Are there people who just CANNOT dive?

[SlugLife]

I feel like crying with rage. I was going to start my OWD course tomorrow... And it's one hour since I returned from hospital, where they have given me an injection of Diazepam, or Valium, or whatever, after being the whole night awake howling with pain with what in the evening looked like a serious bout of stiff neck which hurt even when not moving, but which had spred to my shoulder, arm and wrist by midnight. I don't think I had ever felt that much pain before.

So there's no way I'm going to do that OWD course from tomorrow on. The doctor said that even with the four medicines I've been prescribed (nine pills a day), it will be some days before I stop noticing the next pills are due because the pain starts to build up again. He even said that the pills might not remove all the pain as the injection has, so there may be some residual pain constantly.

Certain words are crossing my mind now, but since I don't think they are appropriate to say in public, I won't write them. But you get the idea.

I've already told the people at the dive shop, and they say I can enrol in any other course whenever I can attend... Only they are all sold out until at least September. This means I will have to renew my medical certificate, which expires this month (at my age and in Spain, I must renew it every year). Otherwise, I've made up my mind, after reading you all, to try and find some sort of "private tutor".

I still intend to try to get my OWD certificate in the same school. As I told you, they have a very good reputation, in the sense that they won't give you the certificate unless you're really prepared... Which I find reassuring. If I go to another school, I will always have the doubt whether their teaching style has suited me better, or they have given me the certificate just to get another happy customer. So I'll find someone else reasonably nearby and ask whether they'd be willing to give me a couple of one-to-one classes. Perhaphs that's what I need, some time in which I can go through whatever is causing trouble without having to rush because seven other students are waiting for me. I'll also buy a mask, fill it with water and try to learn to breathe through the snorkel with it on, at home.

I could take this as a signal sent from Heaven to stop me from doing more OWD courses... But I'm choosing not to understand it that way. I do want to try. If I eventually fail, I hope at least I won't be upset, like Angelo's student. Only very disappointed, but happy to have tried.

Call the scuba-shop and postpone your OWD course. What you described sounds extremely unsafe, and also sounds like it wouldn't pass the medical form I usually sign before taking a scuba-course. Most of the scuba-shops I work with are very flexible around people who need to cancel last second, and take the course later, especially around medical issues. Aside from being unsafe, I strongly suspect you would fail the scuba-course for reasons outside your direct control.

It sounds like you already have some trouble with scuba, and the distraction of the pain and medications would make that 5x worse.

Even if you have to wait until November or next year, it's better that you do it when you are in a condition to dive.

 

[60plus]

There are quite a number of people each year who take over 20 attempts to pass their car driving test, I think the record is over 100 attempts. The standard format / speed of diving course is not for you. You need a specialist instructor who has plenty of experience teaching disabled people. Forget about OW certification just learn to swim with scuba gear on and dive a step at a time, at your own pace. Diving is about having fun or should be, so what if you never dive deeper than a few meters. I don't know how many if any BSAC club instructors there are where you are but I feel you would have a far better experience at a BSAC club that with most PADI or commercial instructors, but having said that I was very impressed with the disabled instruction given by LEPI divers PADI instructors in St Pauls bay Rhodes.

 

[60plus]

ch time I jumped in to write that PADI not only allowed it, they encouraged it.

The neutral buoyancy issue whilst under instruction has been brought up numerous times but from what I have seen at two locations it is not always practical. At least some of the class will have poor buoyancy skills at this stage of their learning and will tend to float about and concentrate on maintaining buoyancy instead of what the instructor is demonstrating. Also a number of locations do not have pools, the confined water sessions have to be done in the sea where there can be quite a bit of water movement that students would have to work against instead of paying attention to instructor.

 

[TMHeimer]

The neutral buoyancy issue whilst under instruction has been brought up numerous times but from what I have seen at two locations it is not always practical. At least some of the class will have poor buoyancy skills at this stage of their learning and will tend to float about and concentrate on maintaining buoyancy instead of what the instructor is demonstrating. Also a number of locations do not have pools, the confined water sessions have to be done in the sea where there can be quite a bit of water movement that students would have to work against instead of paying attention to instructor.

I'm no expert on the subject by any means but tend to agree. You will get much opposition here from members with way more experience than me.
One factor may be how many are in the class. Big difference doing anything with 4 people as opposed to 8-12.

 

[SlugLife]

The neutral buoyancy issue whilst under instruction has been brought up numerous times but from what I have seen at two locations it is not always practical. At least some of the class will have poor buoyancy skills at this stage of their learning and will tend to float about and concentrate on maintaining buoyancy instead of what the instructor is demonstrating. Also a number of locations do not have pools, the confined water sessions have to be done in the sea where there can be quite a bit of water movement that students would have to work against instead of paying attention to instructor.

My ocean experience is limited, but 3-4ft waves aren't noticeable where I dive, unless you're at the surface. Ocean movement should have little influence on buoyancy practice. While dive-sites where I'm located aren't in the ocean, arguably conditions here are worse for classes due to VERY poor visibility.

Assuming we're talking about the initial Open Water class, beginner-level neutral-buoyancy is somewhat standard curriculum. Nobody is expected to have "perfect" buoyancy but you are expected to not shoot the surface, have enough air in your BC you're not walking on the bottom, and be able to do a safety-stop.

Most (or all?) Advanced Open Water certifications involve "perfect buoyancy" where you are expected to have a much higher degree of control, greatly reduced dumping & adding air to your BC, and ability to control buoyancy with breathing. You're generally not expect to actually have "perfect" buoyancy at the end, but rather have the tools you need to continue developing towards that perfect buoyancy.

I'm no expert on the subject by any means but tend to agree. You will get much opposition here from members with way more experience than me.
One factor may be how many are in the class. Big difference doing anything with 4 people as opposed to 8-12.

The Sidemounting.com instructor is a strong advocate for maximum 3 students per instructor & class, otherwise students really aren't getting the attention and focus they need and are paying for. The dive-shop I work with locally, I believe goes up to 4 students per employee, which can mean 8 students, for 1 instructor, and 1 DM. I think some other shop locally will overload classes with even higher numbers (9-12).

Having 7-8 students in OW, AOW, and similar classes hasn't bothered me yet, however for more advanced classes I intend to take into consideration how many students there are per instructor.

 

[Belzelbub]

The Sidemounting.com instructor is a strong advocate for maximum 3 students per instructor & class, otherwise students really aren't getting the attention and focus they need and are paying for. The dive-shop I work with locally, I believe goes up to 4 students per employee, which can mean 8 students, for 1 instructor, and 1 DM. I think some other shop locally will overload classes with even higher numbers (9-12).

Instructor/employee to student ratio is extremely important. 9-12 is absolutely too many. I think my first OW class was somewhere around that ratio. I took a second OW course, as I was not comfortable after the first.

My kids definitely lucked out. Due to scheduling, they mostly got private instruction. Weather forced some changes in the checkout dives, where they joined another class, but ratio was still acceptable. Oldest had 7 students, with two instructors and a DM. Youngest had 3 students with the instructor. Shop I went with had a policy of 6 per class, and reduced to 4 if one of the students was under 15.

 

[ginti]

My ocean experience is limited, but 3-4ft waves aren't noticeable where I dive, unless you're at the surface. Ocean movement should have little influence on buoyancy practice. While dive-sites where I'm located aren't in the ocean, arguably conditions here are worse for classes due to VERY poor visibility.

Waves are noticeable at shallow depths (3m, which is sometimes used for confined water sessions). And they may pose serious issues to students without a fair amount of experience. Especially for static exercises that require good buoyancy control.

Also, in my experience it is actually easier to maintain a good buoyancy in poor visibility waters than in cristal clear oceans. This happens because of the visual references:
- if you lose buoyancy in poor visibility, you also lost visual contact with whatever was close to you (bottom, buddies, etc.) and you immediately correct;
- with good visibility, you can't lose any visual reference and, often, divers realize too late that they are meters away from where they should be.
There are some threads here on SB discussing the poor abilities of quarry/lake divers in Mexico, for instance.

I don't mean that cold murky quarries are an easier environment than sea. They are just different environments and, as such, some exercises are harder but some are easier. Buoyancy control is one of the easier, given the same equipment.

 

[boulderjohn]

Also a number of locations do not have pools, the confined water sessions have to be done in the sea where there can be quite a bit of water movement that students would have to work against instead of paying attention to instructor.

So do you report those locations for doing their confined water sessions in water that does not offer pool-like conditions, since that would be a standards violation?

 

[60plus]

So do you report those locations for doing their confined water sessions in water that does not offer pool-like conditions, since that would be a standards violation?

No. I assume PADI must know this is the case. At times the sea does provide pool like conditions, at times its marginal and at times its unsuitable. When you intend to take a diving course at European holiday locations you just have to accept the training may not take place or be compromised due to poor weather / sea conditions. Although in ideal conditions PADI OW can be completed in 4 days, if anyone asked me I would advise booking at least a 10 day holiday, preferably 14 to allow for poor weather or other disruptions. Take a look at Nazare Portugal for waves, this is under 250 miles from where I did my SSI deep diver in near perfect conditions, however my son had to abandon his PADI OW after only 2 dives because the wind changed, whipping up the sea.

 

[TMHeimer]

The shop here tries to limit the number of OW students per class to 6, but that is not always possible, as there is only the two shops in the entire area (pop. 400K). Often a lot of people just sign up and many don't want to do it between Oct. and May.