DecompressionProcedures

What This Course Is

The TDI Decompression Procedures course is the gateway to Malta's deeper diving. It takes you to 45 metres with genuine staged decompression — opening wrecks like the MV Karwela and Cominoland, whose famous staircase sits at just 33–36m with the hull reaching 45m, and the Bristol Blenheim bomber (42m) — and, just as importantly, it's the decompression foundation every deeper qualification builds on. The iconic deep wrecks — HMS Stubborn at 56m, Le Polynesien at 65m, HMS Southwold at 75m — sit beyond this course's depth, but you can't reach any of them without first mastering exactly what's taught here.

You'll be diving to 45 metres with real decompression obligations — proper planned deco dives with multiple gas switches and a decompression schedule you've built yourself. By the end of this course you'll be planning and executing staged decompression dives with confidence, managing multiple gas mixes underwater, and thinking and operating like a technical diver.

The skills and discipline you develop here — gas planning, abort criteria, team communication, deco stop discipline — form the foundation of everything in technical diving that follows. This course is where that foundation gets built, and we take it seriously from day one.

By the time you're done, you'll be planning and executing staged decompression dives, managing multiple gas mixes, and thinking like a technical diver rather than an advanced recreational one. There's a genuine difference and you'll feel it.

What You'll Cover

• Decompression theory — how nitrogen and other inert gases behave under pressure, why deco stops work, what happens when they don't
• Dive planning — building real dive plans from scratch using accepted planning software and tables, not just copying someone else's numbers
• Gas switching — switching to decompression gases underwater, oxygen management, CNS tracking
• Equipment configuration — stage cylinder handling, deco cylinder placement, managing multiple gases without faff
• Staged decompression execution — running a deco schedule underwater, holding stops, dealing with drift and buoyancy at the stop
• Contingency planning — what to do when the plan goes wrong, extended decompression, lost deco mix, missing your buddy
• Human factors — team communication, task loading, decision-making under pressure. The stuff that saves lives.

What You Need Beforehand

• TDI Advanced Nitrox certification (or equivalent — we'll have a conversation about that)
• Minimum 25 logged dives
• Age 18+
• Solid buoyancy and trim — if you're still kicking up silt I'll have you doing buoyancy work before we start deco training

What It Opens Up

This certification unlocks all of Malta's serious wrecks at recreational depth with a proper technical approach — Um El Faroud to 36m with staged decompression, MV Karwela to 45m, P29 to 34m. More importantly, it's the mandatory stepping stone to Trimix Diver, which is where the genuinely deep stuff begins.