technical diving, previously you needed to know what you wanted to do and you had to make a huge decision right from the beginning. The step from sport diver to tech diver was a huge one, with a huge cost and learning curve to climb. Some of us were lucky and could ask for guidance from friends and club mates, some were less lucky and were given far from balanced advice.
TDI, the worlds leading Technical Diving Training agency has recently announced a new course in their range; the Intro to Tech course. When I heard about this course, I first of all thought back to when I started tech diving and how this course would have helped me. My introduction to technical diving was a disaster! I managed to borrow a homemade harness and plate from an old mate, I strapped a couple of 12 litre steels together and borrowed an old Poseidon Jetsream regulator for the left side. The harness had no clips, no d-rings, just one piece of car seat belt, threaded through a sheet of stainless steel, fastened together with a plastic weight belt buckle. I was doing my first “twins” dive with a couple of more experienced divers from my dive club in the UK. I was told I wouldn’t need any weight with twins so ditched the belt. Had no-where to stash reel and smb so left them min the car with my torches. The dive was certainly eventful. After the dive, I started to think about what could have gone wrong, it dawned on me that I was lucky to finish the dive safely.
With the above experiences well and truly behind me, I can honestly say the Intro to Tech course is a fantastic idea for anyone interested in extending their dive training.We cover details such as equipment configuration for twins, how twins work, in water buoyancy skills plus more advanced dive planning considerations such as gas management as well as using tables and com puts to efficiently plan a dive.
The course is an ideal way to determine whether you wish to extend your diving beyond Sport diving, or simply to improve your skills.
The course is run over two evenings and one weekend. Self study is completed before the first class session, followed by a pool session where we practice the in water skills. The final Open Water dives are then completed on the weekend.
If you are interested in completing your Intro to Tech course, contact Andrew or Tom on 09 9205200 or email Andrew@globaldive.net
