We all know that age is not a significant barrier to recreational diving. People can learn to dive — or even become instructors — in their 60s. But technical diving has generally been a younger diver’s game. The number of people who learn to tech dive in their 50s is much smaller than that of those in their 40s, 30s and 20s.

But, as these photos show, you’re never really too old to learn. Aquanauts Master Instructor Gary Tytler decided to finally strap on the doubles and get properly tech certified at age 55.

This month’s course also saw Aquanauts student John Paul complete his Tec Deep certification. Dan Beldon was the instructor.

So, how did it go? You’ll have to ask Gary, but from what those who watched him over the course will tell you, it took a lot of effort and academic discipline. (more…)

Aquanauts today wrapped up another two DSAT Tec Deep courses, this time for Dharshana Jayawardena of Sri Lanka and Gary Smith, one of Aquanauts’ PADI Instructor and technical-diving interns. Both found the course extremely challenging, but hugely satisfying.

We joined the two students and TecRec Instructor Dan Beldon on Saturday for the final day of the first part of the 10-day course, a day in which they’d have to put to use all of the skills and knowledge they learned in the first six dives before moving on to real decompression dives the next day. The photos below should give you a sense of what an average day on the course is like. (more…)