sabbath999
Contributor
I was talking to an open water scuba instructor a couple of weeks ago, and I was surprised to find that he had only a few more dives than I have (somewhere in the 160 dive area for him). Yeah, I know the lower limit starts at 100 but I just found it hard to believe that somebody would be teaching diving as an "expert" with little more overall diving experience than myself.
What really surprised me was when I started talking about the dives he has made, he's basically dove local lakes and quarries, and done a couple of trips to Bonnaire. Most of his diving has been done at one local quarry, and nearly all of it is shore diving, and all of it wet.
That made me think back over my dive portfolio, since it is much more extensive than that and I don't personally feel like I would be REMOTELY qualified to take an instructor's course. I've dove in the atlantic, the pacific, the gulf, in lakes, quarries and springs... in caverns, at altitude, from boats and shore, in very warm water and nearly freezing water, dove wet and dry, dove wrecks (no penetration, not trained for that), deep, at night, etc... yet I still feel like, at best, I might be about to the point in my diving career where I could help to mentor a newly minted diver... no way do I feel qualified to even THINK about taking an instructor's course or a Divemaster course with the intent of doing divemaster duties.
I might consider taking a divemaster course, at my current skill level, just to learn the skills taught in the course to help improve my diving... but certainly not to be a professional working divemaster.
I've been in the water with a couple guys (one the instructor, one the DM candidate) who are in divemaster class, who are doing 3 or 4 20 minutes to 20 feet dives per tank just to get in their 60 dive minimum to qualify the guy as a DM.
They were doing a surface interval next to where we were gearing up, and I heard the instructor ask the guy how many more dives he needed to reach 60... the guy responded only one more. The instructor said "Good, because I hate this local diving cold water ****"
Ummm, yeah, that's the guy I want teaching me, for sure.
Anyway, I was wondering what you guys think the minimum ACTUAL DIVING EXPERIENCE should be for an instructor and DM. Do instructors need to have experience in a wide range of types of diving, or is it OK that they just know how to teach the basics... is that all that is required for producing students who can actually dive? What about DM's, do they need to actually have a range of diving experience to be good at their jobs, or do they just need to know the LOCAL conditions they are working with people in?
Here's my take on it. When I looked into getting my wife certified (I couldn't even swim at the time, I became a diver after she was certified) I shopped around for the person I thought would be the best instructor, and interviewed several before I choose the person I did. My priorities at the time was finding somebody who was "safety first", taught well above the minimum standards, and who had a lot of experience teaching students and who had a diverse diving background. The place I ended up with was an old-school dive shop where the instructor and his teaching DM were both cave divers with 20+ years of experience, who had taught thousands of students and who were extremely safety oriented. Turns out I made an excellent choice.
I put this in the basic scuba thread because a lot of new divers or people who are considering getting trained read this thread and not the instructor specific ones. Also, I am interested in response from the general diving public.
OK, people, what say you?
What really surprised me was when I started talking about the dives he has made, he's basically dove local lakes and quarries, and done a couple of trips to Bonnaire. Most of his diving has been done at one local quarry, and nearly all of it is shore diving, and all of it wet.
That made me think back over my dive portfolio, since it is much more extensive than that and I don't personally feel like I would be REMOTELY qualified to take an instructor's course. I've dove in the atlantic, the pacific, the gulf, in lakes, quarries and springs... in caverns, at altitude, from boats and shore, in very warm water and nearly freezing water, dove wet and dry, dove wrecks (no penetration, not trained for that), deep, at night, etc... yet I still feel like, at best, I might be about to the point in my diving career where I could help to mentor a newly minted diver... no way do I feel qualified to even THINK about taking an instructor's course or a Divemaster course with the intent of doing divemaster duties.
I might consider taking a divemaster course, at my current skill level, just to learn the skills taught in the course to help improve my diving... but certainly not to be a professional working divemaster.
I've been in the water with a couple guys (one the instructor, one the DM candidate) who are in divemaster class, who are doing 3 or 4 20 minutes to 20 feet dives per tank just to get in their 60 dive minimum to qualify the guy as a DM.
They were doing a surface interval next to where we were gearing up, and I heard the instructor ask the guy how many more dives he needed to reach 60... the guy responded only one more. The instructor said "Good, because I hate this local diving cold water ****"
Ummm, yeah, that's the guy I want teaching me, for sure.
Anyway, I was wondering what you guys think the minimum ACTUAL DIVING EXPERIENCE should be for an instructor and DM. Do instructors need to have experience in a wide range of types of diving, or is it OK that they just know how to teach the basics... is that all that is required for producing students who can actually dive? What about DM's, do they need to actually have a range of diving experience to be good at their jobs, or do they just need to know the LOCAL conditions they are working with people in?
Here's my take on it. When I looked into getting my wife certified (I couldn't even swim at the time, I became a diver after she was certified) I shopped around for the person I thought would be the best instructor, and interviewed several before I choose the person I did. My priorities at the time was finding somebody who was "safety first", taught well above the minimum standards, and who had a lot of experience teaching students and who had a diverse diving background. The place I ended up with was an old-school dive shop where the instructor and his teaching DM were both cave divers with 20+ years of experience, who had taught thousands of students and who were extremely safety oriented. Turns out I made an excellent choice.
I put this in the basic scuba thread because a lot of new divers or people who are considering getting trained read this thread and not the instructor specific ones. Also, I am interested in response from the general diving public.
OK, people, what say you?