Tech 1/2 Course Report

One day, my Intro To Tech instructor, Andrea Cappa, sent me an e-mail, telling about the UTD technical week in Porto Ercole with the possibility to attend UTD Tech 1-2 course, with N. Touissant as instructor.

It was a long time I was waiting for my first trimix course, and I was really excited, finally my will of becoming a real technical diver was becoming true!

The first step was to join Technical Diver on-line class. I already knew the structure of UTD on-line class (I passed Intro to Tech), but with Tech 1-2 I found it very useful. In fact, with this kind of teaching, I had time for studying at home the main topics of technical diving, gas properties, decompression strategies, ratio deco and write down all my doubts and questions to ask during the real lectures, with the possibility to see all critical skill videos as many times I wanted.

Being honest, I also had to complain about translations from English to my mother language, even if I can imagine how much is difficult to translate all courses to every language needed.

Some days before course, I had the unpleasant new that due to a personal problem, my expected instructor, N. Touissant, wouldn't be present to UTD Technical Week, but just a couple of day after, I knew that A. Georgitis was coming from USA to attend my course!!

Finally the first day of course arrived, and I met AG and my course buddy - Daniel. AG explained us the structure of course, lectures in the morning and dives in the afternoon.

We yet didn't know how hard would have been!!

First day of water was a real disaster!! We were knocked against our weakness and bad habits down in the water. We started with a "warm up" of critical skills (OOAa, v-drills, SMB deployment, gas switch and stow) just to start being more confident with our buddy and procedures; after 30' of this, we had our first 2 dives, to a maximum of 12-15m, in which "something" happened: OOAs, broken manifold, lost mask, broken light, etc. Of course, we were briefed before how to manage an emergency, and we knew exactly what to do...but it was tough the same!

The second day was almost the same as the first one, and we tried to manage better and better critical skills, emergencies, and we focused especially on toxic diver rescue and line laying and retrieving... It was the first time I had to lay a line in the correct way using primary knot, secondary knot and so on, and not just rolling out our reel. This was another step to come up!!

The third and fourth days were centered on 2 bottles skills. So we had to do S-drills, V-drills, but with 2 deco bottles. After skills, we practiced on 30m ascent, with and without line, in emergency or in air sharing. This was my big step to come up, and I had my most difficult day.

The fourth day we had a 30m emergency ascent in air sharing, with my buddy without mask, and with a 21m gas switch: this was really really tough!

Finally we arrived to fifth day, in which we should have done our trimix dive up to 48m! In the morning we met as usual with AG and the other instructors, and we planned two dives, first one of 20'@48m using a stage bottle with Trimix 21/35 and a deco bottle with Nitrox50, and the second one of 25'@39m breathing from doubles with Trimix 21/35 and Oxygen as deco gas. I was left alone with my buddy to plan our dives, and after we discussed our
planning with AG.

In this moment I realized how useful are on-line classes, because we noticed that we had clear the main topics about gas managing, gas choice, decompression strategy, and ratio deco overall, so we didn't have to spend a lot of time discussing, just AG had to answer to our last doubts and questions.

So, just a couple of hour later, we were on the boat sailing towards Giannutri island! Our first dive was on "Anna Bianca" wreck.

My first impression breathing trimix was amazing!

I was at 45m and I felt like being in a swimming pool...very lucid, no narcosis at all...

In that moment I realized why previous days were so tough… because in that moment I was calm, aware of potential risks of what I was doing and ready to react in case of emergency...

We spent our 20 minutes exploring the wreck, looking for little shrimps and big fishes, and at the end we started ascent. We did our deep stops as planned, switched to Nitrox50 at 21m and spent our deco time in the blue, just in front of boat line. When finally we were with head out of water, the feeling of having done a good dive was huge!!

I had my first trimix dive!!

The second dive wasn't on a wreck but in a beautiful place, were we could appreciate the natural beauties of life underwater, we met big lobsters and other fishes, corals and big red sea fan...We spent our bottom time and started ascent following the natural rise of rocks, enjoying the place also during deco time that we finished at 6m with Oxygen.

Once on the boat we heard AG voice telling us that we were two new Technical Diver...

I was extremely overjoyed!!

Of course I know that the way to become a good technical diver is just started, but I was happy to have started in that way!!

What I didn't write previously, is that every evening, after dives, we had video debriefing with AG and other instructors, showing and explaining us what was wrong and what was right. In my opinion, this is the best way to discuss what to do and what happened underwater, and is extremely useful especially for technical dives and courses.

So, at the end of these 5 days, what can I say?

Obviously, this was a unique experience, maybe the best course I have ever attended, because of contents, of dives, of instructors, and of way of teaching overall. In fact at the end I could understand what is the UTD aim to teach brick after brick, and the most important thing is that I ever felt instructors support and encouragement, that was what boosted me to go over during those 5 days!

This is why I want to give thanks to AG for time spent with us, teaching technical dive fundaments and to be real thinking divers, but mainly to "other" instructors, in the name of Andrea Cappa, Simone Nicolini and Flavio Turchet. They were our strength, our helpful friends in some difficult moment, but especially great instructors that leaded us to pass the class!


A proud new technical diver - Manuele Berlanda