An Overview of a NAUI Technical Diving Course

by Sue D. Mobley

During the week of September 13 –18, 1998, was invited to dive with and photograph the participants in a NAUI technical diving course conducted by Joel Silverstein in conjunction with the Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City, N.C. Many of you know Joel from his previous speaking engagements and diving certification courses at I.S.A.M. conferences including the May’98 meeting in Bonaire. I had been diving with Olympus on a regular basis since 1986 and was thoroughly familiar with their personnel and facilities. I looked forward to meeting the challenge of shooting the pre-dive planning and gear preparation as well as the underwater exercises. I also hoped to expand my knowledge of deep diving with the hopes of perhaps becoming a technical diver myself.

I was totally unprepared for the rigorous demands placed on the course participants. The first two days were spent in class sessions that began promptly at 8 A.M. and lasted until 9:30 P.M. This was followed by four days of hands on equipment preparation, diving exercises, and additional classroom instruction. These days typically began with a wakeup call around 4:45 A.M., boarding the boat for a 6 A.M. departure, traveling 30-50 miles offshore to the dive site, making two dives on two different wrecks with required decompression stops on each dive, returning to the dive center around 5 P.M., and returning to the classroom after a one hour break. Classroom instruction usually ended around 9:30 P.M., and we were lucky to find an open restaurant in Morehead at that hour. I was beginning to understand the meaning of scuba boot camp!

I was impressed with the sheer weight of the equipment required to perform a technical extended range dive including planned decompression stops using different gas mixtures. Each diver wore a minimum of twin tanks with two regulators (one with a long hose for gas sharing,) a deco bottle under each arm, two lights, wreck reels, cutting tools, emergency signaling devices, and duplicate devices for measuring time and depth. The creed for the week was " Two is one, one is none". I was definitely outgunned with my single steel 100 and my 13 cubic foot pony bottle. However, I did progress to a 30 cubic foot bottle for deco stops on deeper dives. 

The deepest dive of the week came on the last day when we descended 155 fsw to the Manuela, a World War II casualty that lies 50 miles offshore. We rode through choppy seas for three hours to find a ripping [reasonably strong] current at the dive site. The dive was planned for a 25 minute bottom time with staged decompression stops using EAN48 beginning at 50 fsw. At 20 fsw we were to switch to pure oxygen for the remaining two stops at 20 and 10 fsw. However, the dive did not begin as planned. One of the divers lost his mouthpiece immediately upon entering the water and resurfaced with a somewhat panicked look upon his face as one of his regulators began to free flow from a failed high pressure seat and he had to fight the current to grab the tag line. Joel’s response was to calmly but firmly issue instructions to the diver and the support personnel. In a five minute span Joel had the diver back on the boat, had his equipment repaired, and had him back in the water with his confidence restored. 

Most of the wreck with its abundant marine life was visible from the anchor line. Though decompression diving does require special training and is not without risk, I was thrilled with the additional bottom time it afforded us. We were able to spend 25 minutes exploring the site instead of getting a brief glimpse during a typical bounce no-stop dive, and this required only 30 minutes of staged decompression. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and have a new appreciation for the "D" word (decompression). I must say that Joel and his staff (he had two other instructors and boat staff) impressed me all week with their thorough knowledge of the material covered in the course as well as the rigorous demands placed on class participants. Anyone considering technical or decompression diving must receive intensive instruction from an expert in the field to lessen the potential risks. ©