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"so when did you get into technical diving?"" sitting on the doghouse, toasting up solar energy and scarfing down food energy after my 130 for the usual 70. Mentally I look round to see who is being queried, not thinking of myself as a tech diver. Yes, I use 50 50 for accelerated deco. Yes I use mix from time to time. = Yes I use a computer program to fiddle with my dive profiles. But=85. Technical diving conjures up marine camp discipline crossed with some sort= of super tool jock type. Runs fifty miles a day, carries space age knife, understands way more than digital watches. However, if carrying a stage bottle of 50 50 permits me a 70 minute dive o= n one of my favorite everyday wrecks=85.whose to say no???? If it chases the= post dive sleepies, whose to say no??? If using Helium at depth shoos away the serious fuzzies, making me able to really start to work that particular wreck=85whose to say no???? Now, the fact---in all probability---that a very dear person died this sum= mer because he mistakenly jumped in breathing off of his 50 50 and toxed on th= e bottom shakes me to the bones=85technology and science gave him a better d= eco tool, but that tool killed him through a lack of awareness, through an all= too simple a mistake. To kill oneself on air takes some time, to kill oneself on gas can be frighteningly simple. But in any case we have to remember that we aren't playing golf here. We are putting our heads under water from whence we evolved but can no longer survive. Science is coming to untangle the knot of gasses and depths and respiratio= n. Tech heads are playing with puter generated tables of all kinds. We can d= ial our narcosis and we can dial our air depth=85..one can be at 300 with an equivalent air depth of 70 (the clarity of 70, but still, never forget, = the time factor of 300)=85Gear heads are in their shops making up tanks and li= ghts and reels all bigger and better and stronger and more resilient=85..so technology and business combine to enable weekend warriors to go further t= han ever. Perhaps into a realm that is beyond a weekend warrior mentality. A diver who died during botched up tri-mix training was said to have thoug= ht that the mix would make her more comfortable at dives of 130. That is totally, completely, dreadfully, horrorifically a case of putting= the cart before the horse. A Tsunami size mistake. Divers must, must, must be totally comfortable in the water and with their gear configurations, in all kinds of conditions, before even contemplating complicating their lives with gasses and stages and decos that aren't good= old navy tables. I remember, years back now, when some boat friends went down to do the Wilkes Barre. They would do an air dive and then the next day go on mix. These were all old time air dinosaurs. To a person, one of the remarks ab= out the mix dive was a "wow, I would never have done that on air." I've said = that myself=85.but=85. As one captain I know says, those divers have more time at 10 feet than yo= u have in the ocean total. Mega time in the water, mega time spent with the gear, mega time spent getting in and out of various predicaments. And therefore an awareness, an appreciation, of how the cumulative effects of time, depth and ocean combine to create very narrow windows of survival. = No matter what the back gas or what size tanks or how they are rigged. All the gear is here. All the science is here. All the technology is here= .. All the ocean and cave systems are here. But capable divers are not here. They are a long, slow product of time an= d effort. I am not sure how one predicates what makes up a capable diver. Just the = fact of being trimix trained did not save 3 divers this year on the Doria. Jus= t the fact of having a buddy did not save a diver this year. Just the fact = of following lines does not save a diver. Perhaps before gear and technology and stamina and training something else= has to be in place. Unfortunately, maybe it is that word discipline. Not in the old marine bo= ot camp sense, but in the sense that the price for excruciatingly simple mist= akes here can be very savage. The concept of oh, that's ok, can be a fatal luxury. Discipline in the sense of an awareness of how absolute some rules of orde= r must be. Watch an experienced diver getting dressed, handling the gear. There is a method, a system, a series of controls all put into place Discipline in the sense of being able to function while an apparently smal= l series of events suddenly, immediately put your mortality into play. Murp= hy isn't a nice guy, but he does show up all the time=85. Taskloading with the huge addition of a tight time clock and not in a friendly pool or quarry. Discipline in the ability to be able to focus under the extreme stresses o= f time and depth. Discipline in the ability to not panic. To stop. To control. To realize th= e need to stop. Discipline in the sense of continual self-monitoring. State of mind. Stat= e of body. Air consumption. Work load. Stress load. Task load building. Th= e ocean around you. The wreck conditions. This is a very boring thing to talk about. Gear is way more fun. Its STU= FF, you go buy it and accumulate it and its visible and comprehensible and quantitative=85..internal stuff is a drag=85..and, duuu-uuhhhh obvious=85.= so, show me your new tanks you got for Christmas=85. Since the ocean is an ancient place, lets remember the ancient Gods. They were not our millennial benevolent manifestations, they were cranky, petty= , sometimes malevolent pranksters. Like a kindergartener testing the bounda= ries of morality by pulling wings off flys, the ocean will test you. This is a= n intense activity. That's one of its attractions. Otherwise we would be of= f in Kansas playing golf and planting petunias instead of spending every dime o= n gear and boat trips and finagling our families and bosses and co-workers t= o enable us to snatch moments out of the everyday to go into the ocean. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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