Have training standards "slipped"?

[Walter]

I'm not real savvy with computers. Can you manually add in RN to a computer? If you can't, the computer in the shop wouldn't do much good if you had been doing 4 dives per day and it was sitting in the shop....unless you take a full day off of diving to get back to 0 RN.

You can't, so your point is valid. OTOH, unless you've been staying within table limits (extremely unlikely), you need to wait 24 hours before diving again with either a new computer or tables.

 

[TheRedHead]

You can't, so your point is valid. OTOH, unless you've been staying within table limits (extremely unlikely), you need to wait 24 hours before diving again with either a new computer or tables.

You could guesstimate your residual nitrogen on tables.

 

[427Dave]

I started diving in the late 50's. No certification required, heck I bought my first scuba gear from J.C. Penny Healthways brand. I was finally certified in the mid 70's with NASDS, we did the dive into the pool and put all the gear on, everything was put on the bottom of the pool, Open water we did ditch and don's swap masks, turn the air valve off and everything else our instruction could figure out, even a regulator failure where we took the bc off and took the regulator off the tank and breathed from the bubbles directly from the tank. They use to teach you about any type of emergency you could have. OOA accends. Also the courses were a lot longer in length (weeks instead of days). We all had a lot of fun in these classes and looked forward to them. More pool sessions, more classroom than today, more open water sessions.

I guess there were too many problems and they just keep taking necessary things out of the courses to make them easier. My dad taught us to dive in the late fifties and he was a navy instructor, now that man had no mercy!!!!! I think he expected us to be UDT. Course the Navy tables were the bible and even though I have a computer and have dove with one since the ScubaPro bend-o-matic, have always double checked againist the tables, then the NASDS wheel, and I now have a PADI calculator. I have had a few things happen through the years and have never paniced (knock on wood), I do give the training my dad gave me and the lengthy NASDS training the credit for this.

I do not see where a two day course and a dive can give you a dive certification. I have done a lot of resort diving through the years and have seen so called certified divers not have the slightest idea about most anything, they even have problems putting their gear together. I just remain quite and in the corner, if you offer to help then you become their instant buddy sad to say. I end up diving alone which I prefer in a lot of these cases.

 

[Walter]

You could guesstimate your residual nitrogen on tables.

I could, but I'm smarter than that.

 

[Hank49]

You can't, so your point is valid. OTOH, unless you've been staying within table limits (extremely unlikely), you need to wait 24 hours before diving again with either a new computer or tables.

Good point. Unless maybe you were lucky enough to see how many hours your computer was reading to 0 RN just before it blinked out, and could calculate from that? I don't know enough about the tables so I'm guessing here. But you're right...to be safe, you better go shopping or fishing for a day.

 

[TheRedHead]

My computer always clears out by the next diving day. I don't see the point in taking a day off. I would limit my dives to 2 on the day the thing died. But I have 2 computers anyway, although most divers don't.

 

[Eidolon]

The results seem very clear, it's a mucked up mess out there with some countries seeing fit to require supervision by law for the protection of their reefs. Other countries have legeslation regulating diving...in the interest of safety? There is the measure of the advancements in training.

It's faulty logic to say that divers that damage the reefs only do so due to poor buoyancy skills from declining standards. All ecological areas are impacted by people who are either ignorant of their own impact on the environment or just don't care. I don't disagree that it may have some effect but lack of skill isn't the only contributing factor. There is tundra in Colorado that is protected and people walk all over it, not because they don't know how to walk on a path, they just don't care or feel that their actions have an impact on the environment.

Edit: Just realized that this inital post was posted like 15 pages ago sorry if it's already been addressed, I'm just working my way through the thread still.

 

[docmartin]

My computer always clears out by the next diving day.

It ain't a suunto...

 

[The Chairman]

Just seems like laziness on the part of the instructor to not teach tables.

So why aren't you typing this on a typewriter? Sheer laziness on your part! My God man! Get off of your lazy butt and get out the Smith Corona! Spell checkers will just rot your brain!!! As for me, I think I'll have a liquid Corona!

If you teach tables and the students understand how they were developed and what they truly mean, then you shouldn't have to teach them how to use a computer. Tell them to go read the manual...it's self explanatory if they understand tables.

That's about as dangerous statement as I have ever heard. You are actually advocating to NOT TEACH them how to use the very tool they are going to be diving with and teach them the tool that very few actually use??? That's like making the NRA teach how to shoot a rifle with just a bow and arrow. Now they will REALLY understand where hunting came from. Shoot a rifle? Oh just read the user manual. You don't REALLY need an instructor to help you with that safety, or how to carry it, clean it, store it and all the rest. If you understand bows, you're BOUND to understand rifles... HEY DON'T POINT THAT THING AT M......................

 

[The Chairman]

I'm with you TRH. If I have 12 hours between dives, I will gladly just use another computer. I actually own 11 dive computers. OK, OK, six of them are on my student gear! The VEO 250 HAS to be the easiest dive computer to operate.