Did your OW course prepare you to dive?

[lowwall]

1. Did your OW course prepare you to dive?
2. At the end of the class did you feel like you had the knowledge, skills and abilities to safely complete a dive with a equally skilled buddy?
3. For this question, lets say you were going to basically repeat your last training dive, but with an equally skilled buddy instead of an instructor. Did you feel like you needed a Dive master or similar person with advanced training in order to get in the water?
4. What would have made a difference in this perception for you (i.e. more or different skills, more training time in the water, just more dives, etc?).
5. Do you feel that with your current knowledge, skills and abilities you could conduct a dive equivalent to your training dives with an equally skilled buddy?

Yes
Yes
No.
Navigation skills.
Yes.

 

[boulderjohn]

some people come on this board who clearly aren't comfortable diving without a DM or guide, in some cases even as they approach 100 dives. I'm curious how common this is and whether it is about poor instruction or students who are't as confident.

You omit what I believe is the most important explanation: learned dependence.

People who walked out of class fully prepared to dive independently then dive once a year on vacation in a warm water resort with DMs setting up their equipment, planning the dives, etc. It is not long before the critical parts of independent diving are forgotten.

It happened to me.

 

[Belzelbub]

Was your OW 2 a NAUI class?
Just curious because most University courses I’ve heard about were always NAUI.

We could get 3 different cards at the end of the course. A YMCA card was included, and we could purchase NAUI and CMAS cards for an extra fee. I opted for just the YMCA card as I already had a PADI card, so recognition was not a concern.

 

[Angelo Farina]

I am curious about people's perception of their own skills and readiness to dive when they finished their open water course.

At the end of the class did you feel like you had the knowledge, skills and abilities to safely complete a dive with a equally skilled buddy? For this question, lets say you were going to basically repeat your last training dive, but with an equally skilled buddy instead of an instructor. Did you feel like you needed a Dive master or similar person with advanced training in order to get in the water? What would have made a difference in this perception for you (i.e. more or different skills, more training time in the water, just more dives, etc?).

Do you feel that with your current knowledge, skills and abilities you could conduct a dive equivalent to your training dives with an equally skilled buddy?

My first course was in 1975. Cmas standard, in a diving club. 6 months long, and preceded by 3 months pool-only (aquaticity).
The first half of the course was free diving.
The second part was mostly with the ARO (CC pure oxygen rebreather). The final month was using twin air tanks. The training included mandatory deco with US Navy tables and repetitive dives with additional tables, diving in alpine lakes with modified tables, etc.
Yes, it did prepare me adequately. It was a strong foundation for the two following courses, each of them taking other 6 months, which I followed in 1976 and 1977. So it did take 3 years for being fully certified.

 

[boulderjohn]

Was your OW 2 a NAUI class?
Just curious because most University courses I’ve heard about were always NAUI.

There is a logical explanation for that.

In the 1960s, when modern, agency-based instruction just taking off, the newly formed agencies had to make a decision about how to get the students for their classes. Different agencies took different routes.

• NAUI leadership came from the Los Angeles County program, which was taxpayer based, and NAUI had that kind of funding model in mind. In their earliest years, they depended heavily upon donations for their funding. WIth a Berkeley professor (Glen Egstrom) at the helm, they decided to focus on university classes. Since students were committed to spending tuition money on classes, it made sense to make one of those choices scuba. That made the classes virtually free, but it greatly limited their exposure to a small subset of potential students.
• The YMCA had been teaching through clubs for some time already, and they made clubs their focus.
• The National Association of Skin Diving Stores (NASDS) decided to offer instruction to the people who came into their stores for equipment. They changed the word "stores" in their name to "schools." They then merged with SSI and actually took over SSI. The NASDS of the past is now SSI.
• NAUI's model was not working for them, and they were close to bankruptcy several times, even surviving through a loan from Bill High for a while. In 1965, they decided to pull back from their national efforts and focus on California. They canceled a major instructor development planned for Chicago. The Chicago branch was pissed, so they formed a new agency--PADI. Having seen the continual problems NAUI was having with funding, they adopted a model similar to NASDS, using retail scuba shops to gain students.

 

[scubadada]

1. Did your OW course prepare you to dive?
2. At the end of the class did you feel like you had the knowledge, skills and abilities to safely complete a dive with a equally skilled buddy?
3. For this question, lets say you were going to basically repeat your last training dive, but with an equally skilled buddy instead of an instructor. Did you feel like you needed a Dive master or similar person with advanced training in order to get in the water?
4. What would have made a difference in this perception for you (i.e. more or different skills, more training time in the water, just more dives, etc?).
5. Do you feel that with your current knowledge, skills and abilities you could conduct a dive equivalent to your training dives with an equally skilled buddy?

1) Yes, LA County Underwater Unit 1970
2) Yes, for the next ten years I did shore diving in Southern CA with occasional trips to Catalina. Nearly always dived with a buddy but occasionally, solo. I never dived with a professional; instructor, divemaster, or guide during this decade.
3) No
4) N/A
5) Yes, far more advanced dives, much, but not all, of my diving is solo

 

[Saltwater_Parrot]

That’s why they make dive trackers.
The Socal lobster divers love them. No compass needed, just drop the pinger off the side of the boat on it’s line and follow the blinking light on your carry unit. You will always be lead right back to the boat.
Doing a zig zagging dive covering a lot of ground there is no way to properly track your location that well using a compass, unless you are really really good. Most of us are not that good.

DiveTracker-Scout | Desert Star Systems

The DiveTracker Scout began an evolution of typical underwater tasks such as marking of underwater objects, recovery of underwater instrumentation and vehicles

www.desertstar.com

Thats really cool and interesting -- I've never seen that before. I know my first time relying on a compass, doing zig-zags, left me with quite a swim back to the boat! That sure would have come in handy. I'm sure there are people who feel that using such tech is a bad thing via the argument that it will atrophy navigational skills, but in my opinion, there's room for both, and a healthy balance between the two would keep nav skills in check while also offering a higher marging of safety. Not something to rely on, but something to supplement.

A bit too expensive for me to buy without the real need for, but I wonder if I can make something similar with Arduino/Teensy/RPi. Thanks for sharing

 

[BoltSnap]

That’s why they make dive trackers.
The Socal lobster divers love them. No compass needed, just drop the pinger off the side of the boat on it’s line and follow the blinking light on your carry unit. You will always be lead right back to the boat.
Doing a zig zagging dive covering a lot of ground there is no way to properly track your location that well using a compass, unless you are really really good. Most of us are not that good.

DiveTracker-Scout | Desert Star Systems

The DiveTracker Scout began an evolution of typical underwater tasks such as marking of underwater objects, recovery of underwater instrumentation and vehicles

www.desertstar.com

I have used them in the very distant past, they are awesome and worth every penny!!!

I had units from Desert star with blinking led's and from Scubapro that had more exact location and DISTANCE information down to the 1 meter. I lost the Scubapro system during the war and was never able to replace it since SP stopped carrying it several years before.

All I can say about them is AWESOME toys that actually met a very practical need and added to my safety.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I have used them in the very distant past, they are awesome and worth every penny!!!

I had units from Desert star with blinking led's and from Scubapro that had more exact location and DISTANCE information down to the 1 meter. I lost the Scubapro system during the war and was never able to replace it since SP stopped carrying it several years before.

All I can say about them is AWESOME toys that actually met a very practical need and added to my safety.

I borrowed one once and loved it!
I never got my own but may some day. I could find several uses for one even in my area. Instead of dropping it off the side of a boat it would be hanging off the side of my kayak instead. No more coming up several hundred yards away and needing to surface swim back to the yak. I could also drop it off the side of an anchored float at the mouth of a cove so that uninhibited exploration could be done outside the entrance of the cove without being burdened by obsessive compass use. In my area many of the coves are surrounded by impassable rocky shoreline that would make exiting somewhere other than the cove next to impossible. Therefore it is imperative to always find your way back to the entrance of the cove.

 

[BoltSnap]

I borrowed one once and loved it!
I never got my own but may some day. I could find several uses for one even in my area. Instead of dropping it off the side of a boat it would be hanging off the side of my kayak instead. No more coming up several hundred yards away and needing to surface swim back to the yak. I could also drop it off the side of an anchored float at the mouth of a cove so that uninhibited exploration could be done outside the entrance of the cove without being burdened by obsessive compass use. In my area many of the coves are surrounded by impassable rocky shoreline that would make exiting somewhere other than the cove next to impossible. Therefore it is imperative to always find your way back to the entrance of the cove.

I have needs for precise compass navigation in the area I dive at because of several conditions here, I can't miss the drop point or the exit point.

Please let me know if you are going to buy one, I'd like to discuss it with you since I'll be interested in buying at least one unit.