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This is the whole fucking ball of wax in a nutshell! The only thing I would add
is to take it slow (caves, wrecks, and reefs take a very long time to change)
and dive until you are a shriveled prune at each level so that it is second
nature before moving on ("levels" do not coincide with certification levels,
they are personal levels). You have to "do it" over and over, before you can "be
it".
- Tony -
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: My Opinion, My Answers
Author: G.Irvine@m2*.in*.co* at ~INTERNET
Date: 6/21/96 8:13 AM
I do not like the present certifications system, but I realy do not have
a quick and easy answer for a substitute. I can not even remember how I figured
it out when I did, but it seemed easy at the time, so let's look at where I
think you can get some value.
READ: The Physiology and Medicine of Diving (Bennett and Elliot)
Decompression, Decompression Sickness (Bulhmann)
BUY: One copy DECOM from Ronnie Bell $69 (decompression and mixing
software, and obtain a copy of WKPP gas guidelines, and bottle
marking guidelines
BUY: A high pressure whip and fill teminus from Sherwood
GO TO: your welding supply store and get all of the other fittings for
oxygen and helium, what ever you want to build up. One of each
is sufficient, and you can attact one to the other to use one
whip line. I use a 19 bottle bank system, but then this is the
only diving I do any more, and I am a psycho
PICK UP: or have delivered the gas you need. Oxygen is about $25 for
each 330 cu ft bottle, helium about $55 for each 290 cu ft
bottle
You will need gas to dive gas, and buying it from a dive shop is
prohibitive. In Lauderdale, it is not so bad, as you have Jim Mimms and Joe
Lavotti at Ocean Dving who pump it, Peter Schults at American, Brownies Third
Lung (in cracktown, so you can get a fill, a hooker , and a buzz all at once),
and Underseas Sports (Matt Stout) who has Nitrox at a good price and is a nice,
non-officious type guy.
Some dive shops won't fill on top of O2, so you may have to buy their
nitrox and blow on the helium. Anybody who won't take a single nitrox card
should be avoided. I have an ANDI card, which I got before the other two
existed, so if they don't take that, they can blow me, or show me their log
book. Deans in Key West takes the log book , as he has been doing this since
long before ther was anything but "Sheck Exley" cards, and "Bill Deans" cards.
Mimms knows we have all been doing this since before it had a name.
The real reson to take courses is to get a shot to dive with good
divers (supposedly the intstructors). Avaoid dopes, and avoid instructors who
let you do whatever you want. Get guys like Jablonski, who are meticiulous about
doing it right, will tell you if you should not be doing this, and who wil not
certify you until you are ready, and can complete his course.
Avoid the agencies that make you take fifty courses for one result.
Remember, there are three of them, and they will have to get smart if we make
them. Tony Satterfield has beefed up ANDI quite a bit, and TDI no longer
requires the hoopery that IANTD does (mulitmple deep air and nitrox crap)
but they have not clue aws to the correct PPO2's and so forth. Use WKPP
guidelines for these things.
We train and certify our own divers, but we also have instructors who
can certify for any of the agencies. Exley used to certify us, now Jablonski ,
Berman , Trout, or any of the others can. However, we obviously do not need it.
Avoid gear sellers, and trainers who recommend "dedicated" equipment
- this is unnecessary. Go with the most simple stuff, as can be viewed and
ciopied from the video, "Doing IT Right", by WKPP. Rig your gear and your stages
this way, spend no money until you see this video. Let me tell you this: my
former diver partner, now retired from cave diving, Bill Gavin, had no more than
$2,000 in his entire rig, including scooter , light, many regs and tanks, etc.
He had a small compressor and a small haskel, but hen he had his own machine
shop and the NAVY EDU to work out of. If we copy him, and he was the best in the
business, we can save a lot of money and do anything. Scooter still will cost
some money, but the rest can be done for peanuts.
Spend you money diving and having fun, and let's make these agencies
conform to what we want, and make them train you so that you can do what the
pros do, not so we have to read about clusterfucks on here. - G
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