What is the best environment to learn to dive in?

[String]

No wonder they quit, I mean local diving.... the smart ones, anyway. They go to more hospitable zones. Not everyone has to be a combat diver.

Wearing a drysuit hardly makes you a combat diver. UK diving can be absolutely fantastic - far better than a lot of places on earth. Warm and clear can often simply equal boring - you can see for miles but there's nothing to see.
Conditions can be poor so your skills need to be better - that isn't exactly a bad thing. It simply means laziness and sloppiness you get away with in some places you wont be able to get away with here.

Give me countless thousands of shipwrecks, seals and large fish any day over the med and other areas with clear water and barren rock.

 

[Doc]

Give me countless thousands of shipwrecks, seals and large fish any day over the med and other areas with clear water and barren rock.

People who dive the Great Lakes say similar things.

In the States, our Caribbean is viewed much as you folks look at the Red Sea. For you, there is a veritable trolley line between Sharm and Heathrow. Lots of shipwrecks and fish.

I understand the point, though. If you would rather stay near home, dive locally, and make the expenditure on equipment and more advanced training, obviously- you system and locale would be a great way to go.

Sometimes, because of locale, we get locked into precise technical pursuits that are miles beyond most other diver's desires. Most divers like to flop into warm water and see pretty fish. I would rather see everyone learn perfect buoyancy FIRST, then branch off and learn about heavy iron later. It's irrelevant in terms of this esoteric discussion, but I know if those warm clear deep pools were available, we would have a lot more noob divers out there.

If you decide that you're main interest lies in the warm water pretty fish realm, many folks dive less, work more overtime on weekends, save up and go traveling once, maybe even four weeks a year.

I have a different perspective than most, I did all of that stuff in the 1960's, both for 'pleasure' and work. All I can say is that my thickest protection is now a 3/5.

This thread is fairly an exercise going nowhere, as one will train where one will train. This assumes that "training" is the first X amount of dives in a career. If the phrase "training" speaks of dive environments and procedures that are "advanced diving", that is a different issue.

Because Advanced Diving is merely environments and gear not previously utilized.

 

[Sinbad the Diver]

I think it depends on what your definition of learn to dive is. If you are talking about the process of getting your c-card I have one opinion, if you mean, actualy learning to dive I have another. I think the best environment for getting your c-card (after the pool part I mean) is one where you have the fewest distractions (god vis, comfortable water temps, no current, etc). It allows you to focus on the basic skills you need to prove to the instructor you can perform. But I do not consider that learning to dive. Learning to dive for me began after I got my card and began the process of diving. Finding a mentor, taking more advanced classes and most importantly, diving. That I think needs to be done in an environment that mirrors what you will be doing most of the time and with buddies and mentors that know that environment.

 

[KC6KIP]

After spending the obligatory time in classroom and pool, we headed for Monterey, CA.

Our first day was a pair of beach access dives from Macaby Beach right off the main downtown tourist area. Being part of the spectacle of John Steinbech's Monterey area made it kind of fun. Until we took our first dive.

Nothing like kneeling in 50 degree water as each one of 25 students took turns running their exercises. No one told us that you can freeze in a wetsuit when your just sitting still.

The next day we tried to dive off of Lover's Point. Nothing like getting slammed up against a rock because the surf is too strong to get in the water.

Weekend cancelled. Come back next weekend. Oh yeah, and don't forget that we had to pay for two weekends in Monterey instead of just one.

All is not lost though.

The following weekend was perfect. The water was still 50 degrees which is typical for Northern CA. Vis was outstanding. Crystal clear for the four beach dives and one boat dive. Nothing like finding a Poppy Hills golf ball 60 feet down.

Wouldn't have missed that for the world.

 

[halocline]

Limited or no visibility , its scary but it will give you confidence and everything else will be easy

This is exactly what I'm talking about, a totally misguided approach to learning. It will NOT give most students confidence; just the opposite.

What will give students the confidence they need to learn in harsh conditions is some prior experience in easy conditions, during which they can get comfortable in the basics of diving. EVERY complex skill activity is taught this way, or should be.

Would you advocate learning to ride a motorcycle in Mexico City? (worst, most difficult driving conditions I've experienced) Why not, its scary but it will give you confidence....

I think many of the posters on this thread are thinking that training starts and ends with OW. That's, of course, not true; you can do OW in easy, accessible conditions, then continuing ed courses in more demanding environments.

 

[bleeb]

What will give students the confidence they need to learn in harsh conditions is some prior experience in easy conditions, during which they can get comfortable in the basics of diving. EVERY complex skill activity is taught this way, or should be.

This sounds particularly useful in cases where new divers turn out to have issues. Of course, in many cases it's not obvious before the fact that a student will have issues. Also, it seems there may be less benefit for some divers (for example in terms of training time), for instance for those that turn out to have passed through training in colder climes without issues and also go on to rapidly become competent and confident cold water divers. Not saying that there's no benefit; only saying that the 'amount' of benefit of such an approach varies depending on the person.

I think many of the posters on this thread are thinking that training starts and ends with OW. That's, of course, not true; you can do OW in easy, accessible conditions, then continuing ed courses in more demanding environments.

It may be worth trying to distinguish between what is currently happening and where it's beneficial to take a different approach. For many new divers (possibly the majority) such a staged approach makes it more likely they'll get through the process successfully and not drop out of cold water diving part way through. OTOH, I'm wondering whether people out there on SB have any feeling of how frequently it's actually happening out there right now. How many get trained in warm water and then make the transition to cold water? Of those, how many opted to pay someone for some form of instruction? And how does that compare with the numbers getting trained in cold water and continuing to dive there?

Also, another common theme here on SB, although not everyone subscribes to it, is that training norms give a limited time to accomplish a lot. Note I deliberately used the word for what's actually happening and not 'standards'. One factor that seems implicit in any training program is the amount of time it takes and therefore how much it costs to put it on. While a frequent recommendation here on SB is that new divers should not let cost be the driver when determining the quality of the training program one chooses, we also so frequently hear of newcomers not knowing any better.

 

[halocline]

Bleeb, you are making some good points. I feel that the new diver experiences as related by the postings on SB are not representative of the general OW student population, and instead are more representative of the more capable, enthusiastic, and dedicated students of diving. (IOW, those students passionate enough about diving to spend time on an online dive community) I'm assuming that this group will be disproportionately able to thrive in difficult conditions early in their development.

For every one new diver that posts on SB "learn to dive in cold dark water, I did, and it made me a better diver", or something similar, there are undoubtedly several new divers that either dropped out of cert classes or were too intimidated to pursue diving past OW class. We'll never hear from them on SB, but I see them all the time when assisting with OW classes. Remember, only about 10% of certified divers continue diving. Those are not very good numbers in terms of student retention, and to me that indicates some problems in the way people are certified. I'm sure there are many other factors, I know I'm oversimplifying here.

 

[String]

What will give students the confidence they need to learn in harsh conditions is some prior experience in easy conditions, during which they can get comfortable in the basics of diving. EVERY complex skill activity is taught this way, or should be.

Ive taught in dark murky conditions and warm clear waters and my experience is 100% the opposite. People who ive seen learn in the nice clear waters are utterly shocked when they go into colder waters. The much thicker exposure and drysuits mean they need to relearn buoyancy, the thick gloves and numb hands makes all the skills hard and need to be relearnt (especially mask skills), the low visibility means they need to relearn buddy skills and navigation. In short not one thing they've learnt is actually any use at all. They spend a long time trying to adapt or quite commonly fail to adapt at all and simply give up.

Contrast with someone who learnt from day 1 in the drysuits, gloves and cold. Right from the start the skills are instinctive in the far from optimal conditions. Their skills are sharper and more fluid because they have to be. These go abroad and realise its like diving in a swimming pool full of fish and cant believe how easy it is.

Id venture that warm water learning is of very little use to someone that wants to do cold water diving. Not one aspect of it is the same and all will require sometimes substantially different skills and abilities.

 

[oreocookie]

i did my cert dives in a lake area of the st lawrence river near montreal in september, when the water was about as warm as it gets, about 70 degrees i guess. most of us were also getting a Quebec diving permit at the time, so we had to demonstrate things for that too, though i have no idea what they were (i think basically the same as what we needed for the OW cert), but for at least one dive we were required to wear a hood (to prepare us for the local conditions). i guess this seems obvious when the rental wetsuits they gave us were 7mm farmer john/janes and jackets... they let us go without them for the second dive: can you say learning experience? i think everybody had one on for dive 3... but anyway, vis was probably 15 feet or so, the bottom was a cloud of silt waiting to happen (and it did) and there was some current, which was kinda fun when you had something to hold onto. I'd compare it to swimming through a brownish blizzard. I'm glad my first dives were there, since I figure it gives me more to look forward to when i get to warm clear waters, instead of doing the reverse and maybe being disappointed or panicked by less than ideal conditions that are likely going to be similar to most of the diving I'll be doing.

here's a nice little google map showing roughly where I went. the pointer is just down the street from the dock http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=170+rue+Principale,+St-Zotique,+QC&sll=45.255959,-74.218794&sspn=0.00182,0.004807&ie=UTF8&ll=45.533289,-74.036865&spn=1.854707,4.921875&t=h&z=8