My Trimix & Your Trimix sitting by the fire�.
By Ali Fikree- DSDC Committee Technical Member.
The technical diving element in club, first really triggered of in 1998 when Guy Ploegaerts and Brian Davies headed of to the Red Sea to sit an Extended Range Diver course, one of the first series of technical level courses being offered by a relatively new training agency, Technical Divers International.
However, Guy soon left Dubai & Brian lost interest. The Tech Diving Scene came to a halt for a few years. I started Nitrox in 1997; it was still considered voodoo gas back then. Agencies like PADI condemned the gas and even a few marshals at our club refused to have it on the boats.
A few years down the line, Phil Thornhill and I were approached by DSDC's own �Rebel without a Pause�, Bill Leeman. Bill heard us chatting about trimix and computers etc. and decided to join in the conversation. Over the next few weeks, twin sets, wings, lights, stage tanks, all became a common sight on the club boats. Eventually, a few of us decided that we were not going to get anything done diving deep on air , and headed of to do some trimix training during the summer of 2000.
I trained in Scapa Flow, Les Howard & Phil Thornhill did their training in the Philippines and Bill trained locally with Paul Algate.We came back at the end of a summer with new, semi-convoluted gear configuration and an extreme hunger to visit the Energy Determination � dark side�. Oh the looks and laughs we got from certain club members!!
A few of us decided to charter a boat (Scuba Arabia) to the Energy as the club would not allow a trimix dive. We geared up, all excited and nervous headed deep. Anyway, that was one of the few dives that I would never forget. I remembered descending down the wreck well past my deepest point ever. My light illuminated the Energy's bottom at 82m and found a cluster of DSDC's anchors from previous deep air trips.
Eventually a few of our members have been on deep diving expeditions around the world , diving famous historic wrecks such as HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales in the South China Sea. We continue to further our training and education as I believe there is no limit to how much you can learn.
The club now boasts of some 16 mixed gas trained divers. We have our own helium bank and oxygen bank, a rare sight in most BSAC branches. A few of us have even embraced rebreathers and they are now a common site on most dive trips. A couple of us embraced the DIR holistic approach to diving while some decided to stick to the Alpinist approach to technical diving. Still, we remain as good friends and still dive together. Some of the latest addition to equipment is the famous underwater DPV or Diver Propelled Vehicle or scooters. In the sudden rush of it all, we even managed to �light� up one of the boats due to an unfortunate accident. Luckily no one was injured or hurt physically but we all received a financial kick in the nuts.
Over the years we have dived a couple of new wrecks that we found due to extreme boredom of continuously diving the Energy Determination. The Ines is one of the most favorite wrecks that we visit. It attracts technical divers the same way shit attracts flies. Indeed, this wreck is huge and in pristine condition. It lies between 55m which is the top prop end and the bottom is at 73m.
The top deep wreck expedition is the legendary U-533, a u-boat that we found in the Gulf of Oman . Out of 3 full blown expeditions we have only managed to dive the wreck once. The problem is, the wreck lies in 115m. Diving to this depth requires some serious planning. It is not something you can just go dive over the weekend. Usually a U-533 expedition planning stage lasts anything from 2 months up to 6 months. This involves build up dives, support diver training, emergency protocols etc.
A future U-533 trip is being planned at the time of writing.
Ali Fikree 21/06/06 |
