Scary bad Advanced diver.

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Maybe he wanted to learn enough about diving so he could put the bomb under the ship . . . .
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Of course, given the scenario, I would get acknowledgement in writing that you advised him to re-train.
 
So to defend the diver (a little devils advocate) a bit - 200 warm water resort dives is not the same as 1 cold water dive with hood, 7mm w/s, and gloves. Being pampered, having your gear set up for you by the resort DM, in a shorty w/s with awesome viz, integrated weight pockets with a few pounds maybe = easy relaxed diving.
Being in cold water, new equipment = stressed out diver.

Our LDS often takes divers like this back to the pool for a little refresher, i.e. try dive under the guidance of the LDS owner or one of us OWSI. Then to the local quarry. Then to local (1.5 hour away) deep shore dives. Then to more advanced boat dives in cold Lake Huron.

If the diver is serious about cold water and more advanced dives it looks like he needs a fair bit of incremental mentoring to be able to do it safely.
 
This person is an obvious and real danger to anyone in the water with them. I can't believe any competant instructor would do a checkout dive with anyone that couldn't begin to pass an OW course.
 
The checkout dive was requested by the diver. The diver was definitely the person on their C card.
The inability to set up gear rang alarm bells but not really loud. The reason being that we get two types of divers.
The "don't even LOOK at my gear" types.
And the "I expect EVERYTHING done for me" types.
The I want everything done for me types generally aren't bad divers they are just very demanding.
 
I am more surprised that you got pass mistake one and two. Time for the diver to go back to a refresher class.
 
Ya know what's funny, I've had similar experiences as well. I've been diving with a bunch of people who were "vacation" divers, who literally had no idea how to dive. Forget about gear prep, very few people do that properly anyway. I'm talking about what they do on and under the water. Bouncing off the bottom, waving their hands around, sticking their fingers where they don't belong, ignoring the dive briefing, disappearing after entering the water... big no-no's, that even if explained, seem to not register.

Having grown up shore diving in the cold waters of the north east, it's second nature for me. I learned how to be self sufficient and I'm also not a big fan of boats in general. However, on boat dives it's totally different, especially if you rent gear. Sometimes they make it to easy, requiring no real thought from the diver themselves. That's to cover their ass, so if someone jumps over without a tank valve open, they don't die... because of course, why would anyone check their gear before jumping into the water? :sigh:

The problem is simply lack of complete education. People are taught what they need to survive, not what they need to be good divers.
 
The checkout dive was requested by the diver....The inability to set up gear rang alarm bells but not really loud.

In which case, you fulfill their request by providing honest feedback after the check-out.

However, in doing the check-out you now put yourself in a position of liability because you cannot deny foreknowledge of the divers' competency level. This knowledge has to shape your risk assessment regarding what diving activities you are prepared to take the diver on.

If the diver does not display competency, as determined by the appropriate certification performance standards for the dives undertaken, then you are failing to apply reasonable and prudent risk management.

As a baseline, any diver should be competent in all of the performance standard skills taught on entry-level diving. Being incompetent in OW level skills signals a hazard to safe diving and a risk to the diver and those around them. This has to be rectified.

If the dives being considered are beyond OW level, then additional training performance standards need to be considered in respect to diver competency. Either way, the diver has to be actively and currently competent at the level to which they are certified, in order to complete dives at that level.

There is also the issue of regional suitability. Divers are qualified up to the limits of their training and experience. It's your responsibility to determine if that training and experience is sufficient for the diving you can take them on. If anything happens to that diver, then you have to justify or defend that risk assessment.

I don't believe it is satisfactory to turn a blind-eye to diver incompetence and simply abandon proper risk assessment/management because the diver has X, Y or Z certification cards. That's a "see-no-evil", head-in-the-sand type of strategy... and if you've done a check-out dive with them, then you can't claim subsequently to not know that the diver was incompetent below the standards of their certification level.
 
The fact they asked you for a checkout dive makes me wonder if they know they might have issues. How long ago did they get certified? Maybe they haven't been diving for a few years. In which case a refresher is in order. Just be honest and tell them they should get a refresher. If they don't want to do a refresher than be a little more assertive and tell them the full truth, i.e. they NEED a refresher.

I worked at a shop that let you get a membership which includes time in the pool to practice. Someone looking for a new shop joined us in the pool. After seeing them in the pool I realized they wouldn't have been certified by my shop. I just straight up told them that lake diving in Canada was harder than vacation diving in the Caribbean. I would STRONGLY recommend they take a refresher. They weren't happy but they kind of knew the other shop passed them because they made the minimums. He saw our students diving and realized he could do with better training. If you are tactful, you might be able to help your diver too.
 
[QUOTE="JohnnyC, post: 7616562, member: 429324']You can go from being a non-diver to AOW in 10 dives through PADI

with dives like Fish ID and Underwater Naturalist, it's not like many of those dives mean much of anything.[/QUOTE]

Nine, not 10, but your point is clear.

Deep and Navigation DO mean something, and they are both required.
PPB is the most common first-dive for AOW, and can be taught (within standards) to be VERY meaningful and helpful.
Fish ID and U/W Nat'l can be VERY good classes, but my guess is you have not had them and could not teach them.
I think your point is that an AOW card might not mean much.....but it usually means more than you give it credit for, and it could mean a lot.
 
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.....learn to put the weights in the proper place for better trim, learn how to properly ditch it.... A little more than 1 min,.... but if only going 1/2 way floats your boat, go for it.
Not to get picky, but the OP did say "no idea how to put a weight belt on". Yes, that takes less than a minute to teach. Putting it together properly is something else (which I assume he also didn't know how to do).
 
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