If you have been to a dive center that offers technical diving, you have probably seen them. “Tech” divers will be huddled in the corner of the center surrounded by mountains of equipment as they busily scurry around labeling, checking, and sitting at laptops, planning their next deep sea diving adventure.
Deciding whether you want to bother with all the efforts that technical diving involves is ultimately up to you. However, if you are happy and satisfied grabbing a single tank, your Underwater iPhone case, mask, and fins and just dipping in for a quick dive, that is awesome too. Bear in mind these words are coming from a formerly hard-core technical instructor trainer, who now prefers nothing better than pottering around in the shallows with a camera!
What is Technical Diving?
Technical diving is simply defined as across-the-board diving beyond recreational diving limits. Take a look at your recreational dive table; most of them only contain information about depths to 42m/~137ft. Clearly, the sea is deeper than that, so what happens if you want to dive to 50m/~164ft to look at something you saw on a recreational 40m/130ft dive? Then you are getting into the realms of technical diving since decompression will be involved.
Deep Sea diving is not the only source of technical diving. In fact, you can be shallow and still need full technical training. Time is a big factor when it comes to technical diving. Take, for instance, the PADI recreational dive planner RDP, your No Decompression Limit at 18m/60ft is 56/55 minutes depending on the metric or imperial version. So what happens once you are experienced and want to stay beyond the NDL at 18m/60ft? Say to explore a large coral pinnacle or wreck. Again, you’re going into decompression and are therefore diving beyond the limits and need technical training.
Decompression is not the only thing that defines technical diving. Gas management due to an overhead environment is also a factor. Imagine if you will a very shallow long cave or wreck (less than 8m/24ft/ deep- these do exist and are quite dangerous due to the illusion of security). Decompression is almost never a factor in exploring this type of site since you are not deep enough to rack up any deco obligations. However, gas planning is crucial to surviving these dives since you can literally be hundreds of meters/thousands of feet from the exit. Therefore you need technical training to plan and ensure you have enough gas and redundancy to get you out of the situation in an emergency!
Different Types of Technical Dive Training
Technical dive training breaks down broadly into three categories—depth/breathing gas, breathing mechanism, and the environment.
Depth/Breathing Gas
The first-way technical diving tends to be broken down is via breathing mixture, which roughly translates to the depth of the dives you are certified to do. The first step into technical diving involves enhancing your nitrox knowledge. Recreational Nitorx divers are certified to use Nitrox with up to 40% oxygen. As a rule of thumb, entry-level technical courses train divers to use Nitrox up to 100% without any significant increase in the depth of their certification.
The second step involves learning to push your depth limits and perform more advanced decompression dives. These include using the Nitox mixes you learned to use earlier to accelerate the decompression obligation. However, this may not be a single course, and the step may be broken down into 2 or 3 courses, depending on the training agency. You generally end up being able to conduct decompression dives with air as a bottom mix to around 50m/164ft or using normoxic trimix to a depth of 60m/196ft. A normoxic trimix mixture is a mix containing Helium, Oxygen, and Nitrogen that you can safely breathe at 1 atmosphere (as a rule of thumb, mixes must contain at least 18% oxygen).
The final step is learning how to use Hypoxic trimix mixtures to depths of around 90m/100m/ ~295ft/330ft. This is the pinnacle of deep trimix diving, and while you end up with a certificate with a depth limit on it, it is an open-limit certificate for all practical intentions. As your experience builds and you gain more knowledge, confidence, and practice, you can learn to push deeper and deeper without the need for further formalized training.
Breathing Mechanism
All scuba diving is split into 2 breathing mechanism categories, open circuit and closed circuit. The principles of diving are the same, and all that you learn to practice using different breathing mixes applies whether you are using an open circuit, or a closed circuit rebreather. After all, decompression and the rules of physiology do not change.
The key difference is learning to use the individual rebreather unit. Learning to dive the open circuit system is a must for all divers, even rebreather divers. Since the ultimate get-out-of-jail card for rebreathers is to bailout to an open circuit dive. Needless to say, divers who only dive open circuits do not need to learn anything about rebreathers.
One thing to keep in mind is that rebreather training is unit specific; you are only trained to use a particular type of unit. Rebreather training modules break down roughly like the breathing mixture modules mentioned above. However, you must complete a specific number of hours on the unit before you are eligible to undertake the next course module.
Open Water vs. Overhead Environment
Finally, technical diving is broken down by whether you are diving in an overhead environment or not! While all technical diving is designed for open water conditions where you have direct access to the surface, it does not qualify you to venture deep into wrecks or caves.
Divers wanting to explore wrecks or caves, which will cut off their direct access to the surface, need significantly more training. This is due to the massively increased risks stemming from diving in an overhead environment that also has the potential to be extremely dark due to a light failure!
In the industry, most overhead diving courses are broken down into 2 or 3 levels, for instance, Cavern Diver, Intro to Cave, and Full Cave. Incidentally, becoming a cave instructor is the hardest certification to achieve in the industry due to the extreme risks and responsibility involved!
Is Technical Diving for You?
The simple answer is yes! Almost every diver will benefit from some level of technical training. For sure not every diver is cut out to be at the extreme end of technical diving. After conducting cave penetrations for thousands of meters/yards using dual rebreathers, diver propulsion vehicles at great depths is not for everyone. You truly have to be bitten by the exploration bug to get involved in that kind of diving.
However, learning some of the basics of technical diving, including using Nitrox up to 100% and planning slightly more advanced dives, will benefit every single diver. Additional knowledge and experience will go a long way to making you a better, more accomplished, and safer diver.
Think of technical diving as a delicious buffet, if you will. You can take as little or as much from it as you want. The one thing that is constant is that, in all cases, what you take will be delicious!
Questions You should ask yourself Before Starting Technical Diving
If you are thinking about taking up technical diving, there are a few questions you should ask yourself before doing so.
Are You Completely Comfortable in the Water?
The answer has to be yes before you even consider technical diving. There is no room for pushing limits if you are not completely comfortable with the basics. For the purposes of the question, “completely comfortable” does not just mean happy to dive. But also, are you happy operating with a flooded/no mask? Can you happily sit underwater, eyes open, with no mask on? Are you happy with your regulator out of your mouth, or do you panic? You need to be very comfortable with no mask and no regulator since they are key components of technical diving skills.
Do You Have Perfect Buoyancy?
As a general rule, task loading does not improve performance. Unless you already have near-perfect buoyancy that you can achieve without much thought, adding a load of new kit and tanks will make your buoyancy worse instead of better. If you really want to “go tec” but have not perfected buoyancy yet, take your time, practice, and perfect your buoyancy before embarking on technical deep-sea diving. It will make your life much easier in the long run.
Do you Understand the Risks Involved?
One thing to keep in mind is that technical diving is inherently riskier than recreational diving. Sure, accidents are still low, but even minor mishaps during technical dives can be much more serious with farther-reaching consequences. Talk to experienced technical divers, and ensure you understand the risks and rewards of technical diving before embarking on your journey!
Why Do You Want to Learn to Tec Dive?
If the answer to this question is to increase your knowledge, learn to be a better diver, and explore new dive sites and destinations, then technical diving is for you. If the answer is that it looks cool, then technical diving is not for you. Having the proper motivation and being humble about the water is a mindset every technical diver needs. There is no room in technical diving for bravado and machismo!
Final Thoughts
If you are passionate about diving and want the skills and training to learn to explore more, dive safer, and be a better diver, then there is scope in your journey for technical diving. Think of technical diving as an advanced driving course. On the one hand, once you have your driving license, you go on the rest of your life happily driving in a safe manner. On the other hand, an advanced driving course, while not necessary, will give you additional skills like dealing with skids or adverse conditions that will make you a better, more competent driver in the long run.
Ultimately some technical training will benefit every recreational diver. How much depends on the divers and their goals and objectives!
