Q. How long you have been doing this?

A. I was first certified as a scuba diver in college almost 20 years ago. Then life got in the way so I didn't dive for a long time. I only started back in 1997 and focusing more on technical diving. At the moment, I am a Rebreather Instructor Trainer as well as a Trimix Instructor.

Q. Any special incident in diving that sticks out?

A. Yes, my wife and I got married underwater in Florida. Then we renewed our vows a few years later, also underwater, in Singapore.

Q. What is the depth?

A. Presently, I dive with a small group of technical divers from Dubai. We usually dive off the East coast of UAE, there are a few deep wrecks easily reachable from Fujeirah. The shallowest wreck (Innis) is 72m, and the deepest (U-533) is 115m. Off the West coast, we also have the Energy Determination which could be dived from 25m to 85m depending which part of the wreck. The Energy Determination was supposedly the world largest wreck until a few years ago, so we are quite fortunate to have such a wreck at our door stop.

Q. Is there any special kind of certification for this and if yes then where?

A. To begin technical diving, you need to be a relatively competent and experienced recreational diver. You will take additional basic courses like Nitrox and Advanced Nitrox to learn how to use this special gas to help reduce the amount of decompression time. The next step is to learn about conducting a planned decompression dive as safely as possible. The last step is to learn how to use another special gas called "trimix" to be able to dive deeper without narcosis.



Parallel to the aforementioned process, you could approach the same goal using rebreather via its own technical diving courses as well.

Q. How long are the courses and how much do they cost?

A. The length varies depending on the type of the course. For example, basic Nitrox could be done in a week-end and only costs about 1000 Dhs. However, a trimix or rebreather course will need about 6 full days of theory, pool session and a minimum number of open-water dives. And could cost up to 3700 Dhs.

Q. What is Decoweenie and how does it help?

A. Decoweenie is a decompression program that I had written for my own personal use on my Palm PDA back in 2000. After a few people were asking to buy copies of the program, I decided to make it a commercial product. The proceeds go directly to the non-profit charity taking care of street children in Vietnam.



To conduct technical dives, the diver needs to plan for any particular dive. He needs to know which gas to dive on the bottom and which gas to use to decompress, when to be at which depth and use which gas for his decompression back to the surface, how much gas is needed for the planned duration... And Decoweenie does all of these calculation automatically.

Q. What is Nitrox?

A. Air consists of fixed percentages of oxygen and nitrogen. We need oxygen to survive and a small portion of it is metabolized by our body with each breath. Nitrogen is an inert gas which means our body do not metabolize it when we breath, it simply get pressurized into our body when we dive.



Nitrox also consists of oxygen and nitrogen, but in different proportions than air. The idea is to increase oxygen and decrease nitrogen portions. What that does is less nitrogen will get pressurized into the body with each breath when diving, and one of the direct benefits is that will lower the decompression obligation.

Q. Who uses EANx and what is it?

A. EANx is the abbreviations for "Enriched Air Nitrox", or Nitrox for short.

Q. What are the advantages of EANx?

A. As mentioned, recreational divers use EANx to have longer bottom time while diving before getting into decompression obligations. And technical divers use EANx to help speed up the decompression process on the ascent.

Q. Do you have to be certified to use EANx?

A. Yes, you need a simple basic course to dive EANx. It could be done in a single week-end.

Q. Are there any special kinds of gases required to breath at that depth?

A. Yes, I have mentioned "trimix". It is a mixture of 3 different gases: oxygen, nitrogen and helium. Helium is also an inert gas like nitrogen, but has different physical properties which will help to reduce the narcosis experienced by the diver from breathing nitrogen at greater depth.

Q. How many places have you been?

A. Fortunately, I have been able to dive a variety of places due to the nature of my day job which relates to the Oil Industry. To name a few places: US (mainly Florida), Norway, South China Sea, Sipadan, western Europe countries, Croatia, southern UK, Scotland, Scapa Flow, Shetland, Italy, Egypt, Maldives, etc...

Q. What is the difference regular and technical diving?

A. It could be a combination of different conditions, but in the most simple form, it is considered a technical dive when the diver is doing an intentional decompression dive and using a different gas to decompress. In a more complex technical dive, the diver could be breathing a mixture of gas called trimix for the deepest portion of the dive to reduce the nitrogen narcosis, then using different combinations of Nitrox gas to accelerate the decompression portion of the dive.



An example of a highly complex technical dive is when a team of divers are using underwater scooter to travel into an unexplored cave at a depth well beyond the recreational range, breathing trimix or using rebreathers (more on the subject of rebreather) and complete the dive after a 10-hour decompression session in habitat set up by support divers.

Q. What type of equipment do you use?

A. With some added training, you could just use standard open-circuit scuba diving equipment for technical diving by adding the number of tanks to carry on any particular dive. Or you could go a step further and use a special equipment calls rebreather.



So basically, what is a rebreather ?



Exactly as the name implies, the device is simply allowing the diver to re-breath exhaled gas to maximize the efficiency of gas supply.



Rebreather was invented at the beginning of the 20th century well before the first SCUBA set. However, it has been used mainly for commercial and military diving applications until recently thanks to the popularity of technical diving. In the recent years, rebreathers have been used successfully to extend the explorations of deep wrecks and caves in different parts of the world, as well as allowing mainstream divers to enjoy better interaction with marine life.



Depending on the different rebreather units, additional benefits ranges from the aforementioned extended dive time to extended no-decompression limit and lighter weight on the recreational diving level, up to reduced overall decompression obligation and increased safety issues on the technical diving level. Take a simple example of able to stay underwater for 5 hours regardless of depth when you are lost inside a cave or a wreck versus having a finite amount of gas to find your way out as fast as possible in an emergency situation.



With all of the added equipment, the diver needs help to propel thru the water at greater distance. And the tool used is the underwater scooter. In short, the diver attaches to himself this torpedo-shaped battery-operated device with a propeller so it could pulls him thru the water faster than he could swim on his own.



We also like to bring back the images of these deep dive sites in video and photo formats. Due to the great water pressure at depth, special housings are needed to protect the camera equipment. And to improve the quality of the images, we need special lights in special housings again. And the list goes on...



I am the UAE dealer for all of these technical diving gears so could demonstrate all of them in person.

Q. How many different kinds of technical divers are there?

A. There are many different types of technical diving. To name just a few common types: trimix, cave and rebreather divers.



As explained, Trimix is required for deep diving. Cave diving requires very specialized training since it involves overhead diving which means there is no direct ascent path to the surface, similar to decompression diving. And rebreather uses specialized equipment and techniques.