Sidemount diving originates in cave diving and has since made its way into recreational, non-overhead dives. Simply put, you'll wear your tanks on the side of your body instead of one or two tanks strapped to your back. The tanks attach to the Sidemount BCD with clips and/or long bungee strings, giving you great flexibility. This flexibility allowed cave divers to get their tanks off the surface to make it fit through narrow spaces.
The Sidemount diving setup differs from that used for backmount diving.
I Want To Be A Scuba DiverTechnical diving can still be fun but is not recommended for anyone who wants to go deeper. Cave and decompression diving are more dangerous. You can reduce this risk by training and planning well in advance. Divers who do these dives are expected to be of a higher standard. Technical diving requires practice. You can't learn enough by reading and researching. Divers will find that the minimum standards for diving are often exceeded during training and technical instructors may do this. Technical training teaches divers redundancy. Problems can be solved from 1500ft within a cave. Then, an exit to the surface is possible. This is a crucial aspect of diving in this environment. It sounds complicated and scary. Technical training is both challenging and fun. It also gives divers the opportunity to explore parts of the globe that are not accessible to them.
Sidemount diving has become very popular in open water. It is more comfortable than having a tank on the back and allows you to have more fun.
Specific Skills - These are the skills required to perform specific types of diving. Navigation and line skills are developed until they are effortless for overhead diving. Decompression divers have the ability to execute stops and gas management plans without a blink of an eye. Rebreather divers test, build and then disassemble their equipment meticulously to ensure it works properly. Each course requires skills that are established at the initial level. Then, it is possible to move on to higher levels. Each step further or hones these skills, and adds more challenges to make a diver well-rounded and knowledgeable.
These are the options for you if you're looking for alternative diving lessons and classes, or if you want to find out what next steps should be taken.
We do not issue certification cards unless they are earned. The mere fact that you have taken part in a training course does not make you certified. There may be multiple certification agencies that offer certification cards for cave courses. C-cards typically cost $30 each depending on the agency. You can ask your instructor more.
In general Sidemount is more task loading for a diver as the pressure in each tank needs to be balanced in order to have enough gas for an out of air diver and to be balanced on each side.
Rebreathers offer an extension of diving abilities by forgoing large cylinders in favor of recycling the gas exhaled by the diver, scrubbing the CO2 exhaled, and injecting prescriptive amounts of gas from smaller cylinders. This can drastically increase the dive time compared to carrying double cylinders of the same generate size/weight, especially for deeper dives. Rebreathers can be back or sidemounted, and the profile they create is dependent on the configuration.
Rebreathers allow for greater diving ability by eliminating large cylinders. Instead, they recycle the gas exhaled by divers, scrub the CO2 and inject small amounts of gas. This can greatly increase the time it takes to dive, especially if you are doing deeper dives. Rebreathers can either be sidemounted or back, and their profile is determined by the configuration.
Sidemount PCB has the expertise to answer any questions you or your doctor may have about your medical fitness to dive.
International Training, the parent organisation for Technical Diving International / Scuba Diving International (TDI), offers both SDI (and TDI) versions of their Sidemount Diver courses. Both courses are very similar. Both courses share the same learning materials (which were written by us). What is the difference?
Computer-aided instruction forms an integral part of most courses we teach. The Why? The reason is simple. eLearning helps students get in the water earlier and spend more of their time there. We offer all applicable online eLearning programs at no additional charge. They are typically $140. This can translate into an extra day in-water instruction. That is an incredible value. Priceless.
While we are able to teach the SDI course if you ask, the default is the TDI. Although you can do this program as an individual course, we recommend that students combine it with our Apprentice Cave Diver course.
5-6 days
Rebreather training classes are typically 5-6 days long, but can be longer depending on a variety of factors such as the training agency, your local conditions, your instructor, and your ability to meet the class standards.
- Increased Bottom Time A Closed Circuit diver is not concerned with running out of gas because they are only limited by decompression. This can also be reduced by selecting an oxygen partial pressure that provides the diver with virtually limitless bottom times in 60 feet or less of water.
The depth range of oxygen rebreathers (simple closed circuit) is limited to approximately 6 m, beyond which the risk of acute oxygen toxicity rises to unacceptable levels very quickly.