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Bingo-I have also taken various courses and spread them out over time and different instructors. This allowed me to see what aspect I would enjoy most of all. As a result, I have very little boat diving experience Yet when I was in Washington D.C. last month I had a chance to dive on a wreck that was in 160 fsw and three hours offshore. Now, I know the there are stages to the developement of a good diver, but the rigs and equipment that I saw on that boat were quite odd and almost scary.(about twenty divers) By the time I heard that we were getting close I began to get ready and watch the others for the protocol to getting in, I did not want to look like a know-it-all because I do not,when it comes to boat diving. I was with a friend that lives in Virginia and dives with these boatpeople often, as it turned out I was first to be ready and first in the water after the guy that hooked into the wreck. I got in- hung my deco bottle and waited for the others. It took half an hour to get the rest of the divers in the water and they looked like flounders. Afterwards, the divers were coming back up the line like they were holding on to a loose fire hose-up and down-up and down-on the deco bar, I sat ten feet away at 20fsw just staring at the show, these divers looked like flags dangling in the wind. The current was actually not that bad, as I just slightly finned against it to maintain my position. There were a couple of exceptions, like my friend and another women who had a perfect horizontal position with almost no motion at all. The point to all this is that -I- a person with almost no boat diving experience(only O.W. class and two visits to the keys to snag bugs) had nearly no difficulty with the basics of diving at that level. The others seemed to go every weekend to do these types of dives and were stressed beyond comfort. The biggest diffference seemed to be the gear and instruction. Not everybody can go to the same instructor but we all can learn to rig properly. And I can only speak from my experience, so I say let the masses know how to "do it right" and watch their enjoyment and safety levels increase dramatically. Maybe if the certification agencies would acknowledge the advances in technique that the extremists of the sport have developed then accidents would happen less often and their liability cost would come down. These are just my observations.-EZ BTW-that woman on the boat ended up being Dawn Salvan, and she had been trained in cave diving. ...coincidence........I don't think so. > >Because many of the people reading techdiver aren't cave divers, and have > >never taken a basic cave course, and many actually have little desire to > >do so even if it was offered in their area. > > This is sad... I took various technical diving courses. Absolutely no course > gave me as much knowledge and experience per dollar invested than my cave > diving course. Simply, no wreck diving or deep diving course can give you as > much bottom time and put you in as many situations. I recommend cave diving > training to anyone pursuing more advanced diving. > Michel Therrien
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