Have limits changed, or have I mis-remembered?

[boulderjohn]

You gain skills through training AND experience. There are no rules saying the experience must be in a class.

 

[yle]

I have asked some instructors why after they finish with an OW student ,,,, they do not go on a dive with them to say 60 or more feet. their answer is along the line of ,, if they do they will not come back for AOW if they think they can now go to 100 ft.

Maybe that's just the instructors you happened to ask, or maybe it's a regional thing. I've always invited my OW students to come diving with me beyond the class, and most instructors I know do the same. But then again, I mostly know instructors in my area (So Cal.) I don't know any instructors in Texas.

To be fair, it could also have to do with the local diving culture. We do a lot of beach diving here, which is simple, cheap and flexible (i.e. you make your own schedule.) Much easier to encourage a new diver to join a beach dive than to get them onto a scheduled boat trip.

 

[Rred]

Andy-
I suspect you are confusing the "recreational scuba diving no-decompression limit" which was long accepted as 130 feet, with PADI's varying ideas about "certified" "OW" and "AOW".
When I was certified our card just said "Give the man fills." We were never even told that there were "open water" or "advanced open water" certifications, and none of the PADI divers I knew in the 80's was ever asked, or told, that there was anything besides "a C card" needed to go wherever the hell they pleased.
PADI and others have (finally!) changed some of their tables and times as well. What every agency used to call "the tables" was based on the USB WARM WATER tables, and the USN in their fine print did say you had to shift those by one stop and one time group for cold water--which was defined as "Will you be wearing a wet or dry suit?" rather than a specific temperature. (Yes, cold water tables were published somewhere too.)
So things do change. Partly from greed, partly from fear of lawsuits, and sometimes just because there's been more research and there are some newer safer practices. Which you'll hear about from DAN before any agency says anything about them.

 

[yle]

Do you ask golf instructors why on Earth they don't offer free lessons for students after they have finished the one they paid for? How about college professors? After they finish teaching the course for which they are paid, why don't they offer their students free classes? Those damned scuba instructors! Always wanting to get paid when they work! Why don't they work for free like everyone else?

you miss the point john and your view is very much part of the problem.
The process reeks with ITS A MONEY GAME,

You both have a point, but unfortunately you're both generalizing too much. John's point is that it's unreasonable to expect people to work for free. But reality is that people do work for free. The glaring exception is an attorney that is under the gun to bill for hours... and will bill you for every minute they're even thinking about your case.

As a college professor, I have plenty of students that come back to chat, ask for advice, ask for a letter of rec, or various other ways to chew up my time after their class is over. I don't charge them for my time just because they're a former student. I consider taking care of my former students as part of my job. On the flip side, I don't spend my free time seeking out my former students so I can spend more time with them.

I would think most people that are involved in education, whether scuba, golf or academia, have a vested interest in seeing their students succeed. The worst part of teaching scuba for me was finding out one of my OW students was taking the class just so they could go diving on vacation... and cross it off their "bucket list" (i.e. and never dive again.) My favorite students, and the ones that made teaching worthwhile, we're the ones that immediately after OW DIve 4 would ask "when are we going to do this again?" I would go out of my way to do what I could to keep those people diving.

KWS's point is that it seems too many instructors are in it just for the money, and that they should be interested in the success of their students. My experience has been just the opposite: I don't know any scuba instructors that are in it for the money, and all of the instructors I know prioritize the success of their students... whether that means additional training or simply offering them more opportunity to go diving.

 

[yle]

And if you want to be blunt about it ,,,you have padi instructors saying its ok to go to 100 ft with out that so long as the instructor has no responsibility for the OW kid when they have only been to 40 ft and given a card.

I've never heard a PADI instructor say this. And I know a lot of PADI instructors. Can you provide details? Who, where, when?

 

[TMHeimer]

Perhaps the simplest reason some instructors don't invite OW graduates to dive with them is there are just too many of them. Or the instructor is lucky and is teaching most weekends (or most of the time) and when there is time for a pleasure dive they either go solo or with a fellow instructor from the shop?

 

[boulderjohn]

Working for free?

I definitely chat with students and give advice. I talked with one for an hour in my driveway yesterday, and he was not taking a class. former students have my email and write to me often asking for information. I provide it freely.

I have written thousands of posts giving advice on ScubaBoard. I was certainly not paid for that.

As for diving with my former students, every single non-teaching dive I have done since February has included at least one former student. The last dive I did had three.

 

[yle]

Working for free?

I definitely chat with students and give advice. I talked with one for an hour in my driveway yesterday, and he was not taking a class. former students have my email and write to me often asking for information. I provide it freely.

I have written thousands of posts giving advice on ScubaBoard. I was certainly not paid for that.

As for diving with my former students, every single non-teaching dive I have done since February has included at least one former student. The last dive I did had three.

Exactly... so there's a huge gray area between the black and white of being paid for everything and being paid for nothing. It seems KWS knows far too many scuba instructors that won't even acknowledge another's divers existence unless they're being paid (i.e. attorney-style.) And like I mentioned in a previous post, it's possibly a regional thing.

Most people do some work pro bono (oh goodness, even some attorneys do!) because they understand there's real value in their contribution to society in general that can't be expressed in dollars and cents.

 

[boulderjohn]

Although all of my pleasure dives this past year were with former students, I would not take all my former students on those dives. the last one had a maximum depth of 178 feet for a total dive time of about 2 hours. All the others were at depths between 200-280 feet. I have many former students who are not prepared for such dives.

That may be a reason that some instructors are hesitant to dive with former students. Their routine dives may be beyond the abilities of the student.

 

[NAM001]

I've never heard a PADI instructor say this. And I know a lot of PADI instructors. Can you provide details? Who, where, when?

It is a daily thing and it is justified by saying. If i do that i have to comply with aGENCY training rules because it is a training issue. no training below x ft and that is all they will go to in that condition. If they are not in a role where a question of supervision required , they will go any where with you.

In other words. If you want my sig and the instructor # we have to comply with agency rules which means you dont go past 60 ft because you have no experience and as an instructor they will not violate your RECOMMENDED limits and their training limits outide of an instructor student relationship. .

It boils down to you cant get a credit with out history you can get history with our credit. Its a catch 22.

SSI when i dealt with them,,,, allowed sigs in a log book so long as it was from an instructor to negate the need to demonstrate abilities in a formal class at a later date. so you take a class do the tests but with the sig you did not have to go to a dive location to prove what you have already done as long as is was observed by an instructor . That defined the accountable level of an instructor to be the one to say you were profecient for formal training purposes. I got a boat cert and did not have to go to sea and jump off and get back on the boat to get it because i had several boat trips logged in my book. I watched another person ask his dive buddy instructor to sign his book as an instructor and the instructor refused to because he was not in an instructor capacity and not covered by the agency for a boat diving diving observation signature unless it was a class and paid for it. It is not the issue of whether it is a boat sig or a photographer sig for the many bozo classes that are available. It is almost a level of hostility because of first dollars and the legit part is the liability factor with the agency.

I dont know of an instructor that does not think that a fresh OW HAS A LIMIT OF 130 AND NOTHING ELSE. Yet they the agency says recommended limit of 60 untill bla bla bla. that is talking out both sides of the mouth at the same time. Yes the recommended limit is a CYA for the agency and the number is a well thought of number. And I agree with it. Would it not be more honest to say your global recreational limit is 130 and your personal limit is 60 untill you get further formal training to make you certifiable to 130,,,,, and the evil word experience. When the agency places a limit hard or recommended It should be the agency to lift that limit. Yes dive book proof should be the factor that causes the personal limit has been lifted. That says experience is not the same as training. Instructors sign off on training . So again who would be legally compitant person or level in a court of law to fill the requirements of some one that can say they observed you at 100 feet to qualify as proof of experience?????. Another OW that you took the class with? not proficiency neccessarily but experience. Profeciency is a more precise call that would be in a instructor realm. the difference would be ....been there did that but with out the did it WELL part that only an instructor should be able to evaluate.. for experience verification perhaps there should be something along the line of DM's can sign experience or perhaps MD's could to insure there is a level of compitancy to say you can REASONABLE accept the word of the signer as being profecient, that the person has the experience to do that dive as safe as one can with out formal training. Personally a MD or above should be able to do that.

This topic comes up often and I ,,as some know ,,am quite hard nosed about it. I have spent too much time putting tanks back on people at other than shallow depths to be comfortable with many mew OW's. Too many times having a diver with low gas because they never realized how fast you go through air in deep water. There are also some very great OW's out there that if they did not tell you they wer new divers you would think they had been diving for years. For me that answer lies in asking a lawyer what statues would consider adaquate experience evaluation. You want to go to 130 ft. a lawyer would say the diver had a card that proves he has the skills and profeciency to do so at some time. so would an instructors signature or statement in a log book. how far down the training ladder do you go before it is said the person that signed of your experience dive had no clue what he was signing for. By that i mean someone with 100 dives may have seen a narc case or two and could recognize it before it was too late. If all the witness sig is saying is i was there he was there all is well, then you may as well have a book signing party after OW grad and then head out for the flower gardens or some other deep dive location or just remove teh work experience from the recommended limit condition.