I just enjoy learning, and pushing the limits of my comfort zone 🙂 Plus, now that I am running women’s dive retreats, I love the idea of testing the market for a women’s tec retreat!

That’s encouraging, Martijn! Glad to hear it!

That’s cool! Seems like a good direction for you.

I’ve just got Master Scuba Diver. Maybe I should do Divemaster next, but I have no plans to go pro and don’t think I can spend enough time on it.

My recent Sidemount and Advanced Nitrox courses have wet my appetite for tec skills though. Had fun learning stage bottles, team ascent/descent, etc. and kind of enjoyed the focus on skill and safety over “just have fun”. I would like to learn deco procedures, mainly for deeper wreck dives.

I’d also like to do Cavern and Cave courses some day, but definitely need more experience and buoyancy control first. Here’s a cave training video from my sidemount instructor Steve Martin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH48Lgwek6I How can you now get exited about that?! ;D

Do you have a goal in mind, or are you doing it because you enjoy learning?

Thanks Alex, I was worried about that too but my first trip went fine. Bought a harness, regulator set and tech fins and went on a liveaboard trip to the Maldives last month. Wonderful diving of course, but I was a bit nervous about my first ‘unsupervised’ sidemount diving, with 19 backmount and no sidemount divers no less. The liveaboard operator told me they regularly had sidemount divers (though not commonly yet) so not to worry. I made sure to spend 15 minutes going over my gear with my new buddy (location of SPGs, long hose, out-of-gas procedure, etc.) and we religiously did a buddy check before each dive. This helped her feel confident we could help each other. All in all it went very well. Plenty of questions and looks from other guests though ;D

Hi Aysha, avoiding that is actually one of the benefits of sidemount diving and one of the reasons why it’s popular with cave divers. They bang into things all the time, squeezing through narrow passages, and work with line non-stop.

With the tanks under your armpits they’re inline with your shoulders and you’re less likely to damage your first stages on rocks or entangle them with lines. If you do get entangled or have problems (like a ruptured o-ring or a free-flowing regulator) then you can fix it yourself since you can easily see and reach your tanks and valves.

You can close and reopen valves, even take one or both tanks off entirely and reattach them if need be. When I did that during training it felt weird at first to have my tanks separate from my body but it did give me the confidence that I could work through problems and fix them instead of immediately being in serious danger.

But those are less common scenarios during open water diving. I’ve found sidemount’s other benefits more important.

Just like Alex and you I suffer from back pain. That was my main reason for learning sidemount. The improved redundancy, self-reliance are useful bonuses. I also really enjoyed the skills I learned during my training: not overweighting myself, great horizontal trim, efficient finning techniques, better buoyancy control, etc.

I took a 5 day Sidemount Essentials course with Steve Martin from sidemounting.com and of course PADI can’t cover all that during a 2 or 3 day course. It depends on the instructor and time available how much they can cover, but I learned so much during my training. Well worth it.

For a short woman like you having two small tanks in sidemount can be more comfortable than one regular one on the back. A small woman I trained together with was very happy with it. Try it. 🙂

Do you think you’ll go full tec diver, Martijn? I’m considering Tec 40!

That’s awesome! I don’t know if I’m ready to fully make the leap, but if sidemount becomes more popular, I’d definitely jump on the bandwagon too. At the moment I feel it would be a bit challenging to dive sidemount with buddies and dive guides etc. who are all diving backmount. But if you’re diving independently on a regular basis, heck yeah, it’s an awesome upgrade.

Very nice! AOW is a good choice. I can definitely recommend Rescue Diver as well. Best (and most challenging) training I’ve done. Choose a good instructor and you’ll learn tons about helping yourself and others and will gain a lot of confidence in your diving. It’s the best course that PADI offers, imho.

After Rescue Diver, I’d put Sidemount on the list. I recently took a sidemount course and am definitely converted.

I just finished a 5 day sidemount plus intro to tech course in Malta (via sidemounting.com) and am definitely addicted too. I made two 150 min dives (2.5 hours!) without any back pain and really enjoyed the improved balance and trim. Definitely takes some getting used to and a trainer that regularly dives sidemount themselves is recommended (obviously). I’ll be selling my backmount gear for a sidemount harness and regulator set.

Ha yup, it does take some getting used to! I agree — we should never stop learning underwater!