Advanced Open Water Disappointment

[pauldw]

 

[Arkman]

My experience is that those who really dislike AOW had faulty expectations of what the course is: it is a sampler, and it does not make you an advanced diver, nor even an expert in a subect.

I think that many people understand this point. Although I think if the name were to change it would make a difference. I've spent a good part of my career working in the construction industry with high end residential clients. One of the things I learned over the years is how important it is to manage expectations. Both on the contractor side and the client side. If you can realistically set expecations, manage them throughout the project, and give/take honest feedback about why/how they weren't met. You'll have a much better experience for both contractor and client. I say this because I believe this is true in just about all industries that provide a service (and probably products for that matter).

If a company can set and communicate realistic expectations, their customers will be happier. Mainly, because the customers that wouldn't be happy with that service, wont sign up in the first place.

I really didn't expect to be an expert on anything by the time I was done. But I did expect/hope that I would learn something from the weekend. I really don't feel like I did. Which is a shame. I don't mean that to sound like I'm such a great diver, I was too good to learn. I feel very much the oposite of that. I have so much to learn and I really wanted to. I don't think the instructor would have had to work very hard at all to teach me something.

learn some useful search patterns, how to manage them, and which knots are best to use with a lift bag...and practice with the lift bag

I found it funny that this dive is the one we took the longest on, and probably the one that the instructor worked the hardest on. We spend a long time standing in the parking lot tying knots. I'm not really sure why, I think he was trying to lengthen the surface interval between the couple deep dives he did. Actually he did 3, because one diver in the first group didn't get to do it so they tried again with him. Again, I don't know why I'm just speculating on the SI time.

try out a DPV and learn how not to hurt yourself using it

Now that sounds like fun! I'd love to try one of those out, but I can almost promise I'd hurt myself!

do a night dive managing your buoyancy, proper light signals, compass use at night

We did a night dive. That was it. Nothing about buoyancy, we talked about light signals a little bit in the knowledge review classroom portion but not on the dive. I'm almost certain that I was the only student to have a compass on me on the night dive. There was zero discussion on how to use it. I am 100% certain that I was the only student to have a back up light on me. I'm reasonbly certain that the instructor did not. I noticed one diver get her buddies attention that she was getting low, not running out, but getting low. She was only low because it was her "3rd" dive on the same tank. (She was told she didn't need to swap because we'd needed to be out for 15 minutes.) So I asked her how much she had and I got instructors attention to turn the dive around. I don't think he really checked on the divers, he was in the lead and we just followed. One of the assistants was the last one in the group.

I made my AOW classes interesting, relevant, and challenging. Or, at least, I think I did. Like for the fish ID class, I made them register on Reef.org, watch the fish ID video for the area and have them show proof they did two surveys.

See, this sounds fun. I wanted to be challenged, even if it was a small thing. Not treated like the class was just an inconvience for everyone involved.

Let's not dismiss them just because they don't jive with our experience(s).

Agreed. I think many people are quick to do this. Everyone has different experiences and the more we can talk about them the more that we can learn from them.

It's my opinion that every agency has room for improvement. Every stinking one.

Again, I completely agree. I don't know much about any of the agencies, but I know they can all improve. Because we all can, ever stinking one of us. I really don't know if any of the agencies care about improvment or not. I'm not saying they don't, I mean, I really don't know. I have such limited experience. I can't speak to what they do or don't do.

What I have seen in the thread is that there are a lot of people that sound like they do care about the industry and the students. Some of them have tried to make change. Maybe not big change, but change. That is great.

When I emailed the shop, I made it clear I wasn't demanding a refund or anything like that. I paid my money and I got my card. Whatever, that part is over and done with. What I did want them to know was I felt like the instructor was doing a disservice to the shop owners clients.

In his email back to me he made a comment that stuck out - " Other shop offerings that may better serve you in your educational/experiential needs – i.e. specialty classes, fun dives or dive trips.

I think if I owned the shop and recieved my email I would have offered up something esle for me to do with them. Even if it was just to come on one of the weekly fun dives and hang out with an instructor (they have several on the fun dives usually). In one 30 minute dive, they could have done a lot to smooth things over.

I generally don't think people need to have some grand gesture or a bunch of money back when they have a bad experience. Often, they just want to be heard. If the shop owner would have said "Man, I'm really sorry you had that experience. How about on the next fun dive day I'll swim around with you and we can work on a couple skills" I bet I'd be on here with a different story to tell. One about a shop owner who acknowledged that an instructor had a rough class and an unhappy student and made it right. And you know what, it would have cost him nothing. He does every fun dive anyways, pairs up with a random diver anyways. Also, he's almost 3 hours away, so I probly would have said yes, but never followed through.

Let me step back and ask a different question. I think most people would agree that my experience in the AOW water wasn't great. Putting aside for a second that there are some that want to agency bash -- What do you have to say about my experience? Just this one. Do you think it is out of the ordinary and most AOW are better than my experience, or is this pretty common? This is a sincere question. If it is out of the ordinary, what advice can we as a communtiy give new divers who are looking for good instruction so they don't find themselves in a similar situation? In a case like mine, what should I do? Report it to the agency? Google review? Egg the shop? Pee in the rental wetsuits?

Another geniune question I have. What are the standards for each AOW dive that I did? (PPB, Nav, Night, Deep, S&R). Are there a list of things we much complete in order to "pass"? I'm willing to be that most of the students in my AOW didn't check of those skills. Not saying we couldn't have. I'm just saying that we never had to prove that we could to the instructor.

 

[Sebs]

It was given to all those divers who didn't master it in their OW, and there was certainly no card given for it. In fact, NASE doesn't offer such a card for that very reason.

Maybe it's the term "master", but it is completely unreasonable to expect any OW diver to master anything in the basic OW course. It is simply not long/in depth enough for that and I'm sure you'd agree with me. Sure, some people will be more competent than others but we also need to manage expectations here. My experience of the course, as far as I can remember, is that it is designed to give you the bare minimum skills required to not kill yourself.

I think AOW should be (possibly) renamed and restructured as a course. Teach proper dive planning and gas management as part of the deep component. Spend a good long time teaching trim, buoyancy and finning techniques. Underwater navigation is fine for what it is. Then only offer one elective. Having three electives is too much and dilutes the rest of the course.

Obviously that will never happen because alphabets like making money and the "this dive counts against the dives needed for the speciality" is a marketing gimmick.

Then again in my opinion, master scuba diver cards should be removed altogether. But again. Alphabets like making money and people love showing off cards.

 

[The Chairman]

Maybe it's the term "master", but it is completely unreasonable to expect any OW diver to master anything in the basic OW course.

That has not been my experience. Monkey see, monkey do. Teach the physics. Set the example. Reap the results. You don't have to set a high bar... just a neutral one. Trim, buoyancy, and propulsion are the effing fundamentals of diving.

 

[Dan G]

A lot of people will not realize that the reason people do the AOW deep dive at relatively shallow depths is that in many places, you cannot get the depths you want. I live in the Denver, CO area, and there is really no place in Colorado for us to reach AOW depths, We can drive about 400 miles to Utah and get to 65 feet in what amounts to a big hot tub, or we can drive about 400 miles to get to 80 feet in a sink hole in New Mexico. Most CO divers get their AOWs on dive trips to tropical locales.

About a decade ago a new DM in Arkansas started a thread to ask about his dive shop's claim that PADI had excused their AOW divers from the deep dive requirement because they did not have a suitable site close by. AOW students were told how to answer the PADI post-class surveys so that wouldn't be flagged. I checked with PADI, and they said no one is excused from the deep dive. They wanted to know the name of the shop, but the new DM would not tell because he feared being fired.

That is just another example of what I have written in many threads. The weak link in the scuba industry is the local dive ship ownership. The agency sets the standards, but the local shop can make instructors violate them as a condition of employment.

I'm reminded a bit about how CO shop can use reservoirs an craters to count towards OW dives. When I asked about this, i was told that OW is defined not just by how "open" the water is, but the conditions, as well. Aurora Res has currents due to wind, I was told so it counted as OW.

Because those who are wronged by the system refuse to speak up.

There are two main things people who refuse to speak up are motivated by.

1) If you live where there are very few shops, then you do not want to be banned from any. I do not know whether or not the dive op community in places like S. Florida is close and if someone calls out a shop, the others will find out, too.
2) Getting absolutely flamed here on SB. People are very territorial about their favorite shops. Say you had a bad experience with a specific shop and you will face some wrath, often by very experienced divers who know way more than you. I remember several years ago a new OW diver came on with guns a-blazing about a shop after his OW cert ended. He had surfaced with a bloody nose from a dive, was quite concerned. The instructor told him, "That's normal." Here on SB, people told him that HE was the issue and his bloody nose came from likely clearing his ears too aggressively. There was no evidence that the instructor told him this, which a good instructor would do followed by reviewing best practices for clearing ears. He got flamed and became very contrite very quickly, because more experienced divers went after him to defend the shop and instructor.

I never name a shop I am unhappy with. I only name the shops I like when these discussions arise.

 

[Sebs]

That has not been my experience. Monkey see, monkey do. Teach the physics. Set the example. Reap the results. You don't have to set a high bar... just a neutral one. Trim, buoyancy, and propulsion are the effing fundamentals of diving.

Perhaps our definitions of competent, master and expert/perfect are just very different. I'd say open water divers are competent but you're an experienced instructor and I'm a newbie diver so I'll defer to your experience. It just doesn't measure up to my own experience of diving with others.

 

[The Chairman]

It just doesn't measure up to my own experience of diving with others.

Your experiences are probably spot on. Again, it's why most agencies HAVE to offer an additional trim and buoyancy course. However, just because most instructors fail to produce OW divers with decent trim and buoyancy skills, doesn't mean it's impossible or even hard to do. My goal as an instructor was to prepare my students to be able to take a cavern course without feeling embarrassed by a lack of skill. Not many did that, but they did get lots of comments about how good they looked in the water.

 

[The Chairman]

Not to belabor the point, but it's amazing to hear instructors freely talk about all of the students they've had to rescue. I mean, their students, during their OW class. Almost all of these incidents were a result of their students losing control and plummeting to the bottom or popping to the surface. Somehow, they don't see these incidents as their own personal failures. They rather blame the students, I guess to avoid any responsibility. While I have done a number of rescues, none of them have been my students. They don't get to graduate from the pool until they demonstrate decent trim and buoyancy control. I would be mortified to have that happen to one of my students and would have to figure out how I failed them. FWIW, the two skills are intertwined, so I rarely speak of one without speaking of the other.

 

[scubaozy]

Perhaps our definitions of competent, master and expert/perfect are just very different. I'd say open water divers are competent but you're an experienced instructor and I'm a newbie diver so I'll defer to your experience. It just doesn't measure up to my own experience of diving with others.

There is already definition of term mastery in the context of scuba instruction;
"During confined and open water dives, mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance manner as would be expected of a diver at that certification level."

 

[Outbound]

There is already definition of term mastery in the context of scuba instruction;
"During confined and open water dives, mastery is defined as performing the skill so it meets the stated performance manner as would be expected of a diver at that certification level."

I think people have an issue with this definition of mastery. I'm not one to get caught up in semantics, but I would rather see "competency" in place of "mastery." To me, mastery means having great knowledge and skill. I don't expect any OWD students to have that level of skill. They should, however, be competent, meaning having the necessary ability to perform a skill successfully.