C Cards Requirement or Recommendation?

[tomfcrist]

All good points in recent posts. I know it's an old comparison, but you can get your driver's license at age 16 (15 for OW) on city/town streets and can immediately drive on the interstates at 85 (well, maybe 74 if you don't want a ticket in a 65 zone--Pub topic)). Logic comes in--maybe it's a good idea to drive on some faster country roads before I-95, or have an adult with you (a DM for diving?) when you tackle the interstate.

What's funny is that this analogy goes right back to not even needing a cert. have you ever looked up: the right to travel? Eye opening!

 

[boulderjohn]

I think with the exception of Nitrogen narcosis (not a huge issue in this example), the NDL, lower light, thermocline and the distance to the great tank in the sky, diving at say, 20 fsw in many cases is more demanding of skills demanding than a dive at 80 fsw. At 20fsw buoyancy changes are much greater with relatively tiny changes in depth. You are much more subject to the wave action also. A couple of feet of accidently holding your breath close to the surface is much more likely to result in an embolism. Really at depths in the 60-90 fsw range you are going to have a much greater margin for error on a skills level that at 30 fsw. Before everyone gets all over my case I am going to clarify that I am talking about a dive with a bottom (like a reef, wreck or sandy bottom) and decent visibility and moderate conditions....

In my classes, I do tell OW students that it is actually easier to dive at depths like 100 feet than at 20 feet, for the reasons you state. I also tell than that is one of the reasons to be concerned about it. Without experience, you can be happily diving a wall at 90 feet and then find you are at 140 feet the next time you look at your gauges because you did not feel the physical cues that you were changing depth.

As Steve_C said, what really surprises many students is how much faster they go through their air at those depths. Having them do the math in a classroom is one thing; experiencing it first hand is another. It is not just the physics of the greater gas consumption, either. The idea of being deeper can do wonders to a student's breathing rate. I had a student who was a former professional athlete in excellent shape. His SAC rate was great at shallower depths. When he took the Deep Diver specialty class, he was just as great on the 100 foot dive. On the 130 foot dive, though, it went through the roof. It's best to experience those things for the first time with someone watching you carefully.

 

[TMHeimer]

Shallow dives present the much bigger risk of lung overexpansion injury. And you are affected more by waves/surge, and more often than not, currents. But slow ascents with open airway is very basic. Assessing surface conditions usually isn't rocket science. With those things in mind, I feel the deeper you go the less margin for error in anything you do. I'm assuming good buoyancy at any depth, which should come about after not a whole lot of dives, assuming someone dives often enough.

 

[Bob DBF]

All good points in recent posts. I know it's an old comparison, but you can get your driver's license at age 16 (15 for OW) on city/town streets and can immediately drive on the interstates at 85 (well, maybe 74 if you don't want a ticket in a 65 zone--Pub topic)). Logic comes in--maybe it's a good idea to drive on some faster country roads before I-95, or have an adult with you (a DM for diving?) when you tackle the interstate.

The interstate is easier, everyone going in the same direction, two or more lanes, everyone at about the same speed, no pedestrians on the side or crossing the road, and limited access at extended intervals. Seems a lot easier than the chaos that can happen on a country road, if you have one handy.


Bob

 

[TMHeimer]

The interstate is easier, everyone going in the same direction, two or more lanes, everyone at about the same speed, no pedestrians on the side or crossing the road, and limited access at extended intervals. Seems a lot easier than the chaos that can happen on a country road, if you have one handy.


Bob

As with deep dives (it depends on the dive), it depends on the traffic and speed on the interstate. I would bet your chances of a fender bender are greater on city/country streets (shallow dive), but chances of death much greater on a fast interstate (deep).

 

[Neilwood]

Not exactly.

The most important resource for a diver is his judgement. Skills are necessary, but knowing how good you actually are, your personal limitations, and the discipline to call the dive, or not dive, are the "skills" that will save your a**.

I don't see the time in the new online book work, local pool work, and referral to a vacation destination for an instructor to know the new diver and instill these important values in him.



Bob

I would agree with these but the ability to accurately gauge these and how an individual will apply them is hard to define.

As seen with some of the fatalities in this activity, even divers with experience/ all the certifications (such as Guy Garman) and back up are no guarantee of the right skills. He technically had all the skills, should have known his limitations and had the discipline to call it but chose not to.

My point is that no matter how good or bad the qualification, there will always be people who stick to what was taught and there wil also be others that throw it out of the window and think "I know best".

Using the driving analogy, you will get a lot of people who will stick to the limits but you will get those that take the test and then drive at 90+ and get into bother/accidents.

 

[rivers]

As seen with some of the fatalities in this activity, even divers with experience/ all the certifications (such as Guy Garman) and back up are no guarantee of the right skills. He technically had all the skills, should have known his limitations and had the discipline to call it but chose not to.

Guy Garman didn't have the experience, the knowledge, or the training to even come close to attempting his final dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

All dive agencies have the same problem, and they often get criticized for something that I don't see how they can control. At all levels of training, the diver is supposed to be limited to that level of training at first and then extend those limits while using good judgment. As an example, the final trimix training class in an agency's sequence usually certifies the diver to a certain depth, yet there is no course after that for when the diver wishes to go deeper. The course materials for the trimix course I teach talk about this is more detail than usual for a course, but it still all boils down to one sentence: use good judgment as you extend your diving experiences beyond the limits of your training.

The criticism you will see leveled in threads like this is that the agency does not teach you how to use good judgment, so it cannot prevent divers from making stupid decisions in diving beyond their abilities.

I am sure all agencies would be grateful to those critics if they would provide the course material that will effectively teach students to use good judgment. I am sure that if you would send them those curricular materials, they would pay you well for them.

 

[Neilwood]

Guy Garman didn't have the experience, the knowledge, or the training to even come close to attempting his final dive.

He (and his team) reckoned they did have the experience, knowledge and training to attempt it. The group involved were Tec instructors and should have known better (link). There is a difference however between having thoseknowledge skills etc and using them however.

All dive agencies have the same problem, and they often get criticized for something that I don't see how they can control. At all levels of training, the diver is supposed to be limited to that level of training at first and then extend those limits while using good judgment. As an example, the final trimix training class in an agency's sequence usually certifies the diver to a certain depth, yet there is no course after that for when the diver wishes to go deeper. The course materials for the trimix course I teach talk about this is more detail than usual for a course, but it still all boils down to one sentence: use good judgment as you extend your diving experiences beyond the limits of your training.

The criticism you will see leveled in threads like this is that the agency does not teach you how to use good judgment, so it cannot prevent divers from making stupid decisions in diving beyond their abilities.

I am sure all agencies would be grateful to those critics if they would provide the course material that will effectively teach students to use good judgment. I am sure that if you would send them those curricular materials, they would pay you well for them.

As is true in the rest of life as well, you can train anything to the point of exhaustion but if the person on the receiving end chooses not to use good judgement in using it, the agency providing the training can do nothing.

 

[2airishuman]

I am sure all agencies would be grateful to those critics if they would provide the course material that will effectively teach students to use good judgment. I am sure that if you would send them those curricular materials, they would pay you well for them.

In my misspent youth I took flight training, going as far as getting an instrument rating before circumstances changed and I moved on to other interests.

I made a number of mistakes of judgment, lady luck smiled, I'm still here.

In retrospect, a good deal of the problem was that my instructors were not effective at communicating what good judgment, in that context, actually met:

1) They did not model good judgment, all three of them having had their pilot certificates suspended by the FAA for various shenanigans.
2) They were unable to articulate their own decision-making process for determining whether a flight was safe (weather and equipment being the main variables in aviation)
3) They did not speak to the evolution of skill and did not identify experience levels at which changes in limits could be seriously contemplated.

John, to your point there are some people who will never get it, either because they're not listening, they think they're immortal, or they just don't think things through. An ideal program would identify people like that and fail them. People who care, though, they still have to be taught, by example, through case studies, and by discussing what-if scenarios.