Sidemount diving originated in cave diving, but it has made its way to recreational and non-overhead diving in recent years. You will now wear your tanks side-by-side, instead of having one or two tanks attached to your back. You can attach the tanks to your Sidemount BCD using clips or bungee cords. This allows for extreme flexibility. This flexibility was initially what allowed cave divers to remove their tanks underwater in order to fit into narrow spaces and make their profile smaller.
You must be at least a level of fitness and health to dive. You may need to have written permission from your physician if you have chronic health issues, take certain medications or are recovering from recent surgery.
How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver GifEvery PADI Specialty completed will get you one step closer towards the Master Scuba Diver(tm).
Sidemount diving is easy with an Open Water Diver. You will need to be able to handle your equipment yourself. Sidemount diving adds a new dimension in terms of equipment setup and skill.
The Sidemount diving setup differs from that used for backmount diving.
If you are interested in the SDI course, we will teach it. By default, however we also offer the TDI. You can take this course as a standalone, however our students often combine it with our Apprentice Cave Diver program.
Television, magazines and stories from friends - no matter what source, the idea of exploring the underwater world is captivating and thrilling. What can we do to keep exploring the underwater world? What is technical diving exactly?
There are three parts of certification: knowledge, skill practice, and open water diving. You can either complete them all locally, while on holiday, or divide them.
‘Shadow Divers’ by Robert Kurson is about the identification of a German submarine that was tried to be identified by John Chatterton and his crew during almost a decade.
New gear means new techniques. Even though sidemount diving is simple, you will need to master some new skills.
On top of this specialized Sidemount equipment, you will also need your usual wetsuit, fins, mask, computer, compass, and DSMB.
Depending on the environment and type of diving each configuration has its advantage and disadvantage. Diving in caves or wrecks the preferred way to dive for sure is either Sidemount or rebreathers. There is also an option for a Sidemount rebreather which makes the diver more streamlined to fit through narrow restrictions. Sidemount also gives the diver the advantage to leave tanks behind that will be picked up upon exiting the cave or wreck. To fit through narrow bedding planes unclipping the tanks makes the profile of the diver even smaller and places that are not available to a backmounted twinset diver become accessible.
In general Sidemount is more task loading for a diver as the pressure in each tank needs to be balanced in order to have enough gas for an out of air diver and to be balanced on each side.
I will admit my Sidemount Diver course was probably one of the most challenging courses I have ever done. Mind you, this was mainly because my trusted dive center in Koh Tao, Big Blue Tech, and my instructor Fiona included a lot more skills and dives as part of my course than required. While always making sure that my task load was manageable we practiced skills over and over again and included things like mask removable, tank removable underwater, SMB deployment, out of air drills, and many more all while staying (or at least trying to) in perfect trim.
Have a PADI Deep Specialty Instructor certification or have completed a PADI Deep Specialty Instructor course. Have at least 100 logged dives, including at least 20 enriched air dives, 25 dives deeper than 18 meters/60 feet, and 15 dives deeper than 30 meters/100 feet. You can become a Tec 45 diver.
5-6 days
Rebreather training classes are typically 5-6 days long, but can be longer depending on a variety of factors such as the training agency, your local conditions, your instructor, and your ability to meet the class standards.
Technical diving (also known as tec diving or tech diving) is non-professional scuba diving that exceeds the agency-specified limits of recreational diving.