Don't know what happened

[Dody]

If you read the thread, you will see that he is indeed a divemaster, not a master diver. He is certified and insured to do the work he talked about.

He has 69 total dives, and he has determined during those dives that he won't learn anything with more experience than that.

So you are a mind reader now. Experience is good but also is a bad master when not substantiated by facts and science. This is all I am saying. With experience, I hope that I will get better. Valuable experience with more experienced divers and A POINT. Not by just listening to « experienced » divers saying this is what it is because this is what I have always been doing.

 

[Dody]

Dodi,
I read through the thread. I’ve also read between the lines. Please don’t take what I am about to say as offensive. However I do believe it needs to be said. With logged 69 dives and as you say less than 10 were training dives. YOU are dangerous and pose a life threat to people coming to dive with you.

You need more diving experience with dive masters who have a ton more dives than you do currently. Being that you don’t recognize this speaks volumes to your ego.

Your gonna get someone hurt or worse. I don’t want to read an article about you losing a student or you dying because you believed you had all the training you need.

You need to bury the ego, LISTEN, to people here giving you the advice you need and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER stop learning.

I sincerely hope this does not fall on deaf ears. The culture your in is conducive to your attitude. You need to learn to be humble and understand yo have to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. We are on your side here. Please understand that.

Glenn

You misunderstood or I was not clear enough. What I meant by less than 10 were training dives is that I did not log all my training dives. Some were so much about exercises that I did not feel it was fair to log them.
Sometimes, I go on the open ocean with my wife just to exercise and I don’t even log those dives. It can take 15 minutes or close to an hour.
My ego might be inflated, I give you that. But the time and energy I take learning more and more everyday is unquestionable. As is my natural tendency to listen to everything, everyone but not taking anything at its face value if it is not proven.
I spent hundreds of hours learning body physiology, dynamics, applying fluids dynamics science (which was my Master at the University) to diving. I am pretty sure that only a minority of divers do that. One of my first specialty after OW was Science of Diving (right after Perfect Buyoancy) and I found that it was not enough.
I think that I don’t need to tell you what I think about people saying stupid things like you are gonna get somebody killed in this context.

 

[Dody]

Dody is defensive, because he gets attacked, similar to his last threads. Getting attacked after posting a dive incident can be though.. But this time I feel like it's the right thing to do.
As a DM you are responsible for others life. So I feel we have the responsibility to do be more offensive.

Not being able to recognize what the problem was is a huge red flag.
It could have been a bad day and cruising students. Bad equipment or whatever. But as a professional you need to recognize what's wrong and adjust for it.

Taking a class for a problem discovered in a working dive is not really the best solution.. You are the one who is (as a assistant) giving the class.

There was more then one reason pointed out. You rejected them all.

@boulderjohn and @johndiver999 are on point with their analysis in my opinion. But you don't believe them. So I have nothing left to say other then:
I don't really care if you accept the given advice for your diving skills, but please don't work as a professional until you gain more experience. Which is by the way not dive numbers, hours or courses taken. It's the overall skill and mindset of a diver.

What is the purpose of sharing with others? By posting my experience, I admitted that in this instance, I was not up to the task. And that I needed to gain additional knowledge and experience. More substantiated than mere « dive more » sentences that have a point but are missing the point. My workplan is to have 150+ relevant dives by August. And to have an average of 5 dives per week until December. Compared to 1000+ divers, I will not claim to be nothing close to experienced.
My biggest flaw is probably that I have a bad habit of questioning things that are not the result of a thorough process thinking analysis.

 

[stiebs]

@Dody I have followed this thread with popcorn..

I admire you for your courage in identifying that you fell short of your own expectations, and for then asking for help in taking corrective action.

However this whole thread has taken a turn for the worst after people, who are extremely more experienced and knowledgeable than you are in this particular topic, have offered their honest and expert advice, only for you to stubbornly refuse that same advice.

The admiration that you had earned has quickly been lost by myself (and seemingly most others on this thread) by your lack of ability to admit that maybe you are not as perfect a diver (buoyancy, trim, technique) as you think.

If you want to prove your self right and others wrong, and also for your own learning and personal development I suggest, as some others have, that you get someone to video you during some dives, and post that back to SB for a critique.

 

[Scuba Client]

I am a DM today but just for the sake of it. I have no interest diving professionnally. Today, my instructor asked me if I I could be a DM for him and a family of 3 (50 years old, 15 and 14), closing the group. After a 15 minutes dive, things got complicated. Current. Strong or mild, I don't know. All I know is that I could not move forward. But what I found interesting is that I had the feeling that the group composed of the instructor and the three inexperienced divers was moving more efficiently that me. I tried to used my positioning with the reef to reduce the pressure but I failed at such a point that I lost them (vis was about 10 meters) and could only catch up following the bubbles. I know that I am more physically fit that the group of sunday divers. Why wasn't I able to follow them? Is it like in bicycling when being in a group is more efficient fighting wind than being alone? Or was the current stronger for me 10 meters in the back?

On a positive note I must condemn your instructor in allowing you to be a a dive leader.

 

[Dody]

@Dody I have followed this thread with popcorn..

I admire you for your courage in identifying that you fell short of your own expectations, and for then asking for help in taking corrective action.

However this whole thread has taken a turn for the worst after people, who are extremely more experienced and knowledgeable than you are in this particular topic, have offered their honest and expert advice, only for you to stubbornly refuse that same advice.

The admiration that you had earned has quickly been lost by myself (and seemingly most others on this thread) by your lack of ability to admit that maybe you are not as perfect a diver (buoyancy, trim, technique) as you think.

If you want to prove your self right and others wrong, and also for your own learning and personal development I suggest, as some others have, that you get someone to video you during some dives, and post that back to SB for a critique.

I will

 

[seaj]

There is no logical explanation still as to why I was unable to keep up. That’s the thing that worries me. I am studying all the parameters. 1) New wetsuit? I needed 3 additional kg to go down and even with that I could not hold my safety stop. I had to fin down. 2) Different current streams? 3) Finning technique? I really doubt that one. And all the scientific studies show that people who profess not using arms in strong currents believe what they heard as opposed to studying and are wrong.
I continue studying as in an air crash episode

You noted being under weighted and having to work to maintain depth at the safety stop. Could being under weighted have caused you to expend energy kicking downward while trying to keep up with the other divers? I would think fighting current and fighting lift may have degraded your forward progress. Kind of like an airplane going into a stall but in reverse.

Just a thought. Good luck figuring it out.

 

[Dody]

You noted being under weighted and having to work to maintain depth at the safety stop. Could being under weighted have caused you to expend energy kicking downward while trying to keep up with the other divers? I would think fighting current and fighting lift may have degraded your forward progress. Kind of like an airplane going into a stall but in reverse.

Just a thought. Good luck figuring it out.

Maybe. Thanks for the thought.

 

[Dody]

You noted being under weighted and having to work to maintain depth at the safety stop. Could being under weighted have caused you to expend energy kicking downward while trying to keep up with the other divers? I would think fighting current and fighting lift may have degraded your forward progress. Kind of like an airplane going into a stall but in reverse.

Just a thought. Good luck figuring it out.

The more I think about it, the more I think that you might have hit the point. We were shallow and it was difficult for me to have a good buoyancy with the new gear and lack of weight control. Even without air in the BCD, I was ascending. When I noticed the current, we were diving down so I had to fight both the current and the lift up. It might have been too much for my strength.
I will do the following things:
1- Test my speed compared to the two teenagers in a pool.
2- Analyze the weight check. The weight check with 6 kg was fine ( my head was actually completely under water when exhaling) but I could not descend with less than 8kg, even fully exhaling.
3- Dive, dive, dive,... until I am as comfortable with my new gear than with the crappy, old gear that I have used for months and felt pretty much in control with.

 

[Dody]

This sentence is not quite accurate. Let me rephrase it for you.

There is no logical explanation still that I am willing to believe and accept as to why I was unable to keep up.
​

Since there is no reason for it, then your failure to keep up must be a delusion. You must have stayed with them the entire time.

Got anything better?