I have said many times over the years that I rarely saw truly bad divers on the reefs of Bonaire. Not so any more. I have noticed too that the orientation and “check out dive” seems little more than lip service now, if that.
BC Remove and Replace Skill
- Thread starter Adobo
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
- Messages
- 20,746
- Reaction score
- 20,344
- Location
- Philadelphia and Boynton Beach
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
Easy, I'm not it this situation, I would not provide these BCs
- Messages
- 20,746
- Reaction score
- 20,344
- Location
- Philadelphia and Boynton Beach
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
That isn't an option here.
The point I'm trying to make that it is extremely difficult to educate students about all the negligent activity in the industry. From standards violations (where skills are skipped, like my open water) or try scuba participants being taken inside a cavern on a single tanks, no lights, and often left alone (note I didn't say DSD) to poorly/non-maintained equipment to what we are discussing here: poorly designed or worn out jacket style BCDs.
Let's say you are a a good dive center which the "best" jacket style BCDs which is very clear when the weight pockets are secured, are easy to snap in, and remove/replace while in the water.
Are your students trained to deal with all the poor equipment out there? Like the BCD you mention?
- Messages
- 200
- Reaction score
- 68
- # of dives
- I'm a Fish!
I was taught it during my novice 1 training with BSAC, many years ago.
I had to use it in anger during a dive in Egypt with rental gear where a cylinder came free from the cam band during a dive (It was correctly threaded, I'd pre-wetted the band, and it still came loose).
I took off my BCD, re-secured the cylinder, and continued with the dive.
That was the last time I went diving in a rental BCD. I also use twin cam bands these days too.
I had to use it in anger during a dive in Egypt with rental gear where a cylinder came free from the cam band during a dive (It was correctly threaded, I'd pre-wetted the band, and it still came loose).
I took off my BCD, re-secured the cylinder, and continued with the dive.
That was the last time I went diving in a rental BCD. I also use twin cam bands these days too.
Soloist
Contributor
I was only in Bonaire once, in 2005. I was in what had been Captain Don's Habitat, but it had recently been sold. Captain Don was still around, though. He and my wife had some great talks.
I only mention this to say that for my supposed checkout dive, I was just told to do a dive. No one "checked me out," so it could not be any worse today than it was 17 years ago.
Did they have you put the number of dives on your check-in form? -- Just out of curiosity: both DFB on Bonaire and GoWest on Curacao had someone watch us go splash the first time we stayed there. But then we came to GoWest with only OW certification dives; Bonaire was the next trip with the couple of dozen dives we did on Cur.
On subsequent trips were told to "just go dive" as you say.
I wouldn't know what the forms were like in 2005. In the last decade or so all the ones I filled in had the "number of dives (approx)" box. I expect if you put in more than a handful and don't look like you're lying about it, the op may decide to... exercise discretion.
Similar threads
