Stoo, anybody who reads SB knows it takes a good deal to render me speechless, but you have done it.
DM blew me off
- Thread starter brnt999
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ScubaInChicago
Contributor
I love the part about in water recompression (on air I assume) working hours if not a day after. :bonk:
Interesting thread. A proper pre-dive briefing should cover low on air situations clearly, and there should have been clarity with a proper briefing if all divers listen attentively. Each diver should monitor their air, as the OP did, and inform the DM a and their buddy. I regularly inquire of all divers during a dive, and before a dive talk to people one on one to get a feel for their experience and competence and comfort levels. Also, even divers on DM led dives need to be in buddy pairs, and communicate with one another during the dive. The entire group need not end a dive if one diver is low on air, but that diver and their buddy should do so. Everyone, TALK to the dive master before the dive. Tell them any issues you have, clarify anything about which you are uncertain. Competent dive masters will listen and respond. Certified divers should be self aware, buddy aware, and apply what they learned getting certified. I know a person who was taking a drivers test. As he approached a stop sign, he asked the examiner if he should stop. The examiner said, no, go on through, and the guy did! He failed the driving test. He was lucky there was no cross traffic at the moment. Divers, remember what you were taught and apply it. Do not assume that the rules change because there is a DM in the water. The DM leading a group is primarily there as a tour guide to keep you from getting lost. They are an auxiliary buddy for everyone, but each diver should have and dive with a buddy for all the reasons your were taught.
DivemasterDennis
DivemasterDennis
Hatul
Contributor
I have a counter example to yours, that shows that what an expert advises at the moment should override common teaching. A student driver comes to a red light and a traffic policeman tells him to go through. What should he do? Follow his teaching and remain stopped, remain stopped but tell the officer there is a red light or go through?
I believe it is commonly taught in driver education that a policeman on scene directing traffic overrides the traffic light, but you raise a good point. There is no guarantee what they learned in OW is correct, and that the DM is wrong. Divers need to apply what they know and make sense of things.
In your state the law says:
21462. The driver of any vehicle, the person in charge of any
animal, any pedestrian, and the motorman of any streetcar shall obey
the instructions of any official traffic signal applicable to him and
placed as provided by law, unless otherwise directed by a police or
traffic officer or when it is necessary for the purpose of avoiding a
collision or in case of other emergency, subject to the exemptions
granted by Section 21055.
so the student driver should be taught to follow the policeman's instructions and that is the correct thing to do. In DivemasterDennis's example if the examiner was a policeman (in some states the examiners are, in other they are not) then the student driver didn't do anything illegal but should have still failed the test because he had to ask how to proceed instead of demonstrating his knowledge of the proper thing to do. If the officer riding with him told him to ignore the sign without being asked then he should have still passed the test but having to ask what to do at a stop sign indicated that the driver wasn't prepared to drive on his own without an instructor. If the examiner wasn't a policeman then the student driver violated the law by ignoring the sign and should have failed the test for that reason.
ScubaInChicago
Contributor
InTheDrink
Contributor
A lot of these posts always come around to the same conclusion. Typical training is inadequate. Yet absolutely nothing comes of it. We can rant all we like but it's tilting at windmills.
4 day training courses, from my experience, teach you how to follow a lead, not how to dive independently.
I think it's rather hard to criticise people that have been trained to follow and no more then ask them to act like independent divers when they have never been trained that way. Embarrassing to admit but I had certainly 50 dives or more before the notion of independence even occurred to me.
In any event, is there anything any of us can do about this? We can publicise on bulletin boards like this altho in the main we'll be preaching to the converted (but not always).
The lowest common denominator and market price seems likely to dictate what people choose: and people choose mainly on price.
4 day training courses, from my experience, teach you how to follow a lead, not how to dive independently.
I think it's rather hard to criticise people that have been trained to follow and no more then ask them to act like independent divers when they have never been trained that way. Embarrassing to admit but I had certainly 50 dives or more before the notion of independence even occurred to me.
In any event, is there anything any of us can do about this? We can publicise on bulletin boards like this altho in the main we'll be preaching to the converted (but not always).
The lowest common denominator and market price seems likely to dictate what people choose: and people choose mainly on price.
As a new diver, I will give my perspective. I took a 3 day course where the first day was a discover dive, the second day was the pool dives and the theory, and the third day was the final ow dives. Basically all of my theoretical training took place in one afternoon--4 hours. In retrospect I don't think there is anyway someone can get the proper training in 4 hours.
My observation is that there are 2 classes of divers out there--the well trained totally independant divers, and the half assed trained semi independant divers.My experience is many of the dive shops look at divers this way already. If someone comes in to their shop who they suspect is new or shaky they tell the boat crew or dm to keep an eye out, or they send an extra dm out, or they tell the diver they need to pay for their own dm.Many new divers recognize they are shaky or they are still afraid and they hire a private dm. They want the extra saftey. So maybe there needs to be 2 classes of ow certificates- class a that shows they are totally independant, and class b that says they are still shaky and require supervision.The dive shops could cater their dives to the 2 classes of divers, and I suspect would charge more for class b. I think many people who dive a few times a year on a cruise would choose to classify themselves as a class b diver and would like the security of knowing they are diving with a more supervised group. To become a class "a" ow diver you would have to pass more stringent tests.
This is just a thought anyway.
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