My scary stories on BlueWorldTv, 2022 year
Cave Rescue Meeting 2023 in Portugal
About me
Hi, I am Anton Zhuchkov. As a person, I am an underwater cave explorer, a speleologist, a tech enthusiast, and a designer of diving gear. As a trainer, I am a Dual CCR/DPV, Cave&Tec Instructor Trainer for divers and instructors, and the ambassador of the International Association of Nitrox and Technical Diving (IANTD) in Portugal.
I have been a dedicated diver since 2013 and a dive professional since 2017. I am certified as a Cave and Trimix Instructor Trainer. I am a user of pSCR Hyperion, Liberty backmount and sidemount eCCR, FXccr and Optima chestmount, SF2 and T-reb sidemount CCRs, and two sidemount eCCR Flex 2 in a double configuration. I am a certified service technician for diving gear and Flex 2.
I am an active cave explorer having conducted more than 20 of 150+ and several 200+ meters deep cave exploration dives. My experience is thousands of hours underwater using OC, pSCR, mCCR, eCCR, and double rebreathers. I am one of the deepest and most experienced divers in Europe. In 2021 my buddy and I made the deepest and longest dive in Portugal in caves -212 meters of depth in 1,5 km from the entrance in Alviela cave, 8 hours of diving. I spent 30 min below 100 m and 10 min below 200m of the depth. The dive is in the top 20 deepest dives in caves in the world in 2021.
Date of birth: 08.08.1979Family status: Married, two kids.Place of living: PortugalOrigin: Ukrainian-RussianLanguages: English, Portuguese, RussianEducation: Master's degree in economy and engineeringQualification: Cave and Trimix Instructor Trainer #927 of IANTD, Liberty backmount and sidemount eCCR, sidemount Flex2 eCCR, T-reb sidemount CCR, Dual CCR for any type and brand of rebreathers, and Dual dpv instructor, a speleologist.
MY WAY OF TEACHING
I always say I teach not to do exercises, but to do diving! That is why on my courses, we do all the necessary exercises according to the standards of IANTD and even more, but I always organise the exercises in a natural way, like we just simply dive for fun. In other words - I do exercises for diving, not diving for exercises. I always say - we are not in the army, we are not heroes, we are just diving for fun and it must be fun with increasing the qualification of a student in parallel. Everything in diving is much easier than it seems from the first look. People just like to make things more difficult. It is scary for students, they have more stress than they should and I believe it makes their diving less interesting and more risky. Till we are conscious and not overloaded we can resolve almost any problem underwater. If we are under stress we do stupid unexplainable things. If you see the statistics of diving accidents, you can see that most death cases happened not from serious mistakes which divers did, but from absolutely stupid things, and sometimes even hard to believe that it could be possible to die that way. My opinion is the key point is the level of stress. I always say that regular words in diving “Safety First” are stupid for me. What we do underwater is a risky activity. Sit at home if safety first. Underwater, my student first of all is my buddy, and only after they are my student. I never do tricks like closing valves, cutting hoses, taking the mask off without warning, closing shutt-off valves etc., in other words making artificial troubles on my courses. I respect my students and I believe that all of them are mature and intelligent and, what I see is, that real life always do much better tricks than any instructor can make. I never say to my students “You must do like I do” or “Because of a standard” or “All the people do like that” or other things pointed to cover a lack of knowledge and unprofessionalism of a diver/ teacher. My way of teaching is just simply show you how I dive and do exploration work, answer on all your asked and unasked questions about why I do this or that, show you all lifehacks and shortcuts, and after you can dive whatever you want. A student should be taught to think about which configuration, tactic, or instrument is better for their particular dive, type of diving, and goals. There is no question what is better backmount or sidemount, long hose or short one on a sidemount tank, OC or CC, mCCR or eCCR, solo or diving with buddy etc. There is a question of what it is better to do to reach your goal in particular dive, to minimize stress if something goes wrong. How to raise your survivability avoiding a possible accident or survive if things happen. My way is to be smart and use the best way or instrument for you. I teach that way. My student can be sure that after my course they easily dive on their level according to certification even solo.