How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver North America

What should you not do after scuba diving

At first I was not interested in technical diving. I vividly remember chuckling at the Tec divers who I saw and wondering what made them want to take more equipment. I love the sense that you can be close to nature while feeling free and connected. Tom was a well-respected teacher. I felt it only right to give him a try as I was working in a dive shop offering Tec courses.

New gear means new techniques. If you are able to dive sidemount, it is easy to acquire new skills.

International Training, the parent organization for Scuba Diving International (SDI) and Technical Diving International (TDI) offers both SDI and TDI versions of their Sidemount Diver course. Both courses are very similar. Both use the same learning materials (which, by the way, we wrote). So what’s the difference?

You will need your standard wetsuit, fins and mask as well as a computer, compass and DSMB.

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Job

Sidemount Diver was one of my most challenging courses. This was due to the fact that my instructor Fiona, from Big Blue Tech, a trusted dive center in Koh Takao, included more skills and dives than I needed. My task load was always manageable so we practiced skills repeatedly. This included mask removable, tank removable underwater, out of air drills, and SMB deployment. We also kept our trim.

Sidemount Diver Specialty dives may count toward Advanced Open Water Diver certification. Ask an instructor.

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Job
How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Report

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver Report

Sidemount PCB offers assistance to those who have questions about their medical ability to dive.

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.

Technical Scuba Diving

Technical diving is a combination of passion, training, and experience. Technical diving is not for those who lack any of these three.

Sidemount rigs also include tank bands, clips, bungees, and likely some more to store your regs. The clips are attached to your harness. Also, their position will affect the position of your tanks.

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver North America
How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver North America
How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver North America

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.

How To Become A Sidemount Technical Scuba Diver 000

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.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Technical diving (also known as tec diving or tech diving) is non-professional scuba diving that exceeds the agency-specified limits of recreational diving.

from 170 to 350 feet
While conventional scuba diving has a recommended maximum depth of 130 feet, technical divers may work at depths ranging from 170 feet to 350 feet, and sometimes even deeper.

To begin a technical diving course, you must have completed the following prerequisites: a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certificate or equivalent, a PADI Enriched Air Diver certificate or equivalent, and a PADI Deep Diver certificate or proof of at least 10 dives to 30 metres/100 feet.