Dive build up

Divejunkie

Can anyone recommend a training regime for the the inspiration to build up to progressively deeper dives?

I qualified in December and dive weekly in a lake between 20-30 mtrs. I want to build up for wreck diving in the sea this season.

How many dives at what depths would you recommend? I appreciate different people will progress faster/slower than others.

Beanie

Enough to be confortable and so as not to push yourself behond where you are happy.

__________________
Beanie
Gallery Admin & Library Assistant.
www.outlawdivers.org.uk
www.beandiving.co.uk
www.beanengineering.co.uk
www.divelife.co.uk

Deepwreck

The biggest think I found when working deeper was to get comforitable in the water. If you feel streased or unsure as to your capabilities then your too deep. Narcosis is something I can get used to, but thats not true for everyone. Also if your diving on wrecks that are deep you will soon become more task loaded than you were on training dives. This means that your capibilities are slighly less in real world dives that in training dives. With that said, nothing should stop you from diving to 130 or 140 feet. Going deeper than that would not be advisable without using Mix.

I know I used to do drills at 150 before I started using Mix, but you have to only go to where you feel good. I never stay anywhere I don't feel good, and will shallow up if the feeling is not good. Also pay special attention to your CCR it can tell you if something is wrong, and any change in the normal performance is an indication of problems. REMEMBER, one problem is easy to overcome, two is harder, and three four five >>> Death.

Dive Safe.

wizbang

A general saying we have for new rebreather divers is "hours for metres" (in multiples of 10). eg 10m till 10 hours 20m till 20 hours etc

Has worked in a rough way for several friends.
Gives you time to get things sorted with out the presure to go deeper.
Hope it helps.

Beanie

eek that makes me good for 150M ahh

time at each depth before progression is good though

__________________
Beanie
Gallery Admin & Library Assistant.
www.outlawdivers.org.uk
www.beandiving.co.uk
www.beanengineering.co.uk
www.divelife.co.uk

Depth-junkie

Well said, I qualified in december as well and have been building depth gradualy. Its all what you feel comfortable with. I have not botherd with hours as such, i do what i feel comfortable with. I could have loged a lot more hours if i was sad enough to sit out every dive in search of hours....but i am not.

Feel free to flame away I have come from OC trimix over to CCR and have found the cross over a lot easyer than expected. all the stories had me thinking i ws about to become a novice diver overagain. By my 2nd dive on the unit i knew it was not the case. A little different to OC yes but quite easy to get to grips with. After the course my dil was filled with mix,a few 30-40m dives and practising drills then a 50m dive followed by a 55m. I was ready to go back to basics but i have just not found it necersary. But saying that i wont be pushing past 70m this year.

I just bulit it up with what ifelt happy to do, and personley i would rather have a problem on CC at depth than OC as it gives you so much more time to resolve problems. I know i will get loads of stick from people who dont know me or my diving for saying this, but what do i care they dont me or my diving. I regulary practise drills on all dives (i did this on OC as well) as people do get rusty. and before anyone say's you have not had problems yet etc etc, well i have and all are easy sorted with a cool carm head. AS STAYTED DO WHAT YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. When you feel uncomfortable back off and come back at a later date.

It all comes down to you and your diving,as other have stated some will progress faster than others just do what feels right. And as some one i knows says there are no front seats in heaven.

ATB
Gareth

Steve

How good are your skills? How often do you practice an OC bailout? How long does it take you to get off the loop and shoot a bag? What does your buddy expect in the way of assistance ? and so on. When you have your shit together and are happy that a surprise is well within your abilities I'd say go for it in bite sized chunks.

__________________
WARNING: I contain occasional coarse language, extreme sexual references, nudity, and adult themes, which may offend some people - Usually churchy types.

diverklondike

Enough can not be said about the importance of a clear head when diving a CCR. With that get lots of shallow time on the rig and consider taking a normox trimix ccr class once you get in the required number of hours.
Dive Safe

Mark

Mike

Actually Wiz, I seem to remember it being;
"Do 10 at 10m, 20 at 20m...
Come on - lets go dive the Don Diago this weekend"


Actually, I think the depth thing is a complete crock of shit on a rebreather.
They are as dangerous (if not more so) shallow than they are deep - every problem I've had has happened on descent in the first 15m, normally shallower. Once your head is underwater, you should have your shit sorted at a basic level.
A 50m multilevel no stop dive is less stressful that a planned deco dive in 30m. There is a big leap between dives where you can simply bail back directly to the surface on OC bailout, versus those where you need to do significant deco.

So I'd suggest;
1. Get your shit together as far as making sure you know how the rebreather works, while sitting on the couch.
2. Do 'no deco' dives to whatever depth until you have the muscle memory down pat for your unit, and you are confident you can sort out most failure modes.
3. Dive until you get scared, hang until you get bored.

In phase 3 you'll learn that you didn't know shit in phase 2, but hopefully you will be able to figure things out in time.
Getting trimix certified between 2 and 3 might be a good idea.

Mike

__________________
Open ....... Closed
Mind ........ Loop

Mike

Sorry for going off topic, but this is one of those oft quoted folktales which is starting to irritate me more and more.

Sure - sitting on the bottom, nicely equalised, you've got a heap of time to resolve problems, but this isn't where things go wrong.

On a rebreather, shit goes wrong mainly on descent. And when you are negative at 5m and realise that tank monkey has turned your dil off, you need to do something about it sharpish. No wing inflate, no lung inflate, no volume to breath.
Or when you are descending and manage to tangle up your secondary so you can't get to it, and inadvertantly turn off your primary at the same time, so all you know is that the last message you got from your HUD was that the loop was at least .1 below setpoint.
Or when you're at 15m and dropping fast and manage to pop the hose off your dil add button and not be able to reach it.

I've managed to experience all three of the screw ups above, and I have to say that in none of them did I feel like I had 'so much time' to sort the problem. Each one of them was more along the lines of jumping in with OC tanks turned off (which I've never managed to do, ironically).

Shit happens, and when it does, it will happen fast. Training, Practice, good buddies and luck - one or more of these will be required to save your butt.

Mike

__________________
Open ....... Closed
Mind ........ Loop