How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver No Experience

TDI is an American tech diving organization that was found in 1994 and has instructors all around the world. The prerequisite to start technical diving with a TDI instructor are the Advanced Open Water certification of any organization, Nitrox certified and a minimum of 25 dives. The first technical diving courses are TDI Sidemount (within No deco limits) and Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures allowing to dive to 45m, using oxygen mixes up to 100% of oxygen and doing staged decompression stops. The course contents include theory, pool work, and a minimum of 6 dives depending on your level of comfort in the water in order to be able to complete all open water requirements safely and efficiently and to understand planning and preparation of a technical dive.

Gear - While the gear remains the same, divers taking an introductory tech class, such as Sidemount, Intro to Tech or CCR air diluent, will notice some configuration differences. Instead of two second stages on one cylindrical, they're divided between two with a separate initial stage for each. The gas planning becomes a more in-depth process, and the harnesses appear to have more chrome.

Computer-aided instruction is an integral part of nearly every course we teach. The Why? is simple: eLearning helps get our students in the water sooner and spend more time there. It’s why we include the cost of any applicable eLearning programs — usually a $140 value — in our courses at no extra charge. This translates directly into an extra day of in-water training. The value of that? Priceless.

Rebreathers offer an extension of diving abilities by forgoing large cylinders in favor of recycling the gas exhaled by the diver, scrubbing the CO2 exhaled, and injecting prescriptive amounts of gas from smaller cylinders. This can drastically increase the dive time compared to carrying double cylinders of the same generate size/weight, especially for deeper dives. Rebreathers can be back or sidemounted, and the profile they create is dependent on the configuration.

The choice of equipment is very individual and different divers will recommend different styles. In general to go with a well known brand is useful as they stand for quality, performance and configurability. Some of the best brands are Apeks, Diverite, Halcyon, OMS, Scubapro, Hollis and some newer brands like xDeep or Tecline. The preferred divecomputers for tech divers at the moment are Shearwater products, whether it be the Petrel 2 or Perdix, the flexibility of the algorithm, handling and display.

There is a wide variety of equipment that is used by technical divers the biggest impact on the decision is the environment a diver is exposed to. Many cave divers prefer to use Sidemount which means, independent single tanks are mount to the side of the divers’ body and attached by clips on a D-Ring on the waist band on the harness and on the shoulder. This allows the diver to detach and don tanks to fit thru tiny restrictions and have a lower overall profile to go to places unreachable for divers who chose backmount. During multiple trips, additional tanks can be placed in a cave or a wreck to allow the diver deeper penetration dives and to pick up tanks when leaving the cave or wreck.