Master Diver Certification

[Cetus]

I don't know from whom you have taken your training so far, and I know you have access to some very good people, and it sounds as though you have gotten some mentoring. But in no way and to no degree does MSD serve as a learner's permit for technical diving. A technical certification serves as a learner's permit for technical diving. Now, perhaps you have done your open water classes with people who really required and modeled good buoyancy and trim, a battery of propulsion techniques, and stability under task-loading, and perhaps they even encouraged you to perform to those standards. But they are not permitted to task load you heavily, nor are they permitted to make technical-grade stability under task-loading a condition of certification. (We argue about this constantly, whether the instructor should be permitted to do it or not, but the fact is that with PADI, they are not.)

Do I think it's likely you and your daughter will come to serious grief, doing the kind of dive you describe having done? No, and especially not if you are doing these as shore-based divers out of Lobos. But you are seriously upping the ante on your diving by getting into what you are doing, and to be completely honest with you, I have yet to see ANY standard recreational instructor and class sequence that turns out people who are ready to do tech diving (especially without any training), not even ours, and we teach as tech-flavored a recreational curriculum as I think it is possible to do under the PADI system.

Be careful. Diving is easy when it goes well. What you need to know is that you have the skills and the knowledge to manage things when they don't.

Perhaps you have a different definition for a "learner's permit." I use it as defined in Learner's permit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "a restricted license that is given to a person who is learning to drive, but has not yet satisfied the requirements to obtain a driver's license."

Which, in layman terms means now we're ready to learn. Which means taking additional training from very good people we have access to.

 

[EMiles]

A learners permit has restrictions/limitations. Seems like you are exceeding the restrictions for the level certified. No cert you have mentioned includes staged deco. You can certainly disregard the limits, but don't portray your current certs as allowing you to teach yourself deco diving. There is another thread on here recently on why people exceed their training. You should read it if you haven't.

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[MarkHerm]

100 is just an arbitrary number. I'm not asking why not 25 but why not 200? Would 50 dives in our cold water result into significantly more experience than 100 dives in Phillippines, Indonesia, Hawaii, Malta?
I discussed my plans with many experienced divers, some of them being TDI/PADI/GUE instructors. I don't plan in the void.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that 100 dives magically turn a diver in a competent tec diver. Still the number of dives is an indicator of experience (even a better one than certifications IMO; I'd generally rather dive with someone who has 250 dives and OWD certification than with a diver with 60 dives and DM certification). Anyways, all I wanted to say is that a diver with 50-99 dives (as your profile indicates) is still a relatively new diver and that it may be a good idea to slow down a little and gain some experience in the range you are certified for. Of course, this is just may $.02, take care.

 

[flots am]

Accordingly to this site: Decompression Procedures Course, prerequisites for the Decompression Procedures course are "Certification as Nitrox Diver with a minimum of 25 logged dives in the environment in which the course is presented." Are you saying that every bubble maker with 25 dives can be prepared for the scenarios you described?

25 dives is the minimum, however your instructor still might not feel you're ready, and tell you to do another 50 or 100 dives, then come back for the class. There is no requirement that an instructor accept any particular student even if the minimums are met and there is certainly no requirement that the instructor certify anybody. It's entirely possible to take the class and not leave with a card.

I was simply stating that the dive we executed is recognized as a technical dive by many agencies. I did not try to pretend to be the coolest dude in the block who knows it all. You know how we call OW certificate? "Learner's Permit." MSD is a learner's permit for technical diving.

Now I'm certain you don't understand what "technical diving" is. There is no "learner's permit" for technical diving unless you're willing to accept death as the consequence for learning. This isn't something you want to learn by trial and error, since the cost of the "errors" is very, very high.

flots.

 

[drrich2]

Cetus:

I realize people challenging what they perceive you to've done can be frustrating. I think it revolves around a few things:

1.) Some concern for you.

2.) Concern for your minor child, given the 'informed decisional capacity' issue.

3.) When you post on a public forum, you set an example and may influence others, even if you don't intend to.

Richard.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

A couple people have already said that MSD is in no way a learners permit for technical diving so I'll not expound on that. MSD is not even a certification that conveys any new skills or knowledgd under most systems. It is merely a recognition that you took enough courses to get a special card that you had to pay for. There aren't even guidelines to getting it that restrict you to courses that MIGHT prepare you for an introduction to technical diving. There are a couple agencies that have an actual Master Diver class that do.

That someone is doing planned deco dives without a FULL understanding of the risks and without training and doing these with a minor would cause the tech instructors I would choose to train with to question the judgment of the student. To the extent that they may feel the student is too much of a risk taker to begin tech training. And that stems from classes not starting by looking at divers that died and why they died from day one. Risk management is not properly approached to.prepare diver for tech training in nearly all.agency courses unless the instructor is wise enough to do it on their own.

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[nimoh]

Perhaps you have a different definition for a "learner's permit." I use it as defined in Learner's permit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "a restricted license that is given to a person who is learning to drive, but has not yet satisfied the requirements to obtain a driver's license."

Which, in layman terms means now we're ready to learn. Which means taking additional training from very good people we have access to.

A few differences between MSD and a Driver learner's permit.

- MSD is not a pre-requisite for technical diving,
- while a learner's permit is a necessary pre-requisite for a driver's license (at least in my state anyway)

- With an MSD (or without an MSD, it doesn't matter), you are only qualified to make tec dives with an instructor (presumably during a tec class), you are not qualified to make tec dives with other tec divers,
- while with a learner's permit, you are qualified to drive as long as their is a licensed driver with you (not necessarily an instructor)

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

Perhaps you have a different definition for a "learner's permit." I use it as defined in Learner's permit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "a restricted license that is given to a person who is learning to drive, but has not yet satisfied the requirements to obtain a driver's license."

Which, in layman terms means now we're ready to learn. Which means taking additional training from very good people we have access to.

You did nothing more than exceed your training limit by a few magnitudes. That's negligent no matter how you care to look at it.

Great, you used V-Planner. How did you calculate your gas needs and how much did you set aside for a two person dive team?

Just another statistic waiting to happen.

I read a book on cave diving once and looked at a map..

 

[fnfalman]

At the end of the day, Cetus is responsible for his safety and his daughter's safety. If he thinks that they're ready to make that sort of light deco dive, then he's welcome to go for it.

He did a deco dive and not a deco AND penetration dive.

Cetus, you knew what you got you and your daughter into with that deco dive. If you think that you two are capable of doing it repeatedly, then really, who are we to tell you otherwise? You know whom you got trained under. You know how much training you've done.

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

At the end of the day, Cetus is responsible for his safety and his daughter's safety. If he thinks that they're ready to make that sort of light deco dive, then he's welcome to go for it.

He did a deco dive and not a deco AND penetration dive.

Cetus, you knew what you got you and your daughter into with that deco dive. If you think that you two are capable of doing it repeatedly, then really, who are we to tell you otherwise? You know whom you got trained under. You know how much training you've done.

Thinking you are ready and proving you are ready under the tutelage of a competent instructor are two different things. He's negligent in assuming he is qualified to asses his daughter's skills (or his) at his level.