Side Mount Dive Training

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver General

Continue your Tec Sidemount Diver training and you'll be able to learn additional skills for tec diving in sidemount.

Your Sidemount rig also includes clips and tank bands. These clips will attach to your harness. Again, their location is crucial for the positioning of your tanks.

Another scuba diving agency might be of interest to you: PADItec sidemount diving course.

Technical divers explore reefs and wrecks at depths below the 40 meter/130-foot recreational limit. With specialized training, they can explore underwater caves and other places well beyond the reach of mainstream recreational diving.

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Harness

Sidemount divers usually use two tanks. However, it is possible to use one tank as a standard. I was also told that you can use one tank for deco diving.

You can choose between recreational Sidemount or technical Sidemount with most agencies. Although the prerequisites are the same for TDI and SDI, the tec sidemount course will give you more skills. This course will require you to be more skilled in mastering the skills. You must maintain a perfect trim and keep your body level throughout.

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Harness
Become A Scuba Diver Instructor

Become A Scuba Diver Instructor

Three parts are required to become certified: knowledge development, skill practise and open water diving. You can choose to do each part locally, on holiday or alternate between them.

The next day it was on to technical sidemount, which means adding our deco 50-percent oxygen and 100-percent oxygen tanks on either side. This increases your profile underwater so you must keep the tanks as trim as possible against your body. You have a couple of clips on each side of your waist. As you breathe down your tanks and they become positively buoyant, you adjust your tank position to the second clip position. The aim here is to be as streamlined as possible. Every few minutes you also switch your breathing from one tank to the other. That way the pressure in each tank runs down at roughly the same rate, and if there is a failure with either tank or regulator, you’ll still have gas to breathe. As with all new things, building up experience is key to comfort and enjoyment. I spent the next few days doing deco dives with the sidemount rig, buddied up with Evolution co-owner David Joyce — a hugely experienced Tec diver and Trimix instructor. On one dive we visited the Japanese Mogami wreck down at 164 feet, where I was beguiled by the bits of old gas masks, uniforms and even a few bones we saw.

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Exam

If you will not be using sidemount during your cave diver training, what you should be looking at is our CDS Basics Orientation course.

However it is important at greater depths to decrease effort and achieve maximum performance to avoid overexertion and CO2 buildup. CO2 is the trigger for our breathing reflex, so the more CO2 we build up the more we will feel the urge to breathe. This means in the same amount of time we will pump more gas through our lungs and we take in more gas in the same amount of time.

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Service
How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Service

SDI/TDI Includes 2 open water divesMinimum age 18 years, minimum 15 years with parental consent. Must have an SDI Openwater Diver or the equivalent

2 first stage regulator, 2 second stage regulator, exposure suit with side pockets, BCD sidemount, SMB, cutting tool, diving spool, Jet fins, mask and another spare mask, technical diving equipments, 1 long hose (2.10m - 7ft), hogarthian or cave harness.

Bottom Gas

One of the big risks for a technical diver is decompression sickness. It occurs when nitrogen gas cannot exit the body thru respiration on ascent as the ambient pressure decreases. Therefore stops have to be executed on ascent in order to avoid a pressure difference too big so nitrogen bubbles can be formed. Buoyancy control is very important to control the stops on ascent and increase efficiency for off-gassing of nitrogen. Another important skill is proper breathing which makes metabolism efficient. Trim, which we call a proper tech diving position such as horizontal with a slight arch in the back, looking forward and knees at a 90 degree angle with fins pointing back. Trim prevents stirring up sediments on the bottom as well as most efficient movement in the water. And of course proper finning techniques to avoid overexertion are mandatory to make a diver achieve maximum performance. Now you might say, we want to have fun when we go diving and not be a machine.

While technical diving is still for fun they aren’t for people wanting to go deeper, just because. There is a higher risk associated with cave and decompression diving. This risk is mitigated, in part, by thorough dive planning and training. As such, divers doing these dives are held towards a higher standard. It will take practice to become a technical diver. No amount of research and reading can supplement that in water time. Divers will notice that the minimum standards are often exceeded during training courses and individual technical instructors often do this. Technical training teaches a diver redundancy so that problems can be successfully solved 1500ft inside a flooded cave and an exit to the surface can be executed. While that sounds complex and scary it’s a necessary aspect of diving in that environment. Technical training is not only challenging but it’s fun and at the end of it the diver has a golden ticket to see parts of the world that are totally closed off to other people.

Side Mount Dive Training
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Frequently Asked Questions

2-3 hours
Even with small cylinders, you can usually dive for 2-3 hours (rebreathers typically have two 2/3l cylinders or one 3/5l cylinder).