TEKcamp! - A woo hoo!

Having completed the TDI course I’ve become a little tech obsessed. It was thoroughly enjoyable and was great to pick the brains of a tech instructor; it’s just such a different mindset and approach to diving. In short, I want to know more. In fact I need to know more. No wait, I need to know everything. Doing another course isn’t an option, well not yet. I figure I need to get some more diving done to allow my new skills to develop and (hopefully) become second nature, it’s also quite expensive. Another shortfall is that I would like to do a wreck course or maybe trimix next but I’m still about 20 dives short of the required 100. So what could i do?

TEKcamp 2011

“How about 5 days with 10 technical diving legends?”

“Aye, that sounds grand. Where's that then?“

"TEKcamp,"

"Woo-hoo!"

[3 weeks previous…]

Heavy metal madness

Being the avid music fans we are, Kerri would be setting aside her wife-buddy duties and become metal-fan-groupie-wife as we had planned to attend a heavy metal festival over the summer. This has now been binned and replaced with more diving. How did this happen I hear you ask? I will tell you, eventually. I love heavy metal and always enjoy a few days of excessively loud music and large quantities of beer and cigarettes, although I have managed to stop smoking of late - I’ll keep you posted on how I get on with that. So when the festival became less attractive it had to be replaced with something else. Actually that’s not entirely true. This is what really happened.

I are heavy metal

I really do love heavy metal. It has always been a huge priority in my life between attending live shows and also performing as a musician. Kerri is an excellent gig photographer specialising in snapping live acts in dark, murky bars around the local live circuit. She has also been known to take a few splendid shots of me strutting my heavy metal stuff - I make a great subject being so pretty and all that. In addition to regular gigs we also like to hit the odd 3-5 day festival; Wacken and Download particular favourites. This year it was to be Bloodstock in the UK which had the added bonus of us being able to take our 23 year old motorhome (Frieda) as opposed to camping. Initially the line up was looking very promising but as more bands were announced we found our interest waning a little.

TEK text

What followed next was mostly my fault. We were still on a bit of a high from the TDI course and diving was very much in the forefront of our minds, so when I expressed the notion that the festival was becoming a little less appealing, Kerri apparently received a green light to find us something else to do. The next morning I came home from night shift and went to bed as usual. On a normal basis, when I awake from my day time slumber, I often find little text messages from Kerri explaining how her day is going, or reminding me to feed the cat army, or to leave dinner out of the freezer, or asking when I am intending to cut the grass, and so forth. On a late afternoon I awoke to find my Blackberry displaying the new message icon on the screen. Through a sleepy daze I eventually recalled how to open what I presumed would be an expletive of how useless Kerri’s work colleagues were and how she really should quit and look after cats full time. Instead it read, “We are going to TEKcamp. Get time off.”

So that was it. Bloodstock was officially binned and I had to find a way to change my work holidays that I had already booked 3 months in advance. I also really ought to find out what TEKcamp actually was. I presumed it was diving related but it’s never prudent to assume such things when a female is involved. My laptop is never far away from me, I often take it to bed with me to check emails, ebay and other vitally important stuff that can’t wait so this was an easy task. The mighty Google heard my call and in a heartbeat I was staring in blank amazement at the TEKcamp website.

This was amazing. 10 technical diving instructors are giving up a week of their very valuable time to get together to both train and give talks to 80 divers all in the rather superb Vobster quarry. Although I frequent all the usual forums and internet places of scuba interest I hadn’t heard of this, I don’t know where or how Kerri came across it, but top marks all the same. It sounded excellent. Over 5 days you get an instructor every morning for 5 hours for in water training, talks over lunch, more diving in the afternoon to practice skills and finally a BBQ in the evening at the nearby campsite where Frieda will be residing.

It is only 4 students per instructor which is fantastic and you get to request which instructors you want to work with. This is particularly appealing to me as there are 3 GUE instructors on the bill who I can’t wait to speak to as I am very interested in that approach to diving. I’m also hoping it will appeal to Kerri and in the future we could consider a GUE fundamental course. Of course I may no longer have wife-buddy if she runs off with that Paul Toomer fellow who she seems particularly keen to “learn” from.

Kerri came home from work that evening and explained further what TEKcamp was all about and how much fun it was going to be.

At that stage the tickets hadn’t actually been released so that left a week to sort out my leave and move some money off the “Maltaqua credit card” to allow further diving. The following Monday morning all the work rubbish was taking care of and like two weirdos Kerri and I huddled around the laptops waiting until 9am to purchase our tickets. In case you hadn’t noticed I used the term “laptops,” as in plural. Yes, you see Kerri was concerned my computer might crash and we would miss out on our 2 of the 80 available tickets while the thing rebooted. So there we were with both our laptops on the TEKcamp website waiting to buy our way into the tech diving hall of fame. Sad. So very sad. In our defence though we don’t get things like this in Ireland so it was an opportunity that could not be missed and it was essential to our eternal happiness that we attended. Sad.

The laptop didn’t crash and we got our tickets. Twinsets at the ready we are going to TEKcamp!

Visit the site and pick up your ticket now, it's going to be amazing. TEKcamp 2011

I are diver and i can’t wait.