TDI Advanced NITROX

[Ben Harris]

I did tdi nitrox on its own, plan to do adv nitrox and deco together at the same time as ive been told there the best two to do together.

[And]

Hi

When do you plan to do that Ben ? And have you thought who with ?

Cos I plan on doing the same. If its later in the summer then we could do it TOGEVA !

Kindest Regards

WL

[Gavin Yates]

WL - I can't speak for Ben but I'll be doing the Deco Procs with Andy "Instructor of everything" Hayhurst during the Summer. I've spoken to Ben and were gonna try and get that sorted soon-ish.

I'm sure they'd be room for another - or in fact others.

Me and Ben are off to Scapa in late Sept so we'd be wanting to do the course three months before probably.

I'd imagine we'll have to move quickly cos the boy Hayhurst is busier than a busy thing.

Ben'll post on this on Monday.

[Mr T.]

WL, Ben & Gav,

You might find that Stevie Walker, the Lesser-spotted Willo and miself are doing the Deco course with La Hayhurst too.

Err....do I feel another Troop Gig coming on..? Call the cops and hide the Sherry!

[And]

hi

Sounds like a plan.

Kindest Regards

WL

[Andy Winterburn]

Sorry for this a bit of a late post
Just to clarify a point raised by Steve W (and this isn't having a go at him)
You can't have a sort of/not quite O2 clean cylinder it either is or isn't. The blender will not add pure O2 to a cylinder which is not in test, does not have the visual inspection sticker and does not have the Nitrox stickers. He or she will also refuse to fill a cylinder which they believe has been filled with anything other than triple filtered air.
The reasons.
1. It might cause grease to burn inside giving carbon monoxide killing you.
2. And the most important it might explode killing the blender.
So if you are sold a cylinder and the shop tells you its sort of O2 clean add another £20 and get it cleaned or go else where.
Diverswarehouse will only put stickers on after they have cleaned cylinders
Hope this helps.

[Mark Chase]

Beleive it or not you can do the advanced Nitrox TDI course on a single 12 and no stages??? I dont know why. All in all the in water skills were SAC calculation first dive. (I did this in twin set and buggered the instructor as after 5mins at rest my presure gauge had not mooved). This is 5 mins at rest calk then 5mins normal diving and finaly 5mins finning like bugger against an imoovable object.

Then it was SMB deployment by two diferent methods

Then it was holding schedualed deco stops and maintaining set ascent rates.

We did shut downs for a laugh but I was told it was not esential.

The exam was a bit of a joke as they asked me to do the impossable IE plan a best mix dive bassed on tables. Unfortunatly the tables provided did not cover gas switching to enriched nitrox for accolorated deco so this was impossable.

This was agreed with my instructor and then I showed him how I would plan it on deco planner on my lap top and he was happy enough to pass me.?

All in all the course in my case was an easy route to enriched nitrox to 100%.

Bearing in mind my instructor had little or no experiance of gas switching deco dives and did most of his diving in the Red sea and I had done over 30 such UK dives at that time my course was a joke. That said I blame that on the dive centre not TDI. The course material was good and the exam was OK but the standard of training I received was crap.

I swaped instructors and went on to do Deco Procedures. The instructor again pointed out to me that I didnt need stages for the course?????. Training this time was good but I was dissapointed that I could get all the way to deco procedures level and not oficialy receive training with stages.

Doing TDI entry level trimix now will report back when finished.

Mark Chase

[Gavin Yates]

Thanks for that Mark,

Adv Nitrox can be done without twinset and why not. Not everyone needs 24l of gas for a dive and you can still apply thirds with 15l.

I hope your trimix trainer will be better than the other guy you had  - howevere if you are worried about the level of training you received then maybe it'd be better re-doing the Adv-nitrox and decco course first?

I can certainly recommend Mr Hayhurst and so can a cast of thousands.

Bren - sounds mighty fine. I'm sure that me, Willo, Steve W and Ben will keep you on the straight and narrow - make mine a meths!




(Edited by Gavin Yates at 8:25 pm on Feb. 1, 2003)

[Ben Harris]

Im up for whatever dates you guys want. Twin sets on order as we speak!!

gav apparently theres a customs strike somewhere on the continent which is why everything from USA is taking ages to get through, your wing and my dads bathroom tiles!!!!!!

Bren and co, when you thinking of doing the courses??

[Dr Stevil]

Mark, I puzzled over that (or I imagine a very similar)  "impossible" dive plan and concluded that it was designed to (a) test your understanding of what depths it was or was not appropriate to use nitrox, ie you were meant to find there was not a best mix for that dive and (b) to make you demonstrate on paper a detailed dive plan. The lack of accelerated deco planning, due to use of the air tables, didn't strike me as an issue as my perspective was that I would be using nitrox for extended safety margins rather than to speed up deco. I was under the impression that accelerated deco would be part of the Deco Proc course as, IIRC, it was only touched on briefly in the Adv Nitrox theory part (Bren, Dave Gav: what do you guys remember about this particular topic from the course?)

Andy W, re O2 cleaning: don't worry, I'm not taliking your comments personally, I was under the same impression that you are, ie it's got a sticker so it must have been O2 cleaned, mustn't it?.
However... The sticker clearly states (and this is a verbatim quote) "Tank & Valve Have Been Cleaned For Premix, Oxygen Content 22% to 40%".

As this is the only nitrox tank I own I don't have another one handy for comparison, but incorporating TWO disclaimers ('premix' and '40%' limit)does not sound to me like a proper O2 clean. I may possibly be wrongly remembering Andy H's comments about the O2 clean status of this tank, but my previous comments were correct according to my memory.

So does anyone have an O2 clean tank with a recent sticker that states anything different to the one on my tank?