Have training standards "slipped"?

[MikeFerrara]

And have the standards been relaxed in the cave diving community or the technical community? Surely the instructor that certified these cave divers evaulated these students buoyancy control abilities before signing them off....

To my knowledge, cave training standards have not relaxed but I'm not a cave instructor.

What I know is that we see more physical evidence of poor technique and improper etiquette than we used to. In some caves, the physical evidence I've seen is rather dramatic. Aside from the obvious increase in popularity and the numbers of divers in the caves I don't really know what the specific causes are. I'm just not in "cave country" enough anymore to see much of what's going on.

 

[Mako Mark]

The freedom that NAUI Instructors have to select their training materials from all the best that are out there and to design their course from the ground up to meet the exact needs of their students usually gives them a leg up in the divers that they train.

4. This does not guarantee that one program is any better than other, but it does mean that odds are that that is the case.

no, it in fact decreases the odds.

the freedom to select the best materials available also ensures the freedom to howl at the moon and select the worst materials available, or in reality according to human nature, the most readily available or the cheapest available.

This is called "the tradegy of the commons"

Stop trying to waffle your way through, get your facts right

 

[MikeFerrara]

I am a big believer of opening some areas for recreation and locking some up for conservation. Works with reefs and forests too.

If that's the only way then I guess it has to be but having cave diving restricted to "designated trails" sure would take a lot of the fun out of cave diving. If some of the current trends (I hope they really aren't trends) continue, I don't see the future of cave diving being very bright.

 

[The Chairman]

I don't see the future of cave diving being very bright.

Isn't that why we bring at least three lights???

 

[stevewirl]

all the new methods and the best practices are the norm now . this is better for the diving community . i am the training officer in a CMAS club where it takes 30 dives to be eligable to become a certified diver .
our members our thought at their own rate of learning . and do their tset when they are ready . we have a trainee in our club who has roughly 100 dives done but doesnt like tests and likes to dive with a senior diver .
2 and 3 day courses do absaloutly nothing for the diving community as these are the divers that can go out to the world and have the im a certifed diver ego .
these courses are well and good and are a great gateway into the diving world .which are welcome but the thoughts of 2 divers with 5 dives each going diving together are in my opinion very scary

 

[Thalassamania]

no, it in fact decreases the odds.

the freedom to select the best materials available also ensures the freedom to howl at the moon and select the worst materials available, or in reality according to human nature, the most readily available or the cheapest available.

This is called "the tradegy of the commons"

Stop trying to waffle your way through, get your facts right

Waffle? Are you mad? Speaking of facts, Have you actually read Hardin's article? Are you aware that subsequent to the 1968 piece in Science he said it would have better titled, "The Tragedy of the Unregulated Commons." In point of fact, Hardin's essay actually makes my case better than yours.

The possibility of selecting the worst materials, most readily available, or cheapest is regulated by minimum standards, a rigorous Instructor Training program, and (corny as it sounds) a credo that is actually lived, rather than reliance on the unregulated avarice of the publisher of one specific set of materials who has a completely captive and beholden audience.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I have never heard of "pull and glide" associated with cave, I suspect pete meant "Wreck" where it is perfectly acceptable, in fact desireable.

I think you'll find the technique described in both the NACD text and the NSS-CDS text with the appropriate cautions...though, I loaned out both my copies of the NACD text and never got them back and my NSS manual isn't handy so I can't check right now.

A buddy of mine just finished full cave. Pulling yourself through a high flow cave is the only way you will get through it. You won't fin through it, that's for sure. However, you won't be gliding very much either....

I've never dived the Mexican caves but from what I hear most of the popular caves are low flow. Quite a few of the popular caves in Florida are very high flow so there is going to be some difference in the technique used. Even in high flow caves you can often do more swimming than you might think by reading the cave and sticking to "lower" flow areas.

I myself am not very experienced in super high flow caves...note the word "super" because some of the caves that I have often dived might still be considered "high" flow. I tend to stay out of the SUPER high flow caves unless I'm with someone who knows the cave OR I only take on a very short distance of new cave at a time so I can learn it. This is for the protection of the cave. If you get caught in the wrong place in a really high flow system and lose control, you can do damage.

Something else that seems to have changed is that I think we see more emphasis on going far than on "going well" than we used to.

Maybe this isn't too different than what we see in open water diving. Some agencies, instructors and divers are in such a hurry to get to the reef (or whatever) that they just don't want to take the time to learn to "go well". Everything has to be right now. Personally, I don't see why a diver who is in confined water learning the basics shouldn't take their time and enjoy where they are at. I get kind of bored just hovering and finning around in a pool but I'm pretty good at that by now. A new diver who isn't should really have plenty to keep them busy and when they do start getting to the point when they can do so with some control it will be a new experience for them that can be rather enjoyable. A lot more fun than flopping around out of control in open water if you ask me and I don't think they really see very much that way anyhow.

Once they get that entry level cert the push is on for AOW and 100 ft or Devils Throat or the Blue Hole and never mind that they can't yet dive well at 30 ft.

Going beyond physical skills for a minute I'll put up money that says that I could take most divers who learned to dive right here locally out to the same exact place where they trained, blew through, silted up with all their focus on gettin a card, to Cozumel or whatever, and show them tons of neat stuff that they never even knew was there.

In fact not long ago my wife and I were at a local site and we were talking to some folks from a local shop. The vis wasn't too good that day and the instructor we were talking to asked if we had seen anything. When we started telling her and her students about some of the things we had seen, they looked at us like we were lying and stated right out that they hadn't seen anything.

The fact is that we had watched them blow right by some of the best places without even knowing. Had they been hovering and looking more then finning like they were trying to beat something to death with their fins and silting, they would have seen plenty.

Those students didn't learn what there was to look at, how to look or how to dive so that it's possible to look.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Isn't that why we bring at least three lights???

No. We usually have one really big light for that. The other two are just so that we don't get stuck with no light at all...because the big bright expensive ones are the ones that always break.

 

[stevewirl]

the reason i bring 3 lights is so i dont hav to wear a weight belt

 

[TheRedHead]

Once they get that entry level cert the push is on for AOW and 100 ft or Devils Throat or the Blue Hole and never mind that they can't yet dive well at 30 ft.

To be fair, very few Coz ops would take a poor diver to the Throat, no matter what card they had. They have to know your diving skills and trust your judgment. I don't know about Belize. Looking back, I made some scary dives there as a newb, but that might have changed now.