Those who have dived with me know how highly I value scooters (DPVs) as tools to enhance both the fun the safety of technical diving. The Suex XJ-S I purchased a couple years ago continues to be one of my favorite pieces of kit.
Yet as with any powerful tool, improper use can get you in trouble in new and possibly unanticipated ways. Here’s my take on the matter for Alert DIver.
Coming back safely from an ocean dive is more than a question of personal dive skills and a prudent approach to decompression. After surfacing, there is one more step: getting picked up by a boat. It sucks when that doesn’t happen.
From basics like DSMBs and good coordination with the crew all the way to personal locator beacons and other electronic communication devices, here is my review of ways and means to make sure you will be back home in time for dinner.
by Tim Blömeke
DPVs or underwater scooters are becoming increasingly popular, for good reason: They offer the opportunity to cover more ground, save gas by reducing exertion, and improve safety by enabling divers to push against currents. Plus, they’re a lot of fun.
However, the use of DPVs also comes with new ways to get yourself in trouble, so some training is absolutely necessary. For diving in open water, this training comes at two levels, recreational and technical. Below are the main features of each course.
Recreational
This course covers the basics of DPV diving, including
This course includes instruction on the above subjects on land, as well as two training dives on DPVs. It takes one to two days.
For recreational diving with relatively low-powered scooters, this is adequate. In these dives, a scooter is a non-critical piece of equipment, and (as in rec diving in general) major failures can be handled by simply aborting the dive, making a safety stop, and ascending to the surface. The focus is on having fun while maintaining safety.
Technical
In technical diving, a scooter becomes less of a toy and more of a tool. This course goes into quite a bit of extra detail to account for the additional equipment, planning requirements, tasks, and team procedures. We need to allow for the fact that in tech diving, immediate ascent to the surface is not available as an option for dealing with problems. In addition to the curriculum for the recreational course above, the following is included:
Because of the greater scope of subjects, this course has a minimum of four hours of classroom and briefing time. Agency standards require two training dives to a maximum depth of 40 meters.
At Tech Asia however, we feel that two dives is a little on the low side to absorb the skills and build familiarity with the equipment, to the point where students are able to use scooters on technical dives safely without professional guidance. These things can be very distracting initially, and distraction is something we can’t afford. That’s why we offer this course with four dives, which are included in the price. Assuming no issues with skill development, the final two dives will be regular technical dives with DPVs at the student’s current level of training. Course duration is about three days.
So which one is for you?
If you just want to try your hand at something new and have fun with it, then the recreational course is fine. I’ve yet to meet a diver who doesn’t enjoy scootering.
However, if you plan on using scooters for tech dives, or if you’re the kind of recreational diver who enjoys getting into the nuts and bolts of things, then you may want to consider the more comprehensive, technical course. Note that you don’t necessarily have to be a technical diver to enroll. All of the skills taught can be practiced in recreational equipment configuration.
The third part of my series on CO2 has been published by Alert Diver (EU)!
In the first part, I shared a personal close-call story and gave a brief overview of the carbon dioxide metabolism in the human body.
In the second part, we examined the mechanics of carbon dioxide generation and elimination, the complications introduced by depth and dive equipment, as well as the deeply unpleasant and potentially devastating effects of hypercapnia.
In the third and final part, I’m talking about ways and means at our disposal to prevent the kind of problems we spent the first two parts seeking to understand, avoid common mistakes, and become better and safer divers overall.
You can read it here: https://alertdiver.eu/en_US/articles/carbon-dioxide-the-dreaded-enemy-part-3/
Excess carbon dioxide can be a source of danger at any level of diving, yet it is barely mentioned in course curricula. Here is part two of my three-part mini series for Alert Diver on the subject, in which I get into the nuts and bolts of how carbon dioxide affects us, and the special considerations we need to take into account when diving.
At last year’s RF4, Dr. David Doolette dropped a few remarks about how Bühlmann with gradient factors might not be the be-all and end-all of decompression models when it comes to very deep and long technical and cave dives. He encouraged divers to look into the US Navy’s Thalmann algorithm.
Here’s my piece for GUE’s InDepth magazine explaining what this is all about – an interesting variation on traditional Haldanean models that has been around since the 1980s, more or less ignored by the civilian dive community. Buckle up for some theory!
Carbon dioxide buildup is a common contributor to diving emergencies. In this first part of a three-part series for Alert Diver (EU), I’m sharing a personal experience and take a brief look at the metabolism of carbon dioxide in the human body.
Part two will focus on how the carbon dioxide metabolism is affected by diving, and what makes hypercapnia – excess CO2 in the bloodstream – so dangerous.
Part three will focus on countermeasures – skills and procedures to keep our CO2 load in check.
Stay safe and stay tuned!
Inspired by a talk by Mauritius Valente Bell at RF4 in Malta, my latest piece for Alert Diver deals with diving in mixed teams of open and closed-circuit divers.
While Mauritius’ presentation focused mainly on the perspective of rebreather divers, my piece is addressed to an audience of experienced recreational and open-circuit technical divers. Check it out to learn how the dark side ticks.
The Dunning-Kruger effect isn’t real! Or is it? My latest piece for Alert Diver is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek deep dive into the intricacies, popular reception, and criticism of the Internet’s most popular psychology study and how it pertains, or doesn’t, to diving.
Read here: https://alertdiver.eu/en_US/articles/the-mirage-of-mount-stupid-diving-and-the-dunning-kruger-effect
Caffeine has played a key role in the creation of this article. If you like what you read (or feel that it needs more caffeine), please consider adding fuel to the fire: https://bmc.link/timblmk
Shore diving in Taiwan is pretty special and something that is close to my heart. I’m glad I got to write about it for the Alert Diver blog.
Tim Blömeke 