This week in tec… Our most recent tec student Markus finished off his PADI Tec 50 course with two really nice decompression dives that both had sharks at 50 meters! Among the different kind of sharks we had included black tip reef sharks, white tips and even one thresher shark who swam over head. By staying around 25 minutes at 50 meters it’s amazing the creatures that you get to encounter!
Divers are always asking, “What’s the big deal with diving below 30 meters – looks like a lot of gear for what?” Yes, we admit it’s a few more tanks than what you’ve had in the past, and would be heavy if you stood up with all of it on out of the water (we don’t do this for this reason), but the basic concept of scuba diving still applies – you breath. As a technical diver you always need to know what you’re breathing (remember your nitrox course that says you must personally analyse your tanks) and at what depth you can breath a certain gas. You need to be neutrally buoyant (but then what diver doesn’t need this skill?) and be comfortable swimming in a horizontal position.
Now, why carry all of this and practice like crazy? Well, if you have been diving beyond recreational limits of 40 meters (naughty, naughty) you’ve been doing it in a really haphazard and dangerous way – you have absolutely no No Decompression Time and you have only one source of air. If anything fails you have no way to rescue yourself and even your buddy can’t help when you are that deep (well they could but then both of you will wind up dead). Technical diving offers a methodical and safe way to reach these greater depths and afford you time to look around. Personally, there makes no sense in doing a bounce dive to 50 meters (touch and go) because the risks are far too high and you have zero time to look around at what’s there.
And believe me, there is lots to see. You know how you always go to the spots called “Shark Point” and you jump in and see no sharks the whole dive. Well, that’s because they are just another 10 to 20 meters below you hanging out of the way from the normal traffic of recreational divers. As tech divers we come face to face with them quite often. Out of the 100 or so technical dives I’ve completed in North Sulawesi only about 3 of them had no sharks. Sharks are at 50 meters!
So if you’re curious to see for yourself, come out and try tec diving. We start you out slow and build up the appropriate skills sets and mindset before we take you deep. You might be surprised after all but seeing it’s not as complicated as it looks.
