UTD Essentials of Recreational Diving: What to Expect

Essentials of Recreational Diving is where most certified divers meet the UTD system. It's not a second open water course. It's a skills course that takes what you already know and rebuilds the foundations: buoyancy, trim, propulsion, gas sharing and diving as a team.

Who is it for?

Divers certified by any recognized agency who want more control in the water. UTD describes it as the point of entry for previously certified divers and the bridge between conventional training and its more demanding curriculum. It's the prerequisite for other UTD recreational classes except Open Water and Rec 1.

You don't need to be planning a technical career. Many divers take it simply to enjoy their diving more.

What are the prerequisites and limits?

Prerequisites

• Minimum age 15. No doubles or nitrox until 16.
• Open water certification from a recognized agency.
• Swim 50 feet on a breath hold.
• Swim 300 yards in under 14 minutes without stopping.

These are selected course prerequisites. Your instructor also verifies UTD's general prerequisites and the current enrollment requirements. Swim assessments are supervised course requirements, not invitations to practice breath-hold swimming alone.

Limits

• Maximum depth 60 feet, or 100 feet if you're nitrox certified.
• No stage decompression and no overhead environments.
• The course can be taken in backmount or sidemount, with or without nitrox training.

What will you learn?

• Buoyancy and trim: holding position in the water, horizontal and still, with breathing doing the fine work.
• Propulsion: five kicks that let you move forward, backward and turn without silting: frog, modified frog, modified flutter, helicopter turn and back kick.
• The Basic Six: regulator remove and replace, regulator exchange, regulator recovery, a modified S-drill, mask clearing, and mask remove and replace.
• Gas sharing: the S-drill, donating the long hose and switching to your backup.
• Valve drills, single tank or doubles.
• SMB deployment as a team skill.
• Gas planning: rock bottom, turn pressures and UTD's Min Deco ascent strategy.
• Team diving: positions, communication, pre-dive checks and situational awareness.

The course requires a minimum of four hours of academics and four in-water sessions.

What does a typical three days look like?

Every course adapts to the team, the conditions and the site, but a common shape is:

Day 1: setup and foundations. Your equipment is configured and fitted. Lectures on weighting and the balanced rig. Dry runs on land for trim, propulsion, team positioning, the Basic Six and the S-drill. If there's confined water, the first in-water session focuses on propulsion, the Basic Six and a weight check. Then video review.

Day 2: buoyancy, trim and propulsion in open water. You plan each dive as a team, with a leader and a deco captain, and run the pre-dive checks. The dives focus on buoyancy, trim and kicks against a fixed reference, then the Basic Six, S-drills and SMB deployment. Video review, and a lecture on Min Deco ascents and rock bottom gas planning.

Day 3: team skills. Valve drills, gas-sharing ascents and team SMB deployment in open water, with your team running the dives. Final video review and debrief.

Why the video debriefs matter

You can't see your own trim, your fins or your hands. Video can. Each dive is filmed, and the review afterward focuses on one or two things at a time, so you have something specific to work on in the next dive. Most divers are surprised by the first video. By the last, they're usually surprised at how far they've come.

How are you evaluated?

UTD instructors score each area, like buoyancy, team awareness and judgment, on a five-point scale: 1 cannot complete, 2 complete but unsafe, 3 safe but could be improved, 4 above average and 5 demonstration level. Certification requires at least a 3 in every section.

UTD's certification philosophy is simple: you pay for training, and you earn certification. If you're not there yet, your instructor sets out a path to completion with you. UTD v6c provides a year for training and reevaluation; after that, the complete course must be repeated. Additional training may carry an additional charge.

What should you bring?

Your instructor will confirm the list for your course. Gardner Underwater's equipment list specifies a backplate, harness and wing for backmount training, a 7-foot long hose and a necklace backup. See DIR Gear Configuration, Piece by Piece for the full list and what's optional.

Book your Essentials course

See Essentials of Recreational Diving for course details and how to get started. For where it leads, see How to Become a Technical Diver.