WHO ARE SOME OF THE DEEPEST DIVERS IN MIDWEST

[LKunze]

I understand what you are saying John but I think the general consensus would agree that technical diving involves a whole different level of training beyond the basic PADI, etc. recreational training courses.  In technical diving I am talking specifically about staged decompression, mixed gasses, cave diving, wreck penetration and much more advanced dive planning etc.  Doing a bounce dive on air on a single tank to 130' and carrying a pony/bailout bottle is not technical diving.  No question you can encounter some pretty challenging dives in water depths less than 130 feet as you described.  Diving in some of the mine pits with entanglement hazards, low viz, etc. one should definitely be more experienced or advanced in their skills, but that kind of diving is an apples to oranges comparison to doing a 250 to 300 foot dive on trimix or penetrating deep inside of a wreck or cave.  That's the type of diving discussion we are looking for in the technical diving forum.  I personally have no technical training but have done deep bounce dives on single tanks and double tank setups, dove below the root beer layer in the pits, been in zero visibility situations, swam through lots of trees and debris in some of the pits but I do not consider myself a technical diver because I have done those dives.