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Look, Eric, Hal Watts has me extremely worried right now. I met his daughter at at trade show recently, and later found out she is deep air diving, or so they say. There are two possibilities here: eihter Hal is running a "Flying Wolendas" act and it is all hype, and he gets $1,000 a pop to tell people not to deep air dive ( vs the fifteen bucks the Slob gets to encourage stupidity), or his daugher is going to get killed this will really be a sad one, indicating that he does not know any better. In either case, I am concerned about this. When I heard of her air act, all I cound think of was seeing Nick Commoglio for the last time on the boat. Enough is enough. Erik Schmidt wrote: > > john.r.strohm@BI*.co* wrote: > > >This may be a bit off the usual (war) subject of this > forum... But... > > > >The opinion about deep air is obvious, but what is the > opinion of Hal > >Watts and PSA? > >I never hear him mentioned. > > Erik, I got to meet Hal Watts earlier this year. He was > exhibiting at a > dive and travel show here in Dallas, trying to sign up deep > air students. > He basically freaked when I mentioned that I have asthma. > He completely > freaked when I explained that I also have approval to dive > from both my > primary care guy (who incidentally is also a diver) AND from > my pulmonary > specialist. He just plain couldn't seem to deal with the > concept of an > asthmatic diver. It became real clear that he wasn't going > to try to > solicit me as a student. (On the other hand, I am not about > to sign up for > a Deep Air class any time in the forseeable future.) > > Later, I got to sit in on a conversation between Hal and > Jonathan Lesh > (Diver's Outpost, I think, occasionally referred to as > "Strokepost" by > certain of our more vocal inhabitants). Something I > noticed: Hal seemed > to have a LOT of respect for George Irvine, and was treating > it as a > sincere difference of opinion. Jonathan didn't like George, > at all. (On > the other hand, I'd started looking for a way to terminate > the conversation > the moment Jonathan told me his chief instructor was Bill > Rennaker. So I'm > prejudiced in favor of George and the WKPP and so on. So > sue me.) > > George wrote recently that Hal had once told him privately > that what he > really did was teach people that NO ONE could dive deep on > air and pull it > off, but he did it by example, by taking them down and > SHOWING them. > > Hal came across as a softly-spoken, knowledgeable, competent > individual, > and a pretty nice guy, who, in his own way, is concerned and > cares about > diving safety. > > But: Hal teaches Deep Air. > > I can't get over that particular baseline fact. > > > I guess what I should have said was... > I took deep air with Hal Watts as my instructor. ( I know, I know... > I wasn't involved with all of these discussions then and didn't know > any better!) I was impressed and thought Hal did a very good job > teaching. But PSA also does a lot of work with Cave, TechTrox and > TriMix training. Deep air training to 180 is required by PSA to take > TechTrox and TriMix. In spite of this fact, I'm curious if anyone has > an opinion about the PSA program. The attitude on this list seems to > be ++IANTD++ and --TDI--. No one ever slams PSA even though they > promote deep air to some extent. Is this because they have an > inherently good program overall? Or is it just because they are a > comparatively small organization and no one bothers with them? > Basically, if you were to bother with them would you say good things > or bad? > > One more question. Who would any of you recommend for TriMix training > and how would I contact them? Thanks. > -Erik -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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