Diving Education Today

[Thalassamania]

What can I say? Your instructor had no taste?

 

[gcbryan]

What can I say? Your instructor had no taste?

Finally we agree...it's the instructor.

 

[DCBC]

Maybe commercial and military divers should just stay out of the rec training business.

Or not...

This is just a hobby. Fun and games.

It's something that has to be taken seriously. Careful and prepared doesn't negate enjoyment.

 

[DCBC]

Assuming your basic OW classes were the norm, do you believe there would be many people taking those classes?

I've been running classes in a similar way for the past 37 years and don't have a problem in getting students. That's not to say that some people wouldn't want to make the commitment; while others who currently don't would be drawn because of the challenge involved.

And do you think the whole industry would be better off with your system? (And why?)

Divers would be more competent; safety would increase. Just a thought...

 

[TSandM]

I don't know about Monterey, but in Puget Sound, sites for OW dives are chosen for several reasons: Easy entry and exit, low or no likelihood of significant current, a hard bottom at a safe depth, and a site with minimal delicate structures. This means silt plains, for the most part. And since classes do a lot of their "skills" ON the bottom, it also means very low visibility. Combine the two, and you don't see much.

 

[beester]

QUESTION: Do you think that MORE people who got in touch / started diving through a tropical resort course (could be OW or just discover scuba) progress into local water diving then people who did their OW course locally to dive in the tropics?

I think most would agree that the key to safety, good skills, more enjoyment in diving comes from good instruction, good mentors, evaluation skills and alot of diving in different circumstances. However unless you're a professional most of us won't be able to do enough regular dives abroad to keep this up. So key is local diving.

I'm coming from a volunteer club organisation. I've checked my log. My first 100 dives were with divers who were regulars and had lots of experience (most of them 500 + dives). Among them a few jems... guys with experience, skills, but also a really fresh view on the underwater world, guys who would be so enthousiastic that it was inevitable that this enthousiasm would be transmitted.

It's a structure were you get a certification and after that are not let loose on the world but can just join all the organised local dives that are being done by the club. So in this system there is enough room to learn to enjoy the local underwater world. However we do see alot of variance. We can have people coming in and joining who did their first dives in a tropical resort, and were bitten by the bug. you can have people very interested in diving doing some local diving and then go on a tropical diving holiday. You can have people coming in stating directly I just want to get my card and then I'm off... I'm not interested in clubs or organized diving locally.

It really is a lottery. You just don't know... who will become a regular local diver and who will stick around until 1st C card or first tropical holiday and then vanish.

So back to the basic discussion. Diving education today... will changing it also change the fact that a big % of divers starting to dive only do it for a short while to sniff it and say been there done that? Divers that don't progress or are satisfied with once a year 5 tropical dives? I really don't know. I do believe that the ones where the bug bit... will get there... they will inform themselves, start diving locally just out of I WANT TO DIVE AND 5-25 DIVES A YEAR IS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH, start getting gear adjusted to local diving, start knowing the local diving community.... etc

 

[DCBC]

So back to the basic discussion. Diving education today... will changing it also change the fact that a big % of divers starting to dive only do it for a short while to sniff it and say been there done that? Divers that don't progress or are satisfied with once a year 5 tropical dives? I really don't know. I do believe that the ones where the bug bit... will get there... they will inform themselves, start diving locally just out of I WANT TO DIVE AND 5-25 DIVES A YEAR IS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH, start getting gear adjusted to local diving, start knowing the local diving community.... etc

Regardless where the diver is trained, I think that s/he should be properly prepared to apply their skill-sets at the level and geographic area which they are trained. I think it's good practice for a diver entering new waters to seek guidance and perhaps dive with a DM or seek further instruction from an instructor, as required.

It is of course often easier to make a change from cold-water to warm, than the other way around, but new hazards can present themselves in both areas. If a diver is trained in the Bahamas and comes to dive the North Atlantic without further instruction and wishes to dive unsupervised, it would be a good idea that he makes sure that his life insurance is up-to-date first.

 

[beester]

True DCBC... but I've seen the other way around also... and alot more.

Most people will sense instinctively when they get from tropical clear warm water to cold, low vis, current water that it's a different ballgame.

However complacency also kills. The local diver who dives low vis, current, cold waters and goes tropical...and thinks physics no longer apply to him (goes to deep and gets narced out of his mind for example... but I can still see the boat from down here )

 

[rstofer]

I don't know about Monterey, but in Puget Sound, sites for OW dives are chosen for several reasons: Easy entry and exit, low or no likelihood of significant current, a hard bottom at a safe depth, and a site with minimal delicate structures. This means silt plains, for the most part. And since classes do a lot of their "skills" ON the bottom, it also means very low visibility. Combine the two, and you don't see much.

Same thing at Breakwater. All of the training (that I have seen) is done alongside the Coast Guard pier. There are a few Metridiums that have survived and, if you look close, there are Sand Dabs (interesting that their right nostril and right eye migrate to the left side as they mature) and my favorite, the Decorator Crab. I can watch these little guys for hours. Oh, and it saves on swimming and reduces air consumption.

I'm pretty sure the Decorator Crabs are my grandson's favorite.

Richard

 

[acwest]

My training seems to me to have been both adequate and comfortable. I did blow an o-ring at 60' on a moonless night dive - my 100th as it turns out. Kind of an anniversary present. No big deal! I had plenty of air coming into the reg. It was the surface swim that was ugly. But my instructor insisted from the start that most problems are better solved on the bottom than by bolting to the surface. Well, assuming there is a bottom, I guess. No harassment was necessary for me to get the point that, as long as I had air to breath, everything would work out in time.
Richard

I have a question for you. Do you think you would have handled that o-ring problem as well as you did on your first dive after open water? In this case, presume it was at 59' and during the day, of course... It wasn't necessarily your training that prepared you to deal with an emergency, it was the 100 dives after that, that allowed you top become comfortable on the water and confident in your abilities to deal with problems. What is being argued here is that it is possible to get to that comfort level during training, under controlled conditions. You were lucky that nothing requiring the ability to deal with a crisis happened in those first hundred dives. Your students may not be so lucky...