These cards are only issued to those who have earned them. Participating in a course is not a guarantee of certification. Certification cards may be offered by multiple agencies for cave courses. C-cards cost $30 to $30 per card, depending on the agency. Ask your instructor for more information.
Sidemount Diver Specialty may count towards your Advanced Open Water Diver certification. Ask your instructor for details.
Computer-aided instruction forms an integral part of most courses we teach. The Why? The reason is simple. eLearning helps students get in the water earlier and spend more of their time there. We offer all applicable online eLearning programs at no additional charge. They are typically $140. This can translate into an extra day in-water instruction. That is an incredible value. Priceless.
Sidemount diving stems from the cave diving world but has also found its way into the recreational, non-overhead diving world in recent years.Simply put: instead of wearing one or two tanks mounted on your back, you will wear your tanks on your side. The tanks are attached to a Sidemount BCD with clips and/or bungee cords allowing for great flexibility. Initially, it was this flexibility that allowed cave divers to take their tanks off underwater to fit through narrow spaces as well as making their overall profile smaller.
The advantages of Sidemount diving are an additional independent air source as you are diving with two tanks each with a first stage, SPG, and regulator. This makes it a lot safer and gives little air-hogs like myself a whole lot more air. I also found diving with Sidemount to be incredibly comfortable because you can easily don tanks on the surface and there is no pressure on your back.
One of most significant changes to the equipment cave divers use since the beginning is the shift from using backmounted doubles towards sidemount. While a large number of cave divers are now sidemounting, it is possible that there are many more sidemount cave diver than backmount.
How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Application
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.
The initial pool sessions were tough; I felt like an open-water diver again, strapped into the twin tanks and trying to conduct valve drills. But as we progressed through the Tec 40, 45 and 50 courses, new skills started to come naturally, and by the end of the course I was enjoying myself. The satisfaction in Tec diving comes from taking your dive skills, buoyancy and awareness to the next level. Knowing that you’re capable of managing life-threatening emergencies at depth, and without the option to ascend straight to the surface (due to decompression requirements) is quite a buzz. And it’s satisfying to execute your dive plan with military precision.
Computer-aided instruction is an integral component of almost every course we teach. The Why? The Why? We include all applicable eLearning programs, usually $140 in value, in our courses at no additional cost. This directly translates into an additional day of in-water training. What is the value? Priceless.
What are you waiting for?! Find a TDI instructor near you today: https://www.tdisdi.com/search/?area=instructors
There are three components to certification: skill practice, knowledge development and open water diving. All three parts can be completed locally or on vacation, or you can split them.
The very general definition of technical diving is to be exposed to a ceiling that does not allow a diver to ascend to the surface at any moment of the dive. This might be due to a real ceiling, in terms of a cave or a wreck, or a virtual ceiling created by a decompression obligation. In this case, by exceeding the NDL’s, mandatory decompression stops have to be performed on ascent in order to avoid any case of decompression sickness. In most cases this requires the use of special equipment, e.g. Twinsets or Sidemount, special gas mixes and of course additional training to be able to perform those stops accurately on ascent to optimize off-gassing of Nitrogen.
Technical diving is fun, but not for those who want to dive deeper. Cave and decompression diving carry a greater risk. Dive planning and training are key to reducing this risk. These divers are held to a higher standard. To become a skilled diver, it will take practice. It is not possible to replace the time spent in water, no matter how much research you do. Divers will see that minimum standards are often exceeded by instructors during training courses. Technical training teaches diver redundancy. This allows problems to be solved at 1500ft in a cave, and then an exit can be made to the surface. Although it sounds scary and complicated, this is an essential aspect of diving in such an environment. Technical training is challenging, but also fun. The diver will have a golden ticket that opens up new areas of the world.
Be aware of what you're paying: All prices include instruction and eLearning. The cost of eLearning by itself can range from $140 to $280. A $640 course purchased from us may cost you the same as $500 from someone else, if you need to pay for elearning separately.
According to experts, approximately 40% of technical divers enroll in additional education and training programs. This yields a reasonable estimate of approximately 160,000 active technical divers worldwide.