ps. In more recent years, my dad dived with my cousin a few times. My dad doesn't have any gear any more, so my cousin gave him an integrated BCD to wear. Dad said he never did put any air in it.
"Correct Weighting" Identified as #1 Needed Improvement in SCUBA Diving
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george_austin
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All I can figure is that that guy must have been at a (typical) 45 degree angle, instead of in horizontal trim, and finning the whole dive. And thinking he was just swimming along.
I don't think he's an instructor, so he has not tried to try this with students. All of the instructors in this thread have indicated that this is a point not worth making. I would call it stupid, but I might hurt his feelings. I do feel it's dangerous to have students in OW without anything to float them easily on the surface and properly weighting your student is enough to get almost all the air out of a BC while diving. So, we'll leave it at dangerous and avoid calling it stupid.
george_austin
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The Navy Diving Manual is what we used to learn deco diving. It was free to check out in the public library - there weren't agencies using untrained instructors to train untrained novices. You started by taking small bites and worked your way up using common sense and patience instead of instant gratification and a little plastic card that may have misinformed you about your ability.
A set of doubled up steel 72's with the bands and harness/regulator/manifold assembly is going to be about 13 # to the heavy when full. You've got a 1/4 inch Rubatex suit which wasn't nearly as spongy as today's stuff. So a good guestimate is you're going to only be about 9-10 # heavy at the start of the dive. At 100 ft you can take off your lead and leave it at the anchor line to fetch up again after you've nailed that 20# Flattie mom is counting on for dinner. A BCD wasn't necessary but having a strudy float to use on the surface was usually a good idea if someone got tired and needed to rest a bit. Hunting and killing unwilling gamefish can be exhausting.
Another thing is that also, many divers chose to use the doubled up 38's too which displace less and are even lighter when totally overfilled past the 1800 psi standard.
It makes me disappointed that almost all newcomers aren't trained and experienced skin divers before being considered for 'SCUBA" - BCD's should not be used in beginner training in the pool (IMHO) Proper weighting should be absolutely MASTERED in theory and during open water skin diving (diving without SCUBA in wetsuits) and where competent swimming skills can be evaluated by EXPERIENCED instructors - ( over 1000 dives in all conditions)
All this is just my .02
Two things:
One, from your perspective, when you say "skin diver" do you mean thing as what I would mean when I talk about someone who is experienced with snorkeling? I mean, I think of skin diver and snorkeler as the same thing, but I'm wondering if there is a difference in your mind. Now that I say that, I could see where some people might think of a skin diver as the same thing as a free diver, and might think skin diver/free diver is different than a snorkeler. I never really thought at that, as I always think of them as the same. Some people just don't dive down as deep as others. But, I suppose there might be people who snorkel but never hold their breath and dive down at all and so those might be properly called a snorkeler but not a skin diver.
And, two, my opinion is that the accident and fatality statistics do not support your idea that beginner scuba training needs to be any more rigorous than what it is now. What I do think should be considered to be made more rigorous is instructor training and instructor quality monitoring. I am not an instructor or even a very experienced diver. But, when I read some of those fatality case studies in the DAN report, it made me wonder "did the person get training that met current standards, from a competent instructor, and the training just wasn't rigorous enough? Or, did the person get training that didn't fully meet current standards and/or was from an instructor of dubious competence?"
Based on how low the overall numbers are for injuries, it seems to me that current standards for training are probably good and people like the ones that died are more likely to have been better served to have a better instructor, rather than more rigorous standards to meet.
Sadly, it seems as though, in order for standards for instructor certification and instructor monitoring to be raised, the instructors themselves would have to collectively decide to do that. I.e. instructors would have to decide to be harder on themselves as a group. That seems less likely to happen than for instructors to decide collectively to be harder on their students. I mean, how many instructors are really like to vote (whether it's with a raised hand or an opened wallet) to subject themselves to tougher requirements to maintain their instructor status?
george_austin
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I tend to think of "snorkelers" as the vacation folk that will rent a MFS kit and go look at the tropical fish while kicking along the surface and taking photos - nothing at all weird or wrong about that. I've done it plenty myself. A skin diver is in my mind a competent "freediver" that may or may not hunt and shoot fish, has her/his own gear, knows all about stuff like shallow water blackout, apnea, - etc. - is more or less pretty good with rescue, maybe First Aid / CPR qualified - can dive to 50-60 ft and poke around - but more importantly is very confident in their basic skills and would NEVER call themselves a "snorkeler"
Yes, I agree with everyone else that instructor standards need to be raised for the most part.but that's been gone over a million times here. Everyone agrees.
I returned this week from a dive trip to Tobago and there were brand new divers being trained by the owner of Tobago Dive Experience and they were doing everything the rest of us were doing so - yes, quality instruction is still out there and you're lucky if you can find it.
Yes, I agree with everyone else that instructor standards need to be raised for the most part.but that's been gone over a million times here. Everyone agrees.
I returned this week from a dive trip to Tobago and there were brand new divers being trained by the owner of Tobago Dive Experience and they were doing everything the rest of us were doing so - yes, quality instruction is still out there and you're lucky if you can find it.
I believe we are seeing an evolution is thinking in terms of scuba in several areas, and that evolution is leading to some changes in instruction.
The most obvious one is the introduction of using an SMB/DSMB in the OW class and the creation of other recreational level classes that teach it. I did not see my first DSMB anywhere until several years after I was certified, and then it was a new concept being used by the operator I had been using in Cozumel.
Buoyancy is another area that is changing. When we wrote our article on neutral buoyancy instruction years ago, one of the points I made in negotiations with PADI was that the OW course required nearly no neutral buoyancy swimming in the confined water sessions, and the OW dives did not call for much, either. The PADI standards implemented a couple years after that call for significantly more neutral buoyancy instruction and practice in both areas.
So what does that mean for instructors? First of all, for most instructors, there was no required instruction in DSMB deployment before they became instructors. Next, there was little required instruction in buoyancy control for becoming an instructor, either. You mostly had to be able to demonstrate skills while firmly planted on the knees. Despite both facts, instructor standards assume that ALL instructors have the ability to teach DSMB deployment and advanced buoyancy skills (like Peak Performance Buoyancy). IMO, both should be required demonstrations for instructor certification.
The most obvious one is the introduction of using an SMB/DSMB in the OW class and the creation of other recreational level classes that teach it. I did not see my first DSMB anywhere until several years after I was certified, and then it was a new concept being used by the operator I had been using in Cozumel.
Buoyancy is another area that is changing. When we wrote our article on neutral buoyancy instruction years ago, one of the points I made in negotiations with PADI was that the OW course required nearly no neutral buoyancy swimming in the confined water sessions, and the OW dives did not call for much, either. The PADI standards implemented a couple years after that call for significantly more neutral buoyancy instruction and practice in both areas.
So what does that mean for instructors? First of all, for most instructors, there was no required instruction in DSMB deployment before they became instructors. Next, there was little required instruction in buoyancy control for becoming an instructor, either. You mostly had to be able to demonstrate skills while firmly planted on the knees. Despite both facts, instructor standards assume that ALL instructors have the ability to teach DSMB deployment and advanced buoyancy skills (like Peak Performance Buoyancy). IMO, both should be required demonstrations for instructor certification.
You did not include a third possibility--the diver was well trained years before but has not dived for a long time and forgotten much of it.
More importantly, as someone who used to read the DAN reports avidly, I found that only a very small percentage of the very small percentage of dives ending in fatalities included a problem related to diver skills. The most common of these, as was verified by a joint PADI/DAN studies, involved rapid ascents following OOA emergencies. That is why PADI's most recent course changes focus on making sure that does not happen. The most common problems leading to fatalities are health-related. The next most common I would group under the general heading "diver decided to do something stupid and dangerous." That category would include the large number of instructors and technical divers in the annual report, people who intentionally took risks as they went beyond their level of training. The only dive fatality with which I was personally involved was in the case of one of the most highly trained and experienced divers I have ever met, a diver whose skills far exceeded mine. He was diving beyond his ability though, doing something I would not dream of doing at my level of skill.
JamesBon92007
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I've heard references in the past that indicated that to the general public a "skin diver" was someone who dove without scuba but in my mind it included scuba divers. Skin Diver Magazine was focused mainly on scuba divers. I've always called snorkelers snorkelers and free divers free divers. But free divers are also skin divers. Snorkelers are just snorkelers until they dive down, then they become divers. I'm from Orange County and was certified in LA County and I've heard "skin diver" used both ways.
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