The Virginia Beach Technical Diving Seminar Group met Thursday Night,
November 4th at 7 PM. The agenda include:

1 Boat Etiquette
2 Review of Good standard technical practices when diving the Open Ocean
3 Boat, mixing Recreational and Technical divers on a trip
4 Near term Tech Dive Scheduling w/30 ~ 45 days
5 Winter Dive Planning
6 Interesting Trips and Dives for Spring and Summer of 2000
7 General Discussion

Items 1 & 2 covered the support  we as TD receive on different boats through
out the region and how it difference from VB to NJ/NY and down to NC and FL.
The key information about our dive plan that a Dive Master and Captain
should be provided willingly. The impact on the boat staff and other divers
when divers have hidden agendas or plans from what was provided. Why the TD
waivers are typically more extensive than and in addition to the Recreation
waivers for Charter Trips. One of the conclusions include that each TD
should provide to the Boat: 1) Written or typed dive and contingency plans
with dive run times and deco stops/schedule and 2) Gas mixes (back and DECO)
and planned usage. Local training, discussions on both VBTech and TechDiver,
and other discussions have covered that in the Open Ocean Technical diving
practices. This includes limiting your DECO obligation and the need to KEEP
YOUR STAGED BOTTLES WITH YOU PERIOD. Only under unique situations do you
remove your stage bottles but keep them near at hand (do not remove them at
the beginning of the dive and leave by the anchor). Some of the situations
include wreck penetration (for qualified individuals) at the entry/exit
point (same point, if different don't leave them), excavation work (I do not
wish to discuss "Protect Your Favorite Wreck" in this post), etc.

Item 3 included lessons learned on how to enjoin the recreational and
technical divers on the same boat and trip. How we can co-exist and everyone
have a great day of diving include 1) HAVE  REAL and FUNCTIONAL DIVE MASTER,
2) Boat schedules should identify the trips that mixed mode diving is
available, 3) Pre-departure briefing of both groups separately by DM, 4)
Pre-departure briefing of the whole group covering the general groups plans,
gear lines, stage bottles, O2, etc. 5) Ensure the the whole boat knows the
general schedule of events for the day (i.e. departure time, travel times to
and from, on station time, planned departure time from site for return trip,
estimate return time). These are some of the major points and are really
just common sense items. It is absolutely mandatory that the Captain adn
Dive Master know the dive plans and approve. The mates should have knowledge
of the dive plans. If a DM is going to be managing a technical trip, they at
least need understand the general mechanics and processes of technical
diving, preference should be a technical diver DM.

Item 4, 5, & 6 include tech trips to EM Clark out of Hatteras, a trip to the
Seeker and a sub, rescheduling a Billy Mitchell Fleet dive from the Miss
Lindsey, dive out of Florida, and Trip to Lake Jacasse. Several of these
trips will provide more experience for the tech divers and training for
safety divers or opprotunities for other divers to evolve. Long term include
plans for Eureka, Mexicana,Ocean Venture, San Delfeno, Manuala, Malchase, EM
Clark, other BMF trips, and others. These trip and plans will be posted on
the Tech Schedule on LDC's web site and Jim's Trimix Site. Maybe Capt.JT
will start and schedule area on his site for us to post these on also!

Item 7 General discussion included interest future subject matters to cover
or revisit such as: DECO software, building fill whips, O2 testers, standard
gas mixtures, group planning for technical trips and support.


Hope to see you cyberdivers on the Mexicana November 21st.


David

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