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 !

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

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.

Utilizing Tec Training for Whale Shark Research

Technical diving allows access to deeper dive sites, with longer bottom times, beyond the limits of traditional recreational diving, which around Utila allows divers to see caverns, deep drop off's and off shore sea mounts with more abundant fish life.

However in 2009 and 2010 our technical diving team at UDC have been working with EcoOcean and Deep Blue dive resort to help switch out the acoustic sensors used for tracking and recording the activity of tagged Whale sharks. There are 3 sensors located at different dive sites around Utila, and they are secured at depths of 130ft/40mt to 165ft/50mt. The sensors batteries are good for 15 months and the UDC tec team had volunteered their staff, training and expertise in deep water projects to locate the current sensors, and to change them with new sensors and replace the anchoring lines which are subject to corrosion.

Tracking the Whale Sharks!

Researchers are now looking into the data collected from the sensors over the last 15 months to determine which tagged Whalesharks have been in the waters around Utila, and to compare these recordings to data collected from sensors located in Belize and Mexico. For more information on Eco-ocean, visit their website www.ecocean.org.

New and updated DSAT 2010 Tec program

At the beginning of 2010, PADI decided to update and change the structure of their tec program. The changes bring updated information about multi gas dive computers, decompression models, skills and more. The basic tec certification is now divided in Tec 40, Tec 45 and Tec 50 levels that take the diver progressively from 3 to 4 tanks, nitrox to pure oxygen and 130 to 165 feet, 40 to 50 meters.

Our schedule is 3 days for each segment and a total of 9 days for the whole Tec pack that can be shortened to 8 or 7 days if necessary. Students receive the new Knowledge Reviews and Handouts that contain updated and extra information besides the DSAT Tec Deep diver manual. They also watch the DSAT Tec Gear Setup and Tec Skills DVD before starting the course. We have a dedicated classroom with a computer that runs V-Planner, the most popular decompression diving software.

The new modular program allows for an easy organization and compatibility for busy people like UDC´s DM´s and instructors