SFL-DIR - DIR Dive Training, Florida
Learning to cave dive led me to "Doing it Right". It suprises many non divers that in the diving world there are few standards, or even a generally accepted right way of doing things. DIR was born in cave country from experience and attempts to change all that.
The focus is of DIR is teamwork, solid skills, correctly configured gear and fitness.
Club diver Matt hyper-ventilates ready for a breathold swim.
Attention to fitness in diving is pretty much overlooked by most divers, but for technical diving is critical for safe decompression. All that training can get a bit tiring though!
Making dive training fun is a club goal. William Anzueto, the founder of South Florida DIR is particularly good at making this happen!
After a couple of hours of reconfiguring the diving equipment, we are all pretty much on the same page and ready to do a shallow club dive in clear warm Florida waters.
The team meets at the Swimming Pool Hall of Fame in Ft Lauderdale.
This was the inaugural swim meet, where divers improve fitness with measured swims at and below the surface.
The breathold test is done with fins and matches the GUE (Global Underwater Explorers ) requirements for technical and cave diving training.
After a nice social lunch we spent a few hours checking each others diving equipment and configuration.
It's amazing that even with a system as rigid as DIR that so many variations can occur. As a dive team though there is little room for differences and so everybody adjusts to the standard.
We do a lot of our training dives from the beach at Fort Lauderdale By The Sea (LBTS). The skills and teamwork we practice don't require deep water, and the long bottom times give pleanty of oppurtunity to learn to 'Do It Right'
