TRAIN FOR YOUR GOALS
FIND YOUR CONFIGURATION, DEPTH & ENVIRONMENT
SIDEMOUNT DIVING
Comfort, Freedom, Flexibility
Train to become a proficient sidemount diver and experience the flexibility, comfort and safety of sidemount diving.
Diving "in sidemount" is not simply a case of where you place the cylinders, it is a diving philosophy and equipment configuration developed by cave divers that has benefits for all divers.
I teach SDI, TDI & PADI courses as well as the Sidemount Essentials course from sidemounting.com.
TECHNICAL SIDEMOUNT
Multi Stage Technical Sidemount Diving
Learn how to conduct technical, multiple gas dives in sidemount configuration.
Handling multiple sidemount cylinders requires more skill, equipment configuration and practice.
As an already experienced technical or sidemount diver, you will extend your skills and diving options.
TECHNICAL DIVING
Technical, Decompression & Trimix Diving
Train as a technical diver and take diving for fun more seriously!
Technical diving is a way to approach your dives with more attention to safety, equipment, planning, team work and execution.
Learning good techniques to become an effective technical diver will set you apart from divers who did not make the same investment in their training.
CAVE & CAVERN
Underworld & out of this world!
Train to become a safe & proficient overhead diver and experience the natural beauty of the underground world.
When diving in an overhead environment, direct access to the surface is simply not available, and so the diver must be skilled to handle a wide variety of problems that can affect the diver and their team's safety.
An overhead environment is unforgiving and learning how to safely navigate is crucial to your enjoyment of these amazing dives.
MY TRAINING STYLE
FOCUSED & FLEXIBLE
During our training, my focus and attention is on you. I am not there to show you how good I might be at something – I am there to get you to perform to your maximum. On a training day, I am not looking to get back home early, make calls or answer emails – I am only working with you.
Training is typically conducted with no more than two students, and this allows the days to have flexibility around how we sequence different skills or dives across our time together. If one diver is not feeling it that day, we can work to make up any lost time with extra days, as there is always an allowance of a few days between my training courses.
TAILORED LEARNING
As you train to achieve your diving goals, you will naturally find some things are easier than others.
My approach is to address all areas of your diving and fix anything that is not working well enough.
I will take some time to understand your personality, what are your motivations and what you might shy away from.
We will work with awareness and precision on the areas that you need – not necessarily what is in “Today’s Chapter” of a course manual.
LAND WORKSHOPS
Training dives are about practising and executing things we first talk about on land. Showing a diver a skill for the first time in the water does not always convey all the finer points, potential problems or solutions that might be needed. Deploying a lift bag / SMB or making a gas switch has many components and practising these on land is essential to become comfortable with the procedure, hand placements and co-ordination.
Land workshops are also invaluable for equipment setup and configuration. Getting correctly sized and fitted for a harness is a good example of this, and time spent on land perfecting this will bring comfort and control to hundreds of future dives. Land based work is essential for gaining a full understanding of your sidemount configuration – to talk through what the effect would be of altering a band height, boltsnap angle, bungee or hose length.
Cave courses require extensive land workshops for learning line laying techniques as well as emergency procedures such as lost line recovery, missing diver search, zero visibility team exits, broken line repair – mastering these skills is not possible without adequate practice on land.
EQUIPMENT USAGE
Most divers will own all the major items of required equipment, such as exposure suit, harness, regulators, fins & mask. However, owning a primary reel for a Cavern Course or enough stage regulators might not be something you have decided to invest in yet.
These types of peripheral equipment can be supplied for usage and even testing prior to making your own financial investment. I use several models of full technical dive computers, which are also available for testing.
Other primary items such as exposure suit & regulators can be supplied through the dive centres I am partnered with.