halemanō;5864437:
And a 29 year old male who vacations in Koh Lanta, Thailand, has less than 24 dives, was just certified in Janurary yet already owns Sherwood Trek Fins, Sherwood SM1 Mask, Sherwood Absolute Dry Snorkle, Akona 7mm boots, HOG D1 Coldwater First stage & 2 x D1 second stages, Zeagle Tech BC, Bare Elastek 3mm Full, Tusa Compact 3 Gauge Console AND has already made 35 posts to ScubaBoard is REALLY representative of the vast majority of this centuries new divers.
He does seem to have a better grasp on the reality than yourself.
I guess it must be more a case that common sense, observation and not living in a self-sustaining delusion aids his perception.
Also, it seems a pretty cheap shot to ridicule this person's
observations, on the basis of his experience. It seems that anyone with
more experience than yourself is criticised as a 'techspurt', and anyone with
less experience than yourself is written off as irrelevant. That leaves
you as the only person with a credible foundation of experience and valid viewpoint. I think you need to check your ego.
halemanō;5864269:
THIS IS A MYTH!!!!
The vast majority of typical recreational OW training courses are marketed as 3-day courses. In order for the vast majority to complete the course in 3 days they would need to; finish all the book/dvd/eLearning/homework prior to showing up at the start of day 1, be relatively fit and relatively comfortable snorkeling, and be able to put up with a relatively grueling schedule for those 3 days.
I would say the vast majority of the last decade's new divers "signed up" for 3-day courses, but I seriously doubt that even a majority of those who signed up for 3-day courses completed OW certification in 3-days.
For someone who typically
crusades on this forum in protest of members who post unsubstantiated drivel as if it were fact, and who fail to provide any evidence to support their views - your post, and attitude, certainly seem like a major hypocritical blunder.
For example:
On Koh Tao... a small island in Thailand, whose dive centres produce over 10,000 certifications a year, the average course length is 3 days. The island typically caters for a young backpacker market, who are not necessarily the most fit, or most focused, students. Nonetheless, those students experience little difficulty achieving the course requirements. Simular situations exist in other locations that I have dived at around Asia. 3-day courses were also the norm in Malaysia and Indonesia...again, the pass rate was extremely high and a student no being able to reach the standard was a very rare event.
A typical Thailand OW schedule would be as follows:
Day 1:
AM: OW Theory Chap 1-3
PM: OW Confined 1-5
Day 2:
AM: OW Theory Chap 4-5
PM: OW Dives 1-2
Day 3:
AM: OW Exam
PM: OW Dives 3-4
From my experience on Koh Tao, the pass rate for this 'model' of OW course is very close to 100%. In the time that I worked on Koh Tao, I trained in excess of 200 students and, from those, only had 3 students that failed to achieve OW certification. One girl had a phobia of water and couldn't complete confined water training. Another girl couldn't achieve a mask remove & replace, so qualified as a Scuba Diver (not OW). Another student failed to attend for day 3 of the course (believed that he departed the island with a new love interest).
