Tech Certified

I am now a certified Technical and Advanced Nitrox Diver. After my dive on Friday we went back to the shop to finish up the theoretical segment of the course, and then I took the exam. And oh, what an exam! I didn't keep track of how long it took to do the 50 questions, but it was hours and hours. This exam was no joke. At times I felt like it was somewhat unreasonable, but I passed. With a 96%, in fact! I missed a couple on topics that we didn't thoroughly cover in class.

It's a bad photo!

With the successful completion of the Don Quico dive and a passing score on the exam, I was certified. A certification with IANTD (International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers) is not a small feat. They will fail you. It's not like recreational certifications, for which if you pay, they'll give you a card. No, an IANTD certification means something. You can pay for the course and leave empty handed. Denis has a client scheduled to come back in May for his third attempt!

Being certified, however, by no measure means I'm an accomplished technical diver. It will take dozens and dozens of dives like the Don Quico to reach that level. It just means I've achieved a level to being able to pursue technical dives on my own. The best thing about a certification like this is that if I find other IANTD divers out there, I can be fairly confident they are good people to dive with. Unskilled and unknowledgeable divers are weeded out in the certification process.

And now I'm exhausted! Diving like this alone is tiring, but add in the classroom time and it really takes a lot out of you. But I have two more days in Santo Domingo and a lot of things to see. No rest yet!

Don Quico

Today (Friday), I did a big dive. The biggest, by far, I've ever done. It was to a purpose-sunk wreck of a tug boat called Don Quico. Don Quico rests in a sandy area in about 60 meters (200 ft) of water. Because it's so deep it's protected from most surface weather and remains intact.

Game Face

All week we had been building the skills I would need for this dive. Each dive was progressively more advanced and the training drills more challenging. Denis (my instructor) had me practicing things like dropping and recovering my tanks, removing and replacing my BCD, deploying a surface marker buoy, responding to "failed" equipment, transferring tanks between each other, and (the craziest of all) a swimming out-of-air simulation without a mask while at 130 feet of depth! Today, however, there were no drills. This was game day.

The objective was to spend 20 minutes at 50 meters on Don Quico. That probably sounds rather straight forward, but that amount of time at that depth requires nearly an hour of decompression! To do it, we needed to carry four tanks each - two 80 cubic foot tanks on our backs (filled with air), another 80 cubic foot tank on the left side (filled with 32% Nitrox), and a 40 cubic foot decompression tank on the right side (filled with 78% Oxygen). The reason for so many is threefold - breathing gas is consumed very quickly at extreme depths due to high ambient pressure, oxygen rich mixtures help to accelerate decompression, and low oxygen mixtures to avoid toxicity.

Denis' wife Carmen

Carmen was just cleared by her maternity doctor to start diving again, so she came along with us. The doctor told her it was okay to dive, but to "just take it easy at first." She joked that she was taking it easy - she was going to 50 meters instead of 100 on her first dive back! Like Denis, she's also a very experienced diver.

Learning from the Jedi Master

I wouldn't dare bring my camera along for a dive like this the first time, but I asked Carmen to take a few pictures while we were down there. The underwater housing for it, however, is only rated to 40 meters, so we had to leave it at the mooring line while we went to the bottom (sorry, no pictures of the wreck!).

The site is absolutely perfect for a new technical diver. The mooring is at 20 meters in a reef. Adjacent to it is a sandy slope that goes directly towards the wreck. This feature helps with orientation and even better to allows you an ascent with things to look at (otherwise you'd be surrounded by blue with nothing to do). At the base, Don Quico rests in a sandy plain, and beyond it is the "wall" - essentially a vertical underwater cliff, starting at 60m and going well beyond the current attainable depths for divers.

At 30 meters on the descent, we switched off of our "stage" bottles (just before the 32% Nitrox in them would become toxic) and onto compressed air. Air allows us to continue deeper as it remains safe to breath until between about 56 to 66m. The higher nitrogen content in the air, however, causes increased narcosis (i.e. peripheral narrowing, slowed reaction time, distorted perception of reality, reduced dexterity, etc). I'm pretty well practiced at keeping nitrogen narcosis under control at a depth of 40m (my limit until this course), but this is the first time I was going to push significantly beyond it.

When we arrived at the deck of Don Quico, we detached our stage and decompression bottles and left them behind. There was no need to carry them around the wreck. We were now at a depth of 51 meters and my vision started closing in - the narcosis was intense. It's the first time I've really felt it effect me like that. I was expecting it, though, and was prepared to handle it. It's not possible to build a tolerance to nitrogen, but you can train yourself to overcome the more debilitating effects of it.

We started to make our tour around the wreck, and I focused on seeing the things being blacked out by the narcosis and on making coordinated movements. I was able to push it back enough to feel in control of the dive. It made me think about the guys from Shadow Divers who were breathing air at 70m in the beginning (well beyond the toxicity limit). That's beyond incredible. We circled the wreck twice and then went off the bow to the wall and hovered above it. Looking down, I thought about the next step, a Trimix course - which would allow me to go off the wall and double the depth I was currently at, reaching the limit of what is currently possible for divers. That's like climbing Mount Everest, except down.

Decompressing

I reached a maximum depth of 55 meters (181 feet). We returned to Don Quico, picked up our tanks, and began our ascent. My first decompression stop was at 32 meters. At that point my computer told me I had 54 minutes to go (54 minutes of decompression!). If I arrived on the surface anytime before that, it was bad-news-bears. When we returned to the mooring line, we retrieved my camera and got a few photos on the way up. There was a big school of Bar Jacks hanging around the mooring line and a couple of big Cero Mackerels that passed by, but my attention was focused too much on the decompression to really take that in. It'll be sometime before I'm at ease 100% on a dive like this. We got back to the surface without incident. Mission accomplished.

Carmen, Denis, and our boat driver, Tito.

The Golden Arrow Dive Center dog, Lola.

I hope these posts about technical diving haven't been boring and too, well, "technical."

Echeneis naucrates

Today, Wednesday, I carried out (successfully) my first two significant decompression dives. I was a little bit nervous, but I completed them without any trouble whatsoever. The dives themselves passed quite quickly without much of note, primarily because I was focused on the technical aspects of the dive. Until every step becomes automatic, it's difficult to be fully aware of the sights around you. This is no different than novice recreational divers, who will often swim right past amazing things because their attention is focused on what needs to be done next.

One thing, which is otherwise unusual in diving, that comes into play with extended decompression is boredom. You are often considerably far off the bottom, so you can't pass time by looking at little creatures. If visibility is poor you might see nothing at all. You just have to float in blue space (or worse, silty brown space) and wait for time to pass. I've actually heard there are dive computers that have video games on them specifically for long decompression stops. The longer of my two decompression stops today was 20 minutes - not so long that it was difficult to pass the time. But this was one of those lucky occasions that flew by because of a visitor. Almost immediately after arriving at our first stop, a large (2ft) Remora (Echeneis naucrates) came swimming around!

Photo from ID guide.

I was so disappointed that I didn't have my camera because I would have gotten incredible pictures!

Remoras are a type of suckerfish. You almost never see them swimming around on their own (as this one was). They're always attached to a larger host, usually sharks, rays, turtles, or whales. They're not parasites, though. They actually provide a service to the animals they hitch rides on by cleaning off parasites and algea. This one must have recently cleaned up it's host and moved on to find another. And it found, in us, great candidates!

They normally affix themselves to the underside of their hosts.

The top has a strange and (I found out today) very abrasive pad.

For the duration of the decompression, the Remora attempted to affix itself to our undersides, fins, tanks, and anything it could come into contact with! They're not dangerous but there's something a little uncomfortable about a large fish trying to hang onto you!

They are very strange looking. It's actually hard to tell which side is up and which side is down. But it seems the top of their heads has the ribbed pad and their mouths slope upwards. They've also got strange fins that fan out in an X pattern, making it hard to tell up from down. I guess for them it doesn't matter much. If they're just holding on to their hosts it doesn't matter if they're upside down holding on from beneath, or rightside up grabbing on above.

It was really enjoyable to watch it try to attach to Denis (my instructor) and the other two divers in the area. I let it get close and actually come in contact a few times, but I didn't want to let it really get a hold of me.

My computer is more conservative so it gave me about 6 minutes more decompression time than my instructor's computer gave him. When his decompression was finished he signaled (using diver sign language) that he was going to the surface, and that I should buddy-up with the Remora to finish my decompression. I laughed. Surely, he was kidding. But he went up! He knew I'd be find by myself (I was only 4 meters down at this point and could have theoretically cut the stop short). Anyhow, the Remora must have seen him give the "buddy-up" signal (see image below) because as soon as I was alone, it really went for me! It snuck up from behind and tried to grab onto my thigh. And then my fin. It made several attempts at my stomach and chest too. By this point I was actively shooing it away! I wasn't afraid, but I don't know how strongly they can hold on. I didn't want to end up with a 2 foot long fish permanently attached to my torso!

He gave this signal and then pointed at the fish.

Even at the surface it was still going for me. When I got out of the water it probably attached itself to the boat, but I couldn't be sure. It was a rather entertaining experience.

These Shoes Were Made for Walkin'

Actually, they weren't at all. I'm wearing filp-flops, and my feet hurt! I've been walking a lot since arriving in Santo Domingo. From the bus to the hotel, from the hotel to the dive shop, from the dive shop back to the hotel, and back and forth everyday. Probably 6 or 7km daily. Ouch!

I'm the sort of person that likes walking though. Something Dominicans just can't understand. I'm choosing to walk everywhere, even while there is easy access and cheap access to public transportation (buses, públicos, gua-guas, motoconchos, taxis). You can't walk 100 feet here without somebody offering a ride, whether it be for profit or out of generosity, and it's not just because I'm a gringo. Cobradores (or "chargers") hang from the sides of buses and shout at everybody they pass, soliciting passengers and telling them the destination.

A typical público.

The cobrador shouting to me from a rare new-looking público.

Sardines

As you can tell by how people are packed tightly inside, public transportation is heavily used. This doesn't solve traffic problems though. It seems that if a person can afford a vehicle, he or she will have one. And it will be used for even the shortest errand. You find almost nobody walking. Here you can see traffic at a stand still, packed in the road with a wide-open sidewalk:

Stand Still

Even the small roads don't move at rush hour.

Empty Sidewalk

As much as I like walking, Santo Domingo is not the best place to do it. Pollution is absolutely terrible. After San Jose, Costa Rica, I thought I knew what urban Latin American smog was like. Santo Domingo, however, really out does it. Exhaust is so bad at times I can feel it in my lungs. I could never stay long in such conditions. Cancer rates must be through the roof! I've been tempted to take buses just to avoid the smog, but I'd be breathing the same air anyway. (What I need is to wear my SCUBA tank all the way home!).

This is a common (and frightening) sight while I'm out walking the city:

Danger!

Some sag low enough that I have to duck underneath. Others, evidently not live, are cut and hanging all the way to the ground. It's a wonder these things don't just burst into flames or electrocute passersby!

I'm not sure what happens in there, but I'll steer clear.

Decompression

Recreational divers are taught to fear decompression. It is described as something dangerous, something that will very likely result in injury. If you are not properly trained, equipped, or experienced it is, indeed, dangerous. Technical divers, however, routinely carry out decompression dives without incident. My instructor, for example, has been a leading technical diver for decades and he has never gotten the bends.

IANTD is probably the mostly highly regarded technical diver certification agency.

"Decompression" is the point at which your body has absorbed an amount of inert gas (nitrogen, helium, or both depending on the mixture you are breathing), great enough to prevent a direct ascent to the surface. As you breathe gases under pressure (i.e. at depth), your body absorbs more and more of the inert components into tissues. When you ascend, those inert gasses comes back out of your tissues and are released as you exhale. There is a point at which your tissues become so deeply saturated that, if you were to ascend to the surface directly, too much gas would come out of solution too quickly. Your body wouldn't be able to release it fast enough (like opening a shaken soda bottle). If this happens, bubbles form and you get "the bends." When your body reaches this level of saturation, you are said to be "in decompression" (or in "deco" for short). Being in decompression is completely harmless, so long as you ascend slowly enough to release built up inert gas. To achieve this, a diver who is in deco, must carry out decompression stops. Periodically, on the ascent, the diver must stop below a certain critical point (calculated in advance of the dive) to allow time for gas to be released.

Typical Technical Setup

Obviously, this can present serious problems for a diver that is unprepared. If, for example, you do not have enough breathing gas to perform the necessary stops, you will be faced with either drowning or ascending too quickly, omitting the stops and likely getting bent. Minor bends cause pain in the joints. Major bends cause embolisms, paralysis, and death. The severity of the injury is related to the severity of the violation.

My personal opinion is that decompression diving should not be taken lightly. I believe the decision to enter deco should never be made while underwater (something a few people I have dived with sometimes do). I believe the dive should be planned in advance and all divers in the group should be prepared to handle it. Before this course I had entered deco very briefly on a handful of occasions. In two instances it was because people with whom I was diving chose to remain at depth longer than planned (something I'm still angry about). The other times I planned the dives so that I could familiarize myself with the procedures and with my dive computer's functionality (so that I would be prepared for times when unplanned decompression occurred). In my tech course, I'm learning to undertake significant decompression.

Some people wonder why I would want to do this. Why accept greater risk while diving? Well, there is a lot to see and do underwater that can't be seen or done without decompression diving. But most of all, decompression diving is not that much different from a dive without decompression (i.e. a shallow or short dive). If being in decompression means a diver cannot make a direct ascent to the surface: EVERY DIVE IS A DECOMPRESSION DIVE. Even the simplest dive to 10m has a decompression obligation of 1 minute (due to mandatory slow ascent rates). A dive to 5m has an obligation of 30 seconds. Ascents must be slow even on shallow dives.

Recreational divers can dive to 40 meters and ascend to the surface in as little as 4 minutes (more typically 7 minutes). Already, this is a significant obligation (it is highly unlikely a diver could ascend safely to the surface from that depth in the event of equipment failure or an out-of-air situation). So why do people view this differently than a "true" deco dive with a 20 minute decompression obligation? It isn't! The only difference is that the technical diver preforming the "true" decompression dive has more redundancy in his or her equipment, better knowledge of how to safely carry it out, and greater skill and control underwater. In my opinion, it is far safer to dive with a good technical diver (even in decompression) than it is to dive with a novice (or even somewhat experienced) recreational diver.

The point I'm trying to make in all of this is that becoming a technical diver is not all that crazy. Nor is it an acceptance of undue risk. If nothing else, it is development of important skills and methods to keep me safe in routine recreational diving settings.

First Day of the Course

It looks like most of my blog posts here in Santo Domingo are going to lag behind by a day because of an unreliable internet connection in my hotel. Today (Monday) I had my first tech diving lesson. It was a small first step, but an important one. All I did was use a technical gear configuration (twin tanks on a trans-pac) and an EAN30 breathing gas. After a few hours in the classroom and a tasty lunch at an Arabian place, we went for two dives.

I was early.

I have a lot of reading to do.

I was delighted to find that the diving here was much nicer than on the North Coast! Visibility was still a little poor (to be expected at sites so close to a large city), but the reef looked much healthier. Many of the larger, commercially valuable fish were still missing, but the coral looked good and there was a greater diversity of fish species. There were loads of Jessee's favorite Sharpnose Puffers (more than I could count!), including one so tiny that it was no bigger than the tip of my little finger! And (she's going to be so jealous) TWO juvenile Smooth Trunkfish - the little black and yellow spotted fish that is shaped and looks very much like a jelly bean! One was a true juvenile, pea-sized, and the other was a bit smaller than a golf ball but still in the spotted juvenile phase.

This is an old photo I took on South Caicos.

We dove at La Caleta Underwater National Park. Notice how fat my knuckle is from my turtle-catching injury a month ago.

I also saw a small octopus (quite unusual during the day). And I watched a Mantis Shrimp lunge out from its hole and snap at a passing fish. I don't know why it did that because the fish was much larger, but there was half of a clam shell involved, so maybe one was trying to steal it from the other. And I only saw two Lionfish - not bad! I didn't bring my camera, which is unfortunate because there was lots to take pictures of, but I thought I should focus on the new setup rather than be distracted with something else.

I was so hungry at the end of the day! Chow Mein. This whole thing plus a bottle of water cost about $4.25

The room at this hotel is nicer. But their network connection is crappy.

Technical Diving

** The wi-fi in the hotel is not working tonight, so I'm writing these posts in Notepad, and I will transfer them to the blog next time I get the chance.

Monday I begin my technical diving course. I'm not really sure what time, because I don't know when the shop opens, but I'm just going to show up sometime between 8 and 9 in the morning and hope they are open.

If you are wondering what interest I have in "technical" diving or what technical diving even is, I'll explain here. While there is a world of difference between technical and recreational diving, most technical divers are still diving for recreational purposes. Technical diving is not commercial diving (diving to carry out tasks, usually construction, underwater). Technical diving simply allows divers to push beyond recreational depth and time limits through more rigorous training, more thorough education, and by using special equipment to mitigate hazards. The purpose is to allow divers to explore "riskier" environments (such as deeper depths, caves, and wrecks).

Pretty much anybody who pays for a recreational diving course will receive a recreational diving certification. In as little as two days, a monkey could become a SCUBA diver. (And based on what I saw in Sosúa, some monkeys might actually make better divers). You are taught not to go beyond a certain depth and not to stay beyond a certain amount of time, but you are never really explained the reasons why. In technical diving, you learn how to surpass these "recreational limits" and remain safe.

In this course, I will be taking just the first few steps into the technical diving world. I will be using twin tanks, breathing gases other than air (namely Nitrox in mixtures from 40 to 100% oxygen), learning decompression procedures, and extending my depth range to 170 feet. I've already read several books on this stuff and understand most of what the course will cover, but there's no substitute for actually being trained by a professional.

Most of all, I hope the diving on this side of Hispaniola is better than it was on the other!