Help improve diver training — 4-minute anonymous survey (student research)

[tursiops]

Two of us have already reported him as a bot. Perhaps you could pile on!

Knauf appears to be kaput. Thanks, Mods.

 

[Victor Micallef]

Many BSAC clubs run optional refresher sessions in April when at the start of the U.K. dives season. Where rescue and DSMB skills are practiced.

When I joined on overseas BSAC club for one of their holiday trips, I encouraged them to practice deploying their DSMBs on the first day. It turned out many hadn’t practiced for a few years, relying on dive guides.

That’s a great approach — regular refreshers like that make a big difference in skill retention and confidence. It’s interesting how often divers realize, once they try, that some of the core safety or rescue skills have faded without practice. Consistent refresher training could really help bridge that gap between certification and real-world diving habits.

 

[Victor Micallef]

Couple of comments about the questions and the answers I submitted:
Have you ever knowingly exceeded any limits of your certification (depth, gas, decompression, etc.)? - yes I have

How often have you knowingly exceeded any limits of you certification - Regularly (6+ times)

Now on your data (based on your criteria) you have an experienced diver who dives often, has high level of certification and regularly breaks the limits.

In reality I was occasionally pushing or slightly exceeding my no-deco limit before. I decided to take further training to improve my knowledge and certification, and have not exceeded the limits at all while having my current certification which covers more than 50% of my dives. Maybe I misinterpreted your question to consider the whole personal diving history, maybe the wording of the question could have been better.

Thanks, Espresso Explorer , that’s a fair point. The survey isn’t meant to suggest divers have poor memory or little experience, but to look at how training knowledge changes with time and habit. What you describe — normalizing small deviations because “it hasn’t gone wrong yet” , is exactly the kind of behavior I’m trying to understand better.


Appreciate the feedback , it really helps refine how I interpret the responses.

 

[Victor Micallef]

Notice the passive voice. Considered by whom to be safe diving practice?

It seems to me that Malta's judicial system is very intent to find some way to prosecute divers. Here is one story.

Divers outraged at Malta dive death court ruling

Divers in Malta have expressed 'grave concern' after a diver was found guilty of the involuntary homicide of his dive buddy, Christine Gauci

divemagazine.com

The story does not mention that the decision was based on the court's appointed expert witness, an expert witness who was not himself a scuba diver.

At the end of that story, it refers to an earlier incident. In that earlier incident, two divers died of immersion pulmonary edema while on a challenging dive in Malta. Another diver on the dive was charged with involuntary homicide because he failed to rescue them. He was chosen to be charged rather than any of the others because he was the most qualified diver in the group and was therefore deemed to be responsible for the safety of all the others.

Hi John — just to clarify a couple of things about the Malta case. The case did not stop there — the conviction was overturned on appeal. The Court of Appeal quashed the original judgment and cleared the diver (Arthur Castillo) of criminal negligence. The appeals court rejected the lower court’s view that merely taking part in a buddy dive creates a legal duty of rescue or responsibility for the other diver’s safety.
Source: divinginfo.mt
Also, on the day of the accident, it was just the two divers — no instructor, guide, or other participants. That was central to the appeal’s reasoning: they were diving as independent buddies, not under instruction or supervision.
The initial verdict caused understandable concern in the diving community, but it’s important to note that the legal outcome was later reversed.

 

[MrChen]

Hi John — just to clarify a couple of things about the Malta case. The case did not stop there — the conviction was overturned on appeal. The Court of Appeal quashed the original judgment and cleared the diver (Arthur Castillo) of criminal negligence. The appeals court rejected the lower court’s view that merely taking part in a buddy dive creates a legal duty of rescue or responsibility for the other diver’s safety.
Source: divinginfo.mt
Also, on the day of the accident, it was just the two divers — no instructor, guide, or other participants. That was central to the appeal’s reasoning: they were diving as independent buddies, not under instruction or supervision.
The initial verdict caused understandable concern in the diving community, but it’s important to note that the legal outcome was later reversed.

That's good to know because I'm not going to vacation dive in Malta if I'm criminally responsible for my dive buddies simply because we are diving together. I literally crossed Malta off the dive destination list when I went diving in Europe this year.

 

[tursiops]

That's good to know because I'm not going to vacation dive in Malta if I'm criminally responsible for my dive buddies simply because we are diving together. I literally crossed Malta off the dive destination list when I went diving in Europe this year.

It is very costly and quite depressing to have to defend oneself, even if the outcome is favorable. There are other places to dive.

 

[jtsma]

Oooh, this is going to be controversial...

If you have been on SB a while you know that the "certified depth" for OW divers is a hotly debated topic. Some will claim it is 60', some 90, some 130'. All have evidence that supports their view.

The phrasing of the survey seems.... off?

SCUBA certification just says that on such and such a date the person named demonstrated at least minimum competence on the basic skills and is allowed to buy air fills. Beyond that there is no enforcement nor meaningful requirements for further education and certification. The closest thing we have to enforcement is shops requiring evidence of certification for fills or boats wanting higher certification to do certain dives, but those are both informal mechanism that are easily overcome. In most of the world the diving regulations are nothing more than recommendations from a training agency carrying no force of law or policy.

Given all that, a survey on "what do you remember from your certification and do you follow it" is of questionable value because 1. we were not all taught the same limits, and 2, the divers here have, and all divers should, taken a look at their own knowledge, skills, and abilities and their risk tolerance and made their own decisions about what they are and are not comfortable doing. For some that is only diving with a guide in warm water. For others it is technical diving in overhead environments. Some of us dive solo, with or without additional training.

This is not completely correct. My federation is strict on this, there are clear rules on max depth and group composition and your insurance will not pay out if you exceed those limits.

 

[boulderjohn]

This is not completely correct. My federation is strict on this, there are clear rules on max depth and group composition and your insurance will not pay out if you exceed those limits.

Can you be specific? What federation? What are the clear rules on max depth? What is the insurance provider?