Techreational Diver

The UTD Techreational Diver class is an optional entry level step that breaks up Technical 1 training into two parts. Techreational Diver is the first part of Technical 1 and is an optional course to allow students to progress through the first level technical course at a slower pace than taking the full Technical 1 course. This entry level course familiarizes divers with the use of Helitrox 25/25 as a safe bottom breathing gas for use to depths of 130’/39m with a single decompression bottle containing 100% O2 for accelerated decompression.

Techreational Diver training focuses on team skills, the diver’s bottom skills, ascent skills expanding on the Essentials with Tech endorsement, and is designed to cultivate, integrate, and test these skills, which are essential for safe technical diving. This critical training will include bottom failures, mid-water failures, problem identification and resolution and building the capacity for progressively more challenging diving.

In this class, students will be trained in the use of double tanks/cylinders and in the potential failure problems associated with them; the use of 100% Oxygen for accelerated decompression, the use of Helium to minimize narcosis; and the applications of single decompression bottle diving with respect to decompression procedures.

This class provides an excellent foundation on which divers can build their technical diving experience in the 130'/39m range using a single decompression bottle. Later the diver can then complete Technical 1, which provides a solid basis of critical skills for the Technical Diver venturing to 160’/48m range utilizing single decompression bottle and optionally a stage to conduct multiple technical dives in one day. 

Successful completion of Techreational Diver qualifies a diver to use a normoxic Helium mix of 25/25 and 100% Oxygen for decompression. The limits for a UTD Techreational diver are 130’/39m and the use of one (1) decompression bottle with 100% O2. Accelerated decompression is limited to one oxygen cycle (see definitions in the appendix).