Resort's " New Normal " Rule - No AIR 2 or diving your long hose

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I run monthly open water training on the West Coast of Scotland. Students initially trained by other agencies, like PADI, are surprised by the their lack of OOG competence, including those holding Rescue Certification. This is only anecdotal though.

Students for all diver grades; Ocean Diver, Sports Diver, Dive Leader and Advanced Diver have to perform OOG skills and full blown rescues of an incapacitated diver. So yes, members do have to refresh their skills.
In many clubs the Diving Officer requires all active divers to refresh their rescue skills an the beginning of each diving season.
That doesn't surprise me. BSAC is a more structured form of group diving that included guided, continued practice. The notion that out of that you would get people that respond in line with their continued practice is exactly what one would expect.


But that isn't representational of the bulk majority of divers and trying to extrapolate a survey of how that non-representational group to the larger majority is flawed. Now, you could argue that that structured approach is a better way to go overall, and that may be valid, but it also isn't realistic.
 
It requires a fundamentally different process for responding to an emergency.

In a high stress situation, people fall back to what they're used to. It's easy to say "well, they'll just have the extra reg sitting there to use" because that seems totally reasonable when viewed from a rational, not panicking state, but when the proverbial crap hits the fan, people revert to what they've trained. That's why there's training.
You overestimate training. In a true emergenvy people do a lot of stuping things, ignoring entirely their training. Unfortunately I have seen this happening (not only in scuba context).
Having an additional air source cannot hurt, even it will be used improperly.
The lack of it can only make things worst.
As having it is now officially recommended by my government, I see no point debating on risk percentages or on what people will do when in panic.
Just give everyone the now mandatory additional air source.
What's the point or the advantage not making it available?
 
Just give everyone the now mandatory additional air source.
Because it isn't about just carrying an extra reg, it's about having them respond differently than how they have practiced in an emergency.

It's an issue of risk reduction strategies and making requirements that are counter productive. Implementing a requirement that adds a higher risk to prevent a lower risk is a demonstration of an inability to properly manage risk.
 
Your assumption that “american” cave divers hit cave ceilings frequently is arrogant at best and shows your cluelessness. Carry on.
I was not the guide in those caverns. I simply reported what I saw: the guide refused entering a diver who was using frog kicking keeping the knees flexed and the fins well above his head.
The guide did show him the proper trim and kicking style for passing below the coral ceiling.
He did adopt the suggested position and kicking style, and passed succesfully under the coral.
I have seen this scene at least three times in 10 years spent doing holidays at Capo Caccia. The diver being refused access did comply to the suggestion of the guide in all three cases.
My point is that you must accept to adapt your behaviour to local circumstances and regulations, and obey to the DM when he is doing his job, safeguarding delicate marine life.
In a diffetent environment, possibly frog kicking with flexed knees is mandatory.
What is right in a place, is not necessary right in another...
We must be flexible enough for accepting this, when we visit places different than our usual ones.
I do not understand a religious defense of practices which are perfect for the sites where they were developed, but are against rules defined for special local circumstances (or temporary situations as this one caused by Covid-19).
 
I do not understand a religious defense of practices which are perfect for the sites where they were developed, but are against rules defined for special local circumstances (or temporary situations as this one caused by Covid-19)
The difference is that the regulation/rule in this case does not seem like a reasonably or sensible request. It is not to protect the marine habitat. It is not a necessary step to adapt to unique dive conditions. It does not even seem to provide any health benefit except in the very unlikely event where 1) an unknown diver runs OOG and 2) that diver goes to an unknown second diver to get air and that diver just happens to be on island and diving with an active covid infection.

In your examples, specific gear or dive modifications are needed to safely dive those sites. That is not the case here.

This is Buddy Dive in Bonaire. Diving doesn't get much less complicated then this.

So to answer @beaverdivers question. If I am traveling with expectations of “instabuddies” (there is the elephant in the room) I could understand needing to adapt gear accordingly. Since I don’t do instabuddy dives, I would avoid any dive op that required me to adapt my gear when diving solo or with my husband as buddy.
 
I hope this is not a Bonaire thing, I stay next door at Den Laman and use Dive Friends
Dive Friends says they are going to publish their new rules this week.
 
None of that addresses how they have practiced since their initial training though. With the way that diving is done with BSAC, I would expect quite a bit fewer divers to depart from the original training, so it doesn't surprise me that in the incident reports, there are fewer cases of people falling back on "non-standard" practices. That doesn't make that representational of global diving as a whole though.
FYI about half the people who dive in BSAC clubs originally trained with commercial schools such as PADI/SSI/etc. The incident reports do cover all U.K. diving, so if a couple of PADI divers get helicoptered off some boat it will probably be there. Obviously there is better reporting of club dives.

If there existed a database of incidents from other locations you might be in a better place to dismiss the conclusion that original training doesn’t matter if it found differently. But that is not the case and people that give training do try to make the training count. What is the point of teaching how to handle an OOA event if you don’t think the diver will do what they were trained to do? Drop it, shorten the course, make it more accessible more and sell more courses.

I am biased, I think all people that dive just Air2 are selfish. I would rather dive solo than buddy such a person. At a push maybe they were just sold a dud by an unscrupulous dive shop.
 
What is the point of teaching how to handle an OOA event if you don’t think the diver will do what they were trained to do?
Because you're giving the foundational instruction to then practice. The training course shows them what and why to practice, the practice is what makes it an ingrained behavior.

I'm not saying that initial training does have value, I'm saying that long term practiced behaviors are ultimately what people fall back to. That's the entire point of practicing emergency procedures.

There are some people that choose to dive in different ways than they were originally trained. That doesn't mean that those ways are necessarily better or worse, just because they're different.

Personally, I think that primary donate has a lot of advantages, regardless of what aas is in use. I dive in a variety of configurations, depending on the dive. Sometimes that's with an air 2, sometimes that's sidemount with a long hose/necklace, sometimes that's with a pony. The common response for me across all of those is that in an emergency, I always know where a working reg is and I can always easily give it and that's the one in my mouth (ok, if I'm sidemount and on the necklace reg, it's right next to my mouth)
 
Because you're giving the foundational instruction to then practice. The training course shows them what and why to practice, the practice is what makes it an ingrained behavior.

Do you see people in Bonaire practicing OOA drills?
 
Thank you for the post. I did not know that Belize had instituted new regulations. A bunch of people from scubaboard are going to be p!ssed when they visit and find out they will need a snorkel.

Wha?!!

No way
 

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