Butch103 once bubbled...
......snip.......
BTW Mike and other instructors, a question, do you feel that all divers should at the very least complete the Rescue course within a certain time frame?
And while I am on this rant should we have renewable certs?
Mike,
You know your welcome up here anytime. Sorry, no caves or caverns but lots of nice wrecks .... but you already knew that.
Butch,
I know some will disagree with this but IMO, OW students get everything they need to be safe, entry level, divers from most OW classes. This assumes the instructor thoroughly teaches the material and skills required by their agency and the student takes those lessons to heart.
It's bad when instructors don't teach what they should but IMO, equally bad when the student pays lip service to requirements to get the c-card and then blows off the lessons learned.
As an instructor, i would love to see everyone go through a good rescue course. Even though i think OW class is currently a good entry level course, i don't think teaching some rescue skills at this level would be a bad thing either. From my experience, the students who truely get the lessons learned from OW, and want to be avid divers, understand the need learn rescue skills, whether they take a class or not.
I have been saying for a long time that diving certs need to be renewable like driver licenses. Personally, from some of the rhetoric i've been hearing lately about the safety of diving, if we don't want government to start regulating diving harder, i think we have to start making c-cards renewable. All it takes is one Senator or Rep. to make this a pet project and we get government control.
I think most of us would agree, that would be a bad thing.