Deco Procedures and Adv Nitrox

[Andrew H]

Is there any point to advanced nitrox training without deco procedures training or do they really make more sense together? Am I right in assuming that deco procedures makes sense by itself, but much more sense with advanced nitrox?

Any help would be appreciated

Andrew

[turbanator]

They could be done independantly, it depends on how you intend to use nitrox.

That said, most flavours of Adv. course cover deco. and I never did a specific deco procedures course.

[Mark Chase]

Personally I just did advanced Nitrox and started doing rich deco straight away. TDI AN includes sending up a blob and holding a stop. I think it included gas planning but I would have to check.

Deco procedures is a very good course for someone new to deco or stage diving and its very well suited to running with Advanced Nitrox. I did it in the end as it was required as part of the Mix course but by that time i had done quite a few deco dives so it didn’t have the impact on me that it would on someone new to deco.

ATB

Mark Chase

[Digger]

Personally, I had been doing a fair bit of deco diving before the nitrox course, and had done a fair few accelerated deco dives too. I found the course was a fair bit of old ground, but needed doing, and had bits I hadn't otherwise covered.

I've not done deco proc yet, so I couldn't tell you whether it's worth it, but I'm doing it soon to get going with the trimix side of things. That said, I'd probably do it even if I wasn't, just to iron out bad habits and problems that could crop up.

[Mark Powell]

Advanced Nitrox covers you to use up to 100% O2 for decompression but only as a safety margin, it does not include accelerated deco. It is ideal if your diving includes fairly short deco.

Deco procedures cover accelerated deco and more of the skills required to do longer decompression.

There are instances where it makes sense to do just one course. Lets say you dive in a club environment and accelerated deco is not the norm. In this case you could do Advanced Nitrox and use the deco gas as your personal safety measure. Equally if you are comming from a background where you have never done any deco before or if nitrox is not easily available then you might want to do Deco procedures on its own.

However it is most common to do the two combined. There is some overlap between the courses and it is usualy cheaper to combine them.

Finally if you are looking to progress to further tech courses then it is definitely worth combining them. You will need Advanced Nitrox and if you have done this and Deco Procedures then you can skip Extended range and move onto Normoxic Trimix (once you have the experience).

All of the above is specific to TDI, other agencies may have different but equally valid combinations of courses.

If you want more information you can look here www.dive-tech.co.uk/courses.htm or drop me a PM

From your location it looks like Andy Hayhurst at Dalesdivers would be your best bet for a loca(ish) TDI instructor.

[Andrew H]

Thanks guys that mostly confirms what I thought. I am thinking either TDI or maybe GUE because I like their early trimix philosophy. GUE seem to have a completely different way of viewing the training structure. But that's another matter.

Andrew

[NotDeadYet]

As I remember when I did the IANTD Adv Nitrox course, you do deco dive planning for simple stuff, accelerated deco on EAN50, using delayed SMBs and decoing under bags and a few other skills that I can't remember, as well as ox-tox theory and O2 service/cleanliness requirements and procedures. It certified you for EAN22-40 for the bottom and EAN50 for deco.

That was a loooong time ago (still suffering post-birthday shock) so the course may have changed in that time. It was quite enjoyable and worthwhile but like most things it depends on the instructor you get -- and sometimes the other students too.

Cheers,

Stuart

[turbanator]

Originally Posted by Mark Powell

Advanced Nitrox covers you to use up to 100% O2 for decompression but only as a safety margin, it does not include accelerated deco. It is ideal if your diving includes fairly short deco.

This is not the case with the BS-AC adv nitrox, that's only 50% - also with the safey margin restriction.

r
Paul