Instructor reccomendation - devon

[danpayneuk]

Just looking at some advice from any of you guys that have gone the technical route and trained in Devon.

What instructors would you reccomend and where are they based. What organisation did they provide the training etc.

Any pros and cons or advice would be great.

As I'm based down in South Devon I would prefer to keep it local as possible.

I won't be doing it just yet as need to get more experience, but just planning ahead :-)

[Baron015]

http://www.divesolutions.co.uk/

[Tris]

How technical are we talking Dan? extended range diving/Accelerated deco or CCR. One mans technical is anothers recreational.

There are some very good instructors in Plymouth, if you are looking to go down the Twinset / Deco procedures route I would recommend In Deep at the Mount batten centre. Sean McTierney and the team are running a well oiled training schedule. Excellent training delivered from a very active centre. 5* from me

[dwhitlow]

http://www.divesolutions.co.uk/
Good recommendation.

that guy on the diver training page of that site looks awesome!

[danpayneuk]

Cheers chaps.

Not heard of dive solutions. But look pretty good. Did you do training with them baron?

Tris. Good question regarding technical level. For now I would say just to allow extra depth and allow deco.

I'm only an aow diver at the mo, but I am really interested in ice diving, the deep wrecks off Northern Ireland and even some cave/ mine diving. All one step at a time though lol. Ccr I guess will eventually come along with this more as a necessity.

Good to hear a reccomendation for in deep. I have been checking out their site.

[Ian_6301]

Have you considered the dark side of the force?

There are some Scuba Reality Check events being run by some of the guys fromvthis forum, which might be an ideal way to get a feel for where you're at and whether GUE might be something you'd like to consider for your future training / diving.

There are GUE instructors in various parts of the UK and the coldest to you is probably Graham Blackmore, aka GrahamHK on here.

[danpayneuk]

Ian. Yes deffinately thought about the gue route.

There seems pros and cons to it. Major pros from what I see are that you should become a much better diver, technique wise etc.

Cons. well for me at present. It seems a bit to regimented. I see the reasons for this, just not sure it suits me.

Thanks for the advice with graham Blackmore :-)

Saying that I would love to give it a go on one of their trial days, to make a final decision.

[Treerat]

Tris. Good question regarding technical level. For now I would say just to allow extra depth and allow deco.



So a rec course such as the BSAC Sports Diver may just achieve what you're looking for - Dive Leader certainty will. You don't need to be in a BSAC branch either - but do need to be a member ;)

[Pete Bullen]

Mark Powell would always be my 1st pick for a non-GUE instructor and he's not far away from you, lives 5 minutes from Vobster.

I'd add that I've dived with some of the top GUE divers in Europe and whilst the beginners who have just come out of fundies can be very focused on the DIR essentials the more experienced guys are just great divers and I've never known one of them say anything remotely negative about the way I dive despite all the ammunition I have given them :)

[timmyg]

I think you'll find its 5 mins from NDAC. 😉

+1 for Mark. He has been one of my instructors on some of my diving and instructional courses.


TG

Sent from my iPhone using Timmytalk. Any incorrect wording can be blamed on autocorrect, not my bad England

[Badger]

Ian. Yes deffinately thought about the gue route.

There seems pros and cons to it. Major pros from what I see are that you should become a much better diver, technique wise etc.

Cons. well for me at present. It seems a bit to regimented. I see the reasons for this, just not sure it suits me.

Thanks for the advice with graham Blackmore :-)

Saying that I would love to give it a go on one of their trial days, to make a final decision.
I have a experience day coming up at UE in Portland on the 14th June. More than happy to accommodate you.

[mark weaver]

another +1 for mark powell i did everything from adv nitrox\deco procedures up to adv trimix and adv wreck.

[danpayneuk]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations either on this post or as pm's.

Very helpful. Now just need to look at them all.

Mark Powell seems to get a fair few recommendations though, so that's always a good place to look :-)

[PhilPage]

I'm only an aow diver at the mo, but I am really interested in ice diving, the deep wrecks off Northern Ireland and even some cave/ mine diving. All one step at a time though lol. Ccr I guess will eventually come along with this more as a necessity.
If you're not pressed for time (i.e. have to squeeze it into a wekk or less course), I'd recommend doing Sport Diver with a local BSAC club.

[danpayneuk]

If you're not pressed for time (i.e. have to squeeze it into a wekk or less course), I'd recommend doing Sport Diver with a local BSAC club.

Thanks Phil. A few have said this. My wife and I have been looking at potentially swapping over to bsac for a number of reasons so this may well be something that happens anyway.

[mark weaver]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations either on this post or as pm's.

Very helpful. Now just need to look at them all.

Mark Powell seems to get a fair few recommendations though, so that's always a good place to look :-)

If you need it

http://www.dive-tech.co.uk

[danpayneuk]

cheers mark. Was having a look earlier :-)

[BARDO]

Like others, I'd highly recommend Graham Blackmore. Graham can run anything from a twinset primer to a full-on GUE Tech2 course.

https://www.globalunderwaterexplorers.org/instructor-resume&id=895

[techdiver]

I would recommend Sandford and Down dive centre in Plymouth run by Dave Pelly an ex commercial diver with a vast experience.

[TheRedDarren]

If you were to book a TDI course, can you request that Mark Powell teaches you?

[timmyg]

You book the course through the instructor you wish to do it with


TG

Sent from my iPhone using timmytalk

[graham_hk]

Ian. Yes deffinately thought about the gue route.

There seems pros and cons to it. Major pros from what I see are that you should become a much better diver, technique wise etc.

Cons. well for me at present. It seems a bit to regimented. I see the reasons for this, just not sure it suits me.

Thanks for the advice with graham Blackmore :-)

Saying that I would love to give it a go on one of their trial days, to make a final decision.

Got a fundies class at end of month which is perfect for any diver considering technical diving. Its a IE for Neil Powell so essentially you get two instructors for price of one ;)

[WFO]

I'm only an aow diver at the mo, but I am really interested in ice diving, the deep wrecks off Northern Ireland and even some cave/ mine diving. All one step at a time though lol. Ccr I guess will eventually come along with this more as a necessity.

How much diving have you done and what sort of dives?

If you're regularly diving in the uk in varied conditions BSAC sports diver will be a waste of time for you except for the rescue lesson. However it might be worth doing the box ticking bollox if you wanted to go down route of more bsac qualifications.

I would go as far as to say if you did really learn much doing sports diver then you would be well advised to stick around that level for a while.

Depends on your rate of progression really (desired rate plus taking into account how much spare cash and time you have). If you want to go and do deep stuff off malin with any sort of regularity then you won't want to be doing that on OC trimix as it's sodding expensive, I sacked off that idea pretty quick and that was with me mixing my own gas let alone paying shop or boat prices. So you end up down the CCR route... and I would say get on one sooner rather than later. I don't think my twinset and stage diving experience gave me as much useful experience as doing the same stuff on ccr would have with the same rate of progression.

But obviously that's some serious outlay of time. Don't worry too much about the cost, people blow that all out of proportion, you can get an inspo classic second hand for the same sort of prices you could pay to set up a decent twin set.


So have a think about your current level and your ambitions and a route to get there before you splash a load of cash.

[cazyoung]

The OP has not visited the forum since 13/08/2015. !!!

[Ian_6301]

The OP has not visited the forum since 13/08/2015. !!!

That's no excuse not to have a lynch mob!