The first PADI Poseidon MKVI rebreather course in Central America took place in Utila. The course integrated the Open Water and Advanced Open Water where the divers reached 100 ft depth. Utila Dive Centre has purchased recently a few units and the courses are available until instructor level too. These ¨state of the art¨rebreathers are controlled electronically and use prepacked scrubber making it easy to use for divers. Congratulations Andy, Suzy and Mary !

Tec diving: not only for big guys !

In the past it was believed that Tec diving was only available for big and strong men. With the involvement of PADI into the activity, the new structure of the Tec 40, Tec 45 and Tec 50 and the extreme popularization of Tec diving among young PADI professionals, people like lovely pocket-size PADI Instructor Maddy Thiebaud decide to get double tanks on and enjoy the thrill of deep decompression diving. Congratulations Maddy and welcome to the Tec family !

Trimix Instructor courses

Once again we had a agreat time with Trimix Instructor courses at UDC. This super specialized and technical level of diving, only reached by about 300 PADI professionals worldwide is available at UDC. Course Director and Tec Instructor Trainer Andy Phillips enjoys preparing assignments, supervising presentations during real tec dives and taking his candidates for a 300 ft dive in the sheer walls of the North Side. Mary Peter and Anders Heegard in the picture are getting ready for this extreme adventure showing advanced equipment streamlining and solid mental preparation.

First place for UDC Tec Team in Lionfish Derby

The UDC Tec Team with team captain and spear legend Mikey Moses obtained the 1st place for teams at the Utila First Lionfish Derby. The team performed two decompression dives to 130 ft on EANx28 for 30 min using 100% O2 for accelerated deecompression killing and catching more than 60 individuals of the invasive species. The dive site was an off shore fishing bank available by GPS only for tec divers and used regularly for Tec Diving courses at Utila Dive Centre.

Training for Tec Diving Instructors

In the last month of april many Tec divers obtained their qualification as Tec Instructor and Trimix Instructor at Utila Dive Centre. The extensive resources capacity of this dive center made possible to run Tec and Trimix courses simultaneously with boats like the one shown in the picture with up to seven full equiped tec divers. Congratulations to all the candidates trained by Tec Instructor Trainer Andy Phillips and Tec Trimix Instructor Guillermo Peirano:

Gordon Meeks Tec Instructor

Shawn Widersky, Jon Kieren and Dave Craddock Tec Trimix Instructors

Training at the moment for Tec Instructor:

Simon Livingston, Mikey Moses and Mary Peter

Lion fish hunting Tec diving expeditions

The lion fish invading species represent a threat for the local environment in the Caribbean Sea. As the local divers start hunting them down, they find shelter in deeper waters beyond reach of recreational divers.

As part of the mission for Tec dives during their training, Tec students can go to densely populated sea mounds and deep dive sites to practice their skill with the spear against these non-invited predators making their contribution to restore the balance in the local ecosystem.

In this picture: Tec students in their Tec 45 graduation dive hunting and bagging a lion fish.

Utila Dive Centre´s TecRec program as a model

Utila Dive Centre´s TecRec training program has been chosen by PADI for its consistent success over the years to serve as a model to promote Tec diving training in other dive shops and resorts around the world. This picture shows one of the slides used at a PADI member forum in Dubai, the same was used in the DEMA 2010 show.