Can people really get scuba certified without knowing how to swim?

[fjpatrum]

To 'swim', they need to be able to float on their back and stomach and flip between the two, they need to be able to submerge their face in the water and blow bubbles through their mouth and nose, they need to be able to glide through the water with minimal scuffling of the arms and legs, and they need to be able to make continual forward progression in the water (dog paddle acceptable)

So if you can't float you can't swim? I need at least a 3mm full suit to float in fresh water, and a 3mm shorty in salt water. I can swim reasonably well but if you ask me to float without some form of assistance I am screwed. I can tread water, but floating is not something I'm physically able to do. I simply sink, even with full lungs.

I'm curious what makes floating a prerequisite for swimming, in your opinion. Or are you just saying that a person needs to be comfortable enough in the water not to panic when they are "being still"?

 

[yodelhawk]

I know of a diver who is by no means a strong swimmer. She can dog paddle for a while, but that is about it. As RonFrank mentioned, my class made sure that all in attendance were ok in the water. Funny side bar... during our 15 min float, I just kicked back, had my ears in the water and began counting ceiling tiles. Next thing I heard a splash. I looked up and there was the rest of the class, all geared up and re-entering the pool. Had not heard the instructor calling us out. All had a good chuckle at my expense.

 

[Jill from Phoenix]

So if you can't float you can't swim? I need at least a 3mm full suit to float in fresh water, and a 3mm shorty in salt water. I can swim reasonably well but if you ask me to float without some form of assistance I am screwed. I can tread water, but floating is not something I'm physically able to do. I simply sink, even with full lungs.

I'm curious what makes floating a prerequisite for swimming, in your opinion. Or are you just saying that a person needs to be comfortable enough in the water not to panic when they are "being still"?

Aren't non-swimmers afraid of sinking? Floating is resting or moving on the surface of the water. I teach swimming as a Red Cross WSI, and I teach the complete beginners how to float and glide so they get used to their personal body position in the water before moving onto any stroke coordination.

Motionless floating without sculling is indeed more difficult for muscular men and women, but it should be practiced and if necessary with equipment. Like you said you need neoprene for inherent buoyancy for when you remove your scuba unit.

 

[UWBuddha]

I agree with you regarding that it should be your choice. I'm a PADI instructor, and open water students have 2 options, and they should be allowed to choose which option they take in my opinion.

 

[Peter Guy]

UWBudha -- Why do you think the student should have the choice of which test to take? Do you believe there is any "teaching value" in either "swim" test? If so, are they equal in value?

Do you disagree with my contention that there can be "teaching value" in the 300 MFS "swim" -- that teaching value being comfort with the mask and breathing through a "foreign" object; staying with your buddy; and studying/correcting kicking style?

 

[beanojones]

It is a basic requirement of all agencies - and every entry-level course that I know of includes some form of swimming/watermanship assessment.

It is possible, however, as negligent dive instructors will occasionally fail to fully teach their courses and/or don't have the ethical values and moral compass needed to turn down a customers' cash simply because they don't meet the most basic safety prerequisites for training.

Such instructors would be sanctioned by their respective agencies if this were reported under the appropriate Quality Assurance programs.

Swimming is neither a RSTC requirement, nor is it a requirement of PADI. And it is most definitely not a QA/QC matter.

It is not even a requirement to become an instructor in most senses. I know plenty of instructors who gladly say they cannot swim. The 'swim' requirement is a hangover from the fact that the first scuba course was developed by the LA County Lifeguards, and they used to think swimming was an appropriate response to scuba trouble. We don't think that anymore. In fact, we consider swimming to be a foolish way to respond to trouble, and anyone making swimming motions is usually judged to be panicking.

It is is not any of the adjectives routinely listed when this topic comes up (negligent, unethical, lacking in moral compass, greedy etc.) to teach someone to dive who cannot swim. We quite simply cannot dive without gear. Since the gear is a given, then ability to use the gear to manage situations is the appropriate measure of comfort in the water. Nowhere I dive is in the slightest way appropriate for swimming, and anyone who tried to swim to 'safety' would be in great trouble.

The requirement is of a watermanship assessment is about comfort in water, not about swimming ability. That's why thinking instructors whose agencies are not hung up on the old ways use the watermaship assessment to teach MFS (mask, fin, snorkel) usage as clearly allowed by some agencies and the RSTC, and those instructors for agencies hung up in old ways, and those instructors hung up in scuba being a BAD-ASS MANLY SPORT make the students swim without MFS. Also those in the EU are apparently required by law to have the students do a swim test. But then again Navy divers are still required to use J-Valves. Laws and rules are often outdated.

 

[beanojones]

It is really about safety, if you had to ditch your gear could you swim back to the boat?

If someone thinks ditching the gear and swimming for it is a good idea ever, in any diving circumstance, then that person are the reason so many instructors argued, successfully, to have the 'swim test' removed, and replaced (optionally) with a snorkeling test. Putting swimming in a diving course encourages divers to think swimming is sometimes appropriate, and it simply never is in a diving situtation.

"Swimming for it" is just never a sensible option in a diving situation, and represents a loss of awareness that I would always understand as being a prelude to full-blown panic (and have seen IRL as actually being so).

 

[beanojones]

I don't see how anyone could be comfortable in deep water without knowing how to swim, so certification requirements aside, I am not sure why someone would want to be a diver without knowing how to swim.

You bring up an excellent point: where are people doing their swim? If the goal is to measure comfort in water one cannot stand up in (a test I wholeheartedly agree with), then what is testing them on their swimming in a pool going to tell the instructor about that?

Almost no one is uncomfortable in a swimming pool where they can stand when they want to. Plenty of people are uncomfortable in the open ocean far from a place to stand up, and rightfully so. Swimming ability is of little help in many/most of those sorts of circumstances, which is why we teach and test survival float methods specifically in water too deep to stand in.

Swimming is of little or no value in the open ocean. Survival float methods are of enormous value.

 

[beanojones]

\Lack of fear can indicate either confidence or false-confidence. It can mean that the diver acknowledge potential risk, but positively assesses his capability to mitigate that risk. It can also mean that the diver has failed to acknowledge or recognise risk... or has inaccurately assessed their capability to mitigate it.

Which is why we fought to get the 'swim test' replaced with the MFS test.

Swimmers carried a false confidence (false confidence that many have displayed in this very thread) that swimming is a solution to any diving problem. It just is not, and the thought that some think it is is why the MFS test was put into the course.

 

[beanojones]

Interesting thread. My own opinion is that if you're going to participate in any water sport regularly, you owe it to yourself to learn to swim proficiently. This is a common sense matter of safety. Certifying agencies no doubt include the swim test as part of the class for that reason, to keep divers safe.
....
Here's a tragic but true story that happened here a couple of months ago. A man, his 7 year old son, and his dog were canoeing on a reservoir here and the canoe capsized. The man, a non-swimmer without a PFD, drowned. The boy, also a non-swimmer but wearing a PFD, was pulled to shore by witnesses in the area. The dog, a swimmer, made it to shore easily. Clearly swimming wouldn't improve his paddling technique, but it would have made a huge difference in this case.

In fact the only reason for the swim test is tradition.

As you can see reading this thread, there are many who think of swimming as being somehow a reasonable reaction to a diving emergency. It's not. It's foolhardy and dangerous. The swim test was removed because putting swimming in the middle of a dive course sent the wrong message about the appropriateness of swimming as a reaction to any diving situation. For that reason, and the reason of it not having anything to do with teaching diving in any sense, it was removed as a requirement.

The ocean is no place to swim, but it is a great place to dive.

Even your story proves the point. It was not swimming that saved lives, it was PFDs. Gear not skill.

Every year, 'swimmers' get pulled from the ocean in Hawaii by lifeguards. Inevitably, the comment is that the rescued person thought that since he could swim he would be ok. The lifeguards know better than to go in the ocean without gear, even though they are fantastic swimmers. And that's in situations where the person is in easy reach of the shore. Put them in a situation where dive boats go, and there is no way swimming would help them do anything but get themselves in trouble.