Arriving at Sharm we were told we were needed at the dive centre. Now 7.30pm we trudged upstairs to the Teksteme office of emperor divers and to a vey disgruntled instructor who had only just found out that two numpties from Bury wanted to stat the adv Trimix course the next day! Clearly the message had not got through to him from our arrangements weeks before (not a good omen)

Next day we walked from our hotel to Emperor and were told we would be dayboat diving whilst the powers that be decided what course to let us on and whether out ERD and experience dives could persuade TDI international top let us go ahead. Aaron Bruce the Tekstreme manager and all round top bloke started on the phone calls while Mickael Heuze our French instructor and ex chief went through the paperwork and kit needed.

The pair of us spent 1.5 hours stat at 10m practicing the skills Mickael had suggested. So far so good.

Day 2 saw us with an altogether friendlier Mickael (now he knew who we were!) and our 1st days tech diving. This turned out to be a marathon skills circuit with the following exercises carried out in a 1.45hr dive at 10-15m.

  • Mask removal (hey this is a doddle)
  • Kit removal (mm not to bad)
  • Mask and reg off 30m swim (hold that breath!)
  • Donating on long hose (dodgy kit configuration)
  • Manifold shutdowns (nightmare lots of bubbles and confusion)

Followed by Power point presentation and introduction to the maths side of tech diving.

Day 3 Introduction to two stage cylinders

  • Removal of stages and kit
  • Removal of stages and kit in blacked out mask
  • Oral inflation of wing and hover whilst picking up stages
  • Deployment of SMB using octopus, main reg and the preference wing inflator

Day 4 A planned (took till 11.30pm the previous day!) dive to 45m on a weak trimix with EAD to 31m with 40 and 80% EAN travel/decogases.

Dropped in breathing from left hand 10l stage and switched to trimix at 30m. Shut of stage and did dive. Ascended after 30minutes to 30m where we went back on stage and continued on our runtime to 10m. At this depth switched to 80% EAN for deco stops at 9 and 6m. Then did a few more skills

Follow line around course whilst wearing blacked out mask. Without loosing contact with line attach both stage cylinders and swim along line. Remove kit and replace, still without loosing contact with line and still with blacked out mask. Follow line back to stages, reattach and the .... Mickeal free flowed back gas and we had to carry out shutdown drill. By the end of this task we had had no vision for around 15minutes (very surreal!)

This was followed by Buddy breathing whilst on a deco stop, one of use holding both SMBs and receiving as buddy breather (look no hands) then a CBL and dekit of fully rigged diver!

Absolutely exhausting and very poorly performed.

We then had the afternoon off......

Well not quite, we had three dive plans to calculate followed by two exams to start. Result = 2 tired diver and an 11.30pm finish!

Day 5 No more skills but a planned dive to 55m on trimix. The plan was to use 16/25 Trimix to give an EAD (narcosis) level of this sounder quite low until at 55m Mickael had use recalculate our run times. After that just about everything went wrong! I switched to my EAN 30 at 33m (to high ppo2) and severe telling off from Mickael. The debrief featured quite a few expletives and resulted in the punishment of more free biscuits having to be provided for the instructor.

By the end off the day both myself and Ian were wondering if we would pass the course or whether we should just give up!

Day 6 A multilevel trimix dive with bottom time accumulated at both 75m and 50m. This meant I was a five tank dive and so I was carrying the following tanks

  • Twin 15's manifold with 10/50 tmix
  • Side slung 10/50 Tmix for second stage of dive at 55m
  • Sideslung 12L EAN40 for ascent/descent
  • 80% EAN for deco

This dive ran perfectly according to the runtimes and left us cold but happier. By now the exam papers were competed and all that remained was the "pinnacle" dive to plan for a depth of 90m! I still hadn't been in the hotel pool or even lay in the sun.

Day 7 Up early and a trip out to Ras Mohamed. Wearing only the four cylinders we took 5minutes to travel down to 90m switching to 10/50 Trimix at 30m. With two instructors (Michael and Arron) we swam along until the runtime reached 13minutes. After only 9 minutes at 90m we began our ascent at the prescribed 10m/min to the 1st deep stop at 54m. There after every 3m was a 1min deco stop on trim until at 30m we switched back to EAn30 and the longer stops started. Finally reaching 10m we switch to the EAn80 and started the very long stops at 9 and 6m the latter taking 37minutes to compete.

Having finally cleared we surfaced after 87minutes bang on plan and thourly exhausted. The following day (Tuesday) we learnt we'd passed the exam and were now Trimix qualified. Michael ate his strawberry flan we'd got him and eyed his and Aarons bottles of wine approvingly!

Conclusion

Hardest thing I've ever done, from TA training to chemistry degree. Massive learning curve from ERD course but top set up at Emperor and world call instructors.

My thanks go to Ian Hathaway (hapless fellow student)
Mickael Heuze (the instructor who doesn't miss a thing!)
Aaron Bruce (Tekstreme manager and general TDI supprimo)
And everyone that helped train me in the 1st place!!!

Tinky