Today Big Blue Tech will be introducing new diving and diving related courses to our list of programs to help increase the diversity of our school and promote proper industry practices throughout our curriculum. All these courses can be found on our training page in the coming days.

SDI Research Diver
With our in house marine biologists and our relationship with the “Save Koh Tao” environmental awareness group we will be providing this certification to select individuals who meet the pre-requisites. In addition to this course individuals will additionally receive the SDI Solo Diver certification so they can conduct survey and research dives on their own on our resort reef and pinnacles. This course will be an internship option and will include multiple dives over a 1 month period Read More

SDI Visual Inspection Procedures
Big Blue Tech already provide regulator service clinics, gas blending, compressor operation and 02 service technician course but will now add the SDI VIP course to provide potential technicians with the opportunity to be certified in the process of visual inspection of scuba cylinders. The advantage of the student learning this will help increase their employability skills globally and increase their education about scuba cylinders. Read More

SDI CPROX Administrator Course
Learning the safe and valid application of oxygen is a requirement for all our staff and leaders. Normally we did not offer this course to divers unless they were to become a leader. However now realizing the increase in remote diving and team technical diving methods we are now opening this course to the public with the emphasis on technical diving applications. Additionally underwater recompression with a full face mask will be taught to certified technical divers. Read More

For more information about these courses or custom internships please contact us at info@bigbluetech.net

Diving with a full face mask has many advantages. It protects the diver from cold, increases communication, protection from environmental hazards and most importantly you can chew gum and dive at the same time.

For our tropical environments there’s no real point in wearing one unless you dive on a rebreather or in water recompression. But it is a lot of fun for the first time. One of the more enjoyable points is you can talk clearly if you but the mask beside someones head. With the built in communications systems you can also use the microphone.

The most challenging part of the course is the removal and replacement of the mask, the minute the seal is broken it purges making it a positive pressure system. This means when you remove it you have a good chance of loosing a lot of air until it’s under control.

In the end you use a lot more air than normal and it takes a long time to get used to it. But for people with recent oral or nose injuries they can continue diving without pressure in that area.

The Urak Lawoi, part of the Sea Gypsies of Thailand, have been diving using surface-supplied compressed air for more than 30 years. Their dive sites range from one hour to several days from their villages. Similar to other indigenous fisherman divers, the Urak Lawoi suffer from a high incidence of decompression illness. Their methods of in-water recompression were investigated. In December 1998, available divers in two Urak Lawoi villages were asked if they had ever been treated using in-water recompression following decompression illness.

If the divers responded positively, a questionnaire-based interview was carried out. Divers were asked to recall the cause of the accident, their diving patterns of the day, the parts of the body affected, the depths and times of in-water recompression and whether the problems were resolved as a direct result of this action. Eleven divers, aged 19-52, were interviewed. Causal factors listed by the divers included diving pattern 55% (6/11), rapid ascent 27% (3/11), and equipment failure 18% (2/11). Divers were recompressed in water using surface-supplied compressed air. The time between surfacing from the accident-related dive and being put back in the water ranged from immediately to 60 minutes. Depth and duration of in-water recompression ranged from 4 to 30 meters and 5 to 120 minutes.

Outcomes reported by the divers were: improved or resolved at depth with no return of symptoms at surface in 64% (7/11), improved or resolved at depth with a return of symptoms at surface in 18% (2/11), and not resolved at depth in 18% (2/11). Health-care workers in the villages may be able to provide basic first aid but, for some villages, a medical doctor may be as much as 10 hours away and a recompression facility as far as 16 hours in good weather. In-water recompression has, within the diving population, proved to be an appropriate first-aid measure for decompression illness.

A future project activity will develop consensus guidelines for determining under what circumstances in-water recompression using surface-supplied air should be carried out and identify appropriate methods that the Urak Lawoi can apply.