Quote Originally Posted by addexdiver View Post
Hey Russell,

Not so sure that is fair. I think IANTD is more of a gas cert agency. PADI...is well, PADI. Apples and oranges.

If you follow the NSS-CDS and/or NACD norms to full cave and carry a stage bottle on enough of your training dives, you can get all three certs at the same time (depending on your instructors qualifications)...NSS-CDS Full Cave, NACD FUll Cave and IANTD Technical Cave.

What the IANTD Technical Cave cert really does for you is more on the gas side - if you do it right. It seems convoluted to me, but as I recall, it "qualifies" you for 100% O2 deco, and allows you go straight from Advanced Nitrox to Advanced Trimix. It really did not strike me that it meant much on the cave specific side compared to NSS-CDS or NACD training at the Full Cave level.

It can provide a shortest possible path to diving deep caves. Cavern/Intro and Advanced Nitrox in one step...Full Cave (NSS-CDS/NACD) + IANTD Technical Cave step two...Advanced Trimix step three. Not sure if you can do the one week to Full Cave approach and get a Technical Cave and Advanced Nitrox as well which combines steps 1 and 2...that would be even shorter...granted, not necessarily a good thing IMNSHO.

ATB,
Bob
Actually, that's not true. You still need to take Normoxic Trimix before you can take Trimix with IANTD, even with the Technical Cave cert.