Bad course recovered after complaint to LDS

[billt4sf]

My wife and I recently took a dry suit course (so that we could dive in Monterey more comfortably) and the initial course / instructor was poor. After a complaint to the dive shop owner, he set it right and now we are good.

The dive shop was Bamboo Reef in SF. I feel a bit guilty mentioning the name but they did set us right in the end, and anyway it seems to me that one of the possible purposes of SB is to help other divers navigate their way through the "business" of diving.

Here is a short summary of the events.

The Dry Suit course is two days, the first was a night class in a pool and the second a dive at the Breakwater. After the first, night, class, my wife and I felt that we weren't being treated well, that the instructor was preoccupied with other concerns and kept talking about how he wanted to end the class early. He didn't explain much about the valve operation, less about the rest of the suits, and really no help getting them on the first time. But we "did" the required skills, more or less, and although my wife didn't feel comfortable, we decided to go ahead with the second part.

Three of us were in the course and the instructor was the third guy's "dive buddy". HA! Again he was in a big rush to finish, and NO HELP getting the suits on. When he got his suit on, he said "We''ll you're all certified divers so I'll see you in the water" and went in, leaving us to struggle and do our own buddy checks. He didn't even check HIS OWN BUDDY (who had some 10 dives in his experience). It took us easily 15 more mins to get kitted-out, we helped the third guy as well and went down to the beach, where we stood waiting with our tanks on looking for our instructor. We finally spotted him in the water, looking at us like, "well, what are you waiting for?".

I'll cut this short. The instructor lost us TWICE in the water because he swam ahead, never looking back in the 5 - 10 ft visibility. He didn't teach us how to correctly vent the suit, we each got water in it every time we vented (we all thought we were supposed to vent through the wrist!), and again we left not knowing how to use the valves. There were other problems too, but this is too long already. Despite this, the instructor declared us "dry suit trained" and forwarded our certs in to SSI.

Anyway I wrote a long letter to the owner and he agreed to let one of the instructors that we knew from the Bamboo Reef Monterey give us the course again for free. This instructor was GREAT!!! She helped us tremendously and we are now all set to dive dry in Monterey.

I just think that instructors need to take their time, especially with newbees that don't know things that are second nature to the instructor. I also think that course participants should COMPLAIN when things aren't done right.

I have learned alot in a short time from ScubaBoard. Maybe this message will be useful to someone down the line.

- Bill

 

[Hawkwood]

Great that you complained! I always ask my students to let the shop know good and bad. It is nice to hear a bad story turn out well. You should not feel bad about naming the shop.

I enjoy teaching the dry suit course - there is a lot that can be discussed in the class, the pool work can be invaluable - you do have to relearn some stuff.

It was stressed to me that the value in the two OW dives comes not in the skills performed, but in going for the "tour" after the skills are done. That this the time to work on learning how to control the suit. We are blessed here with a number of training sites where we can take students to really work on controlling their buoyancy and trim during those two dives.

 

[TSandM]

That's a stand up operation, to do that.

I don't know how Bamboo Reef works their instruction, but around here, most instructors are independent contractors. The shop owner may never have seen them teach. Providing feedback like yours can help a shop decide whether to retain someone on staff or not.

 

[Peter_C]

^ Agreed, a business that makes a mistake or has an issue but is quick to resolve it is one I want to do business with. The instructor probably won't be found working for them anymore.

So what kind of drysuits are you diving or going to get?

 

[billt4sf]

So what kind of drysuits are you diving or going to get?

We are very open to suggestions. Right now we're not ready to spend that kind of money, partially because we don't have enough experience with them. The ones they rented us (which were OK) were "Whites". I think that is a style, not a brand name, but I am not sure. I think we want to buy the undergarment first (I hate the idea of crawling into someone else's underwear!)

Would love some suggestions.

- Bill

 

[Ouvea]

If it was a Whites (yes it's is company that is now a subsidiary of Aqua Lung), it probably was the Fusion which has a very close fit. Buy the drysuit that you want and then match the undergarment to your thermal needs. Some drysuits provide partial insulation while others do not provide any insulation at all, and only serve as a barrier against the water. From what I have seen in our local waters, DUI and Bare appear to be very popular. By the way, you need to look at the overall cost of the dry-suit with the undergarment. Be honest with your self and how well you tolerate the cold. Even in a drysuit, you can get cold. With a wetsuit, my bottom time limit is about 1/2 hour. With a drysuit it's about an hour (given my current undergarment) and I'm warm enough to comfortably perform multiple dives in a single day.

 

[billt4sf]

Buy the drysuit that you want and then match the undergarment to your thermal needs.

How do I go about comparing dry suits to find the one that I want?

- Bill

 

[TSandM]

Bill, that's actually quite difficult. There are not many places that rent dry suits (it's a bit of a headache for a shop) and the dry suits that are available for rental often fall into the same brand categories, simply because some brands are easier to adapt to different divers than others. The Zipseal systems on DUI suits, for example, make it easy to put them on different folks, and the SiTech ring systems on Fusions do the same.

I think dry suits are a very difficult purchase, often, because they are a very expensive item that you have to buy largely on faith. You can certainly talk to the people who are diving where you are diving, and find out what works for them, and what they do and do not like about the suits they bought. No suit is perfect -- there are ALWAYS tradeoffs. I love my Fusions for their adaptable fit, their lightness, the range of motion they give, and how difficult they are to damage. But I'm the last one ready to dive, because they take more time to put on. DUI suits are easy to don, but may require custom cutting for proper fit ($$$) and some of their fabrics don't seem to be very robust under active diving, and they are, even in stock sizes, very expensive. My husband's Bare compressed neoprene suit has been incredible durable, but it's heavy and dries slowly, and it isn't all that easy to get in and out of.

It might make an interesting thread to ask people what the biggest thing they like about their dry suit is, and what their biggest peeve with it is. I think I'll start one!

 

[Hawkwood]

How do I go about comparing dry suits to find the one that I want?

- Bill

When you took the class, was there a variety of makes, styles, etc. that you were shown?

Is price going to be big factor in your decision?

 

[3D diver]

FWIW: I don't remember dry suit courses being available when I first got one. I did negotiate a pool session into the purchase, though. They had a cert class going at a local HS pool & said the instructor would help me out. When I got there he said suit up, go to the deep end, get inverted and figure out what to do about it.