Discover scuba dive with my wife and friends against my better judgement

[TMHeimer]

Yeah, this is the epitome of what can happen on a DSD. Yes, it can happen on any dive, but with certified divers you have people who have gotten all the OW skills check marked and done at least 4 OW checkout dives. There has been a thread on this elsewhere recently. I'll say again why I don't like DSDs....Not because of the extreme mess that happened here and can happen when standards are broken. Because a ratio of instructor to students is the Standard. Not realistic with students that have so little training, IMO.
Understandably there may be some replies touting DSDs and how they introduced them to diving and changed their lives. My guess is many of those folks were probably very comfortable in water to begin with.

 

[Jaaron82]

Program Standards Depth Confned Water — 6 metres/20 feet. Open Water — 12 metres/40 feet.

Note: A PADI Instructor must conduct the confned water dive for participants who will participate in the Discover Scuba Diving optional open water dive.

You must apply continuous and sound judgment before, during and after the dive. It’s your professional responsibility to conduct a risk assessment by evaluating variables such as water conditions, temperature, visibility, water movement, entries and exits, ability of participants, certifed assistants available, your and your assistant’s personal limitations, etc., to determine what ratio will ft the situation – reducing the ratio from the maximum if needed. Take into account changing variables and your ability to directly supervise and observe participants. Reassess during the dive.


PADI provides a method to report standards violations. I feel that many things go unreported because mostly, people do not know the standards.......

Thank you for a detailed explanation of the standards. I am not a dive professional. I do however feel that several instances during the experience are outside of what I have read in the standards. I will look into what Padi provides.

 

[Jaaron82]

So you ditched your wife with a piss poor dm and continued the dive and she didn’t ditch you afterwards? Seems like you both have poor judgment.

Just to reiterate, on the line at ten feet when the dm left me and my two uncertified friends to take my wife back to the boat I thought it sound judgment to stay next to the two people who had no idea what they were doing.

 

[ScubaWithTurk]

As a former PADI instructor and current RAID instructor who does Try Dives, the RAID equivalent to a DSD, this was a **** show from start to finish.

I start our Try Dives on land by going over the gear that will be used and explaining how it all works. Then we get in the pool and do the skills required as well as swimming around to get comfortable. This also allows me to see how well they kick and if I will have to pull them across the reef (which happens more often than you would think)

Then it is off to the ocean for the dive where I maintain constant contact with the divers. Note that I only take two divers at a time as I only have two arms and feel anything more is inherently unsafe for the divers as well as for me.

I typically use the LPI myself and adjust their buoyancy for them. They will dump gas as needed on their own but I typically signal to them to dump a little gas when the time is right.

When we get to the ocean, a risk assessment is always done by me. Since we do shore dives here in Bali, I look at any waves, possible current, boat traffic, etc. I then make a plan based on what I can see from shore and give that plan to the divers. Once we get in the water, things may change. Visibility here is never terrible but it can be less than ideal for a first time diver looking to have a great experience. Luckily for us, when the vis is lower than normal, the marine life tend to be more active and that makes up for the lower vis (10m).


I say all of this because as much as I hate doing DSD/Try Dives, they can be done well and are often times just what a person needs to decide to get certified. Never, NEVER should there be any yelling at a student on a Try Dive. Hell, I don't yell at any of my students. There might be some stern words said but that is always followed by a conversation where we discuss what went wrong, why and how we overcome that on future dives.

What you experienced was terrible and that shop as well as the DMs should be reported IMO.

 

[ChuckP]

The haste to get the dollar, in a resort area or any area really - it's sad.

I live and own a business here in Cozumel, I see it around me in other ways. The DSD's here I would say are not crazy like that, we have some good areas to complete them and the instructors I see in the one area that so much teaching happens at, I've never seen anything like that, happy smiling go with the flow instructors. I'm sure it happens here as well, I just have never seen it.

We have the best job in the world, dive shop owners, staff, whatever - just watching happy people in the marina and on the boats.........

 

[Zef]

I would love to know the padi standards for a discover scuba , because if the dive I described is indeed in standards I’ll be shocked.

Here, attached, is the PADI Discover Scuba Diving Program Instructor Guide extracted from the larger PDF of the PADI Instructor Manual.

Enjoy.

-Z

 

[Zef]

Just to reiterate, on the line at ten feet when the dm left me and my two uncertified friends to take my wife back to the boat I thought it sound judgment to stay next to the two people who had no idea what they were doing.

Sound judgment would have been acknowledging that you had no business inadvertently/unwittingly supervising an untrained person under water, particularly in poor conditions, and should have used your experience from being "full cave diver and dive frequently" to have thumbed the dive and assisted the couple who joined you to the surface and back to the boat.

It seems like your wife is the only one to have exercised sound judgement that day. On the other hand, you seem to have been "chasing an experience" for the benefit of those who were with you, and failed to see the situation for what is was. The OW certified woman and her uncertified partner were clearly out of their element and not exercising sound judgment, and the DM, who was probably just trying to execute his duties so as to preserve his job, was clearly over his head and failed to exercise sound judgement and adhere to program standards.

Just sayin.

-Z

 

[Hoyden]

I do not find your experience at all surprising. I taught many DSDs in pools over the years and think that it can be a good program. However, prior to my becoming an instructor, my wife had a terrible DSD experience in the BVI. She was having difficulty descending and the instructor grabbed her BCD and pulled her under with no warning or communication. It took years after that for her to decide that she wanted to try diving again. I do not recommend that anyone I know do a DSD at a resort. They are just too likely to have a bad experience.

 

[Billg68bg]

I must’ve just gotten lucky. My discovery dive was awesome and hooked me on diving immediately. Granted, I did a couple things that I now know were careless and probably owe my dm an apology. But the diving was amazing and the guide/dm was excellent and attentive.

 

[noserider]

she didn’t ditch you afterwards?

Seems like the wife is a keeper