#$%#$%@# Dive Training!

[Genesis]

Genesis.. I'm surprised at you. Lettting someone else teach your g/f to dive? As much as you rant about LDS's I figured you'd teach her yourself. You have all the equipment that you need to dive with so she wouldn't need to go to the shop for a fill, equipment or service. You have all the equipment that most small shops have so why waste her time with a formal class?

The obvious and practical - that if we ever go somewhere together and want to dive they will want to see some kind of card - there is the matter of whether such a thing would lead to me needing a new g/f during the class, as was pointed out

 

[SOUTH DEVON]

I passed my open water about five weeks ago, the next weekend me and my buddies went for our first dive without instructor, "thumbs down, reasonably good visibility until we all crashed to the bottom, and had to resurface as we couldn't find each other "
When we decided to resurface, we all inflated our BCDs at the bottom and was shocked how quickly we shot up, and our ears were popping like mad on assent .
So we all learnt the hard way, luckily we was only down about 9 m . But in my opinion the training wasn't adequate and left us in a dangerous state.
We did a bit of buoyancy control in a swimming pool only six feet deep, and the shore dives were only up to 6 m which were beach descents and assents, so we had no knowledge of a direct descent or assent.
Steve/thankfully still alive :wacko:

 

[HammerNoMore]

SOUTH DEVON once bubbled...
But in my opinion the training wasn't adequate and left us in a dangerous state.

Was this BSAC training?

 

[scubasean]

Genesis once bubbled...


If you weight for 15', you will eventually find yourself fighting like a dog to maintain a safety stop, low on gas, and ultimately you may go OOA as a consequence of it. All avoidable.

Doesn't this statement contradict what I said?

Perhaps what you are getting at is that you should be able to hold the safety stop at less than 500 psi...I'll agree that adding the extra pound that you seem to want (500psi weighs approx. a pound, right? depending on the particular tank) is safer....

If you are going OOA, I'd also say there are other issues.

 

[Charlie99]

Genesis once bubbled...
The scary part is that if she would have lost the anchor line on that dive, she would have been completely screwed.

Without reasonable buoyancy control you CANNOT make a free ascent and remain in control. It is flatly impossible. Yet it is absolutely necessary that you be able to do so.

Now, you come down on the line, you hit the bottom, silt up the site, and suddenly you cannot see. If there is no current (there wasn't yesterday!) on the bottom then the site may stay silted and visibility essentially zero for 10, 20, 30 minutes or even longer.

Now how are you going to find the line to ascend? You're not.

So now you must make an open water ascent. But without buoyancy control, as soon as you begin upward you are out of control.

This is how people get hurt BADLY.

Perhaps a dive or two at the jetties in better conditions would have made more sense than doing a dive deeper than she had done before, with a mud bottom prone to siltout.

Hopefully you will explain "trust me" dives to her. :tongue:
(couldn't find an icon for "cheap shot")

Seriously, divers progress at different rates, a wise buddy takes the skill and experience level of others into consideration in picking dive sites and profiles.

 

[Genesis]

Perhaps what you are getting at is that you should be able to hold the safety stop at less than 500 psi...I'll agree that adding the extra pound that you seem to want (500psi weighs approx. a pound, right? depending on the particular tank) is safer....

Not necesasrily. Its not just the weight of the gas, its also the suit compression. The change between 0 - 15' can be VERY significant, especially if you're diving a heavy wetsuit.

Its not all that dangerous to follow the "agency wisdom" in a 3 mil shorty, but it is EXTREMELY dangerous to do so in a 2-piece 7 mil, which may shift by 4-5 lbs from the surface to 15'.

As for the conditions, the silt on this site is new. There was no way to know the bottom was silty to this degree until we got there. Nonetheless, there's nothing dangerous about that unless you crash into it, and with no current, there is no reason to be bothered by it.

The hard bottom dives are very nice and, usually, extremely "simple" dives around here.

As for "trust me", its far better for her to trust me than to get on a dive boat and trust them! I'm more than a bit interested in seeing that all goes and ends well

My point is that without her demonstrating the buoyancy at the Jetties she should have never gotten to the OW final checkout site in the first place, and without demonstrating neutral buoyancy there she should not have "passed" the course.

As a new diver, you are inherently going to be doing "trust me" dives for at least a little while. Why? Because you don't know you lack mastery of a given skill unless you know that you not only should have that skill and what "mastery" is!

The agencies are very interested in seeing you do a mask removal and replacement (good), and a regulator recovery (good), but they seem to have zero interest in seeing that you can manage a free ascent - a fairly reasonable test of somewhat-competent buoyancy control.

From ANY depth beyond that which you can stand up an out-of-control ascent is unsafe. To issue a card to someone who cannot manage a free ascent makes a mockery of what an OW card is.

Frankly, having seen this now first-hand, my view is that for people I care about I may as well show them how to dive, fill their tanks for them (for free, so as to not run afoul of the law here - or just file an air cert and do it for money!) and say "to hell with the agencies."

The odd thing is that her daughter, who did her cert dives a few weeks prior and who has dove with me since, has "decent" buoyancy control. No, she is not perfect, but she is SAFE in that regard, and if she lost the line she'd be ok coming back up. She's been on a similar site and was fine. I have no problem with her skill level, with that same OW card, issued by the same shop and instructor, at all.

She's quite safe and competent in the water.

I expected that the same instructor, who taught one and then taught the other, would produce a student with the same minimum set of skills.

So much for that idea.

 

[SOUTH DEVON]

James Goddard once bubbled...


Was this BSAC training?

no crash course Padi ( mon-fri )

steve

 

[HammerNoMore]

SOUTH DEVON once bubbled...


no crash course Padi ( mon-fri )

steve

That would be normal course Padi. Crash course is done over the weekedn .

I didn't think you'd get through BSAC training without learning bouyancy skills.

James

 

[Lead_carrier]

SOUTH DEVON once bubbled...
I passed my open water about five weeks ago, the next weekend me and my buddies went for our first dive without instructor, "thumbs down, reasonably good visibility until we all crashed to the bottom, and had to resurface as we couldn't find each other "
When we decided to resurface, we all inflated our BCDs at the bottom and was shocked how quickly we shot up, and our ears were popping like mad on assent .
So we all learnt the hard way, luckily we was only down about 9 m . But in my opinion the training wasn't adequate and left us in a dangerous state.
We did a bit of buoyancy control in a swimming pool only six feet deep, and the shore dives were only up to 6 m which were beach descents and assents, so we had no knowledge of a direct descent or assent.
Steve/thankfully still alive :wacko:

If you had no knowledge of a "direct" descent or ascent then your instructor sounds as if he is in violation of standards since controlled ascents and descents are part of the open water ciriculum. I believe I'd go back to the instructor and make them do a complete class. Or turn them into PADI.

 

[Genesis]

left her "OW" class with....

Grrr....