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Richard Pyle wrote >Skin Diver Magazine, I suspect. Oh, I totally forgot about this piece of ?!)!@(*&%! I haven't looked at it in quite some time. >So...what are you saying?!?! .... That viewing the fishies isn't a >legitimate purpose for tek diving?!?!? ;-> (Obligatory response from a >tek-diving Ichthyologist). Well, there's viewing fishes and there's VIEWING fishes, eh? Hehe... Good one, Rich! I guess (being so closely tied to my computer) that I focused in too closely on the area of exposure that I have every day and forgot about the dive shop sentiment/etc - go ahead - flame me - I deserve it :^) As I already sent privately to someone else (none of his private email is included, just my reponse which is good for all to see)... As far as the local dive shops go, here is what I've observed. a) only a few (two) of the local dive shops have technical classes and these are also the only two that offer Nitrox fills... None of the local shops (as of last time I checked) offer mix classes, although there is local knowledge on where to get fills but we do not pass it around easily. Being an EMT, getting O2 is very easy, but there *are* shops that fill O2 tanks without question as well... b) the other dive shops almost unanimously talk bad about these shops and technical diving. I think this is much more of a sour grapes attitude because these other shops will draw customers that are interested in technical diving even if they aren't tech divers themselves so this will eventually force other shops to either upgrade their own programs or face a possible erosion of the customer base and in severe instances, face going out of business. c) some of their concern is justified because with a nitrox fill station just down the street, they must be worried about that shop doing proper fills... For example, if someone mistakenly (or on purpose!) fills a non-nitrox bottle with nitrox, say Nitrox II (EAN36), it gets breathed down halfway and then the bottle is filled at another shop, there is now a 28.5% O2 mix in a non-nitrox bottle... Stupid things like this will happen, which is why developing a standard, like the reverse DIN thread) for nitrox would be a good thing, but it screws all the people that currently have Nitrox tanks (me included). d) also, a *great* deal of the diving around here can be done within recreational limits so the market isn't really here for the heavy duty tech stuff. Some of the more interesting wrecks (especially off of Rhode Island) are deeper (down to the 160-170' range) than rec limits and so planned deco dives must be done. It's hard to find a charter to take you to some of these places (but not impossible). -Carl-
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