In defense of Casual Divers

[fire_diver]

I only got to dive twice last year, doe's that mean that my skills deteriorated to the point that I should not dive. Should I quit golfing because I am not a zero handicap, I never made a pro hockey team so should I not play in the beer league. I never rode the Tour De France so should I not ride a bicycle.
Vacation divers are the bread and butter of the dive industry. It would collapse with out us because there isn't enough dir's out there to support it. So you all better kiss up to us vacationers.

Should you give up diving? with your attitude, maybe so. A golfer won't die because he shoots a 120. A hockey player won't die because he's not god enough to play the pros. 2 year olds can ride a bike, are you up to that level?

Vacation divers should kiss up to us, we are the ones who love to dive enough to become DM's and OWSI's. Without us, you would never learn to dive in the first place.

FD

 

[matts1w]

There are people in this thread who NEVER, and I literally mean NEVER, post anything but negative rants about divers and certification agencies. Can you imagine spending so much time around here with ZERO to say about having fun, the amazing underwater world, experiencing other cultures, conquering new challeneges, making new friends, great road trips, etc...?

What a sad way to spend one's time.

I, for one, have learned to ignore them.

 

[H2Andy]

Can you imagine spending so much time around here with ZERO to say about having fun, the amazing underwater world, experiencing other cultures, conquering new challeneges, making new friends, great road trips, etc...?

no, i can't. i used to have fun visiting the amazing underwater world, experiencing
other cultures, conquering new challeneges, making new friends, great road trips,
etc. but then DIR ruined if for me.

 

[Sean C]

Exciting discussion, I got through about 10 pages but got tired and started to go blind so I decided to just post my thoughts.

I an AOW and will be taking Rescue within the next month. The majority of my dives are nice and warm with great visibility or screwing around in a pool. My wife and I don't dive much up here as it is too cold for her and she does not enjoy it, nothing real pretty to look at.

With that said, I will classify myself as a reasonably competent diver with definable limitations. I am also a diver who always dives with a guide, DM or instructor. Yup, I could go diving without supervision, but I prefer having someone there to point out the neat stuff, make sure I don't get lost and to offer me critical advise. I actually always ask for feed back from whoever we are with so we can improve. I understand both sides of the discussion. I know, I could be better and for me the best way to do that is with a guide, dm, etc. As I progress I will dive more independently, but for now this is the option I have choosen. I will not participate in a trust me dive and will continue to develop my skills. Please let me make my own choice, I know I am certified to dive without a guide but I would prefer not to. For me it is the best and safest ways to improve. A good guide, always listens to what we want to do and learn and helps us get there, all be it in baby steps.

Sorry, if I have somehow abandoned the thread but as I said I did not read the last couple of pages.

Sean

 

[pakman]

no, i can't. i used to have fun visiting the amazing underwater world, experiencing
other cultures, conquering new challeneges, making new friends, great road trips,
etc. but then DIR ruined if for me.

andy, whipe that cool-aid stain off your shirt...

 

[H2Andy]

that's not cool aid ... that's blood from the last PADI instructor who tried to grab my long hose without persmission

 

[TheRedHead]

I am also a diver who always dives with a guide, DM or instructor. Yup, I could go diving without supervision, but I prefer having someone there to point out the neat stuff, make sure I don't get lost and to offer me critical advise. I actually always ask for feed back from whoever we are with so we can improve. I understand both sides of the discussion. I know, I could be better and for me the best way to do that is with a guide, dm, etc. As I progress I will dive more independently, but for now this is the option I have choosen. I will not participate in a trust me dive and will continue to develop my skills.

A DM or an instructor-led dive is a trust me dive unless you are a full partner in the dive planning process, which is highly unlikely.

 

[pakman]

that's not cool aid ... that's blood from the last PADI instructor who tried to grab my long hose without persmission

you mean he grabbed your bungie....

 

[TSandM]

The hole reason I started this thread was to try get SOME people on this board to act more like MENTORS to these folks and encourage them to learn more and let them know that should they choose to try move on to the next level there will be open minded polite folks there to help them.

Some of us, even though we write negative things about people getting poor training or having poor skills, are doing something about it. Bob has run (and now I am running) a series of "Big Buddy" dives, pairing novices with experienced diver mentors for the purpose of getting some tips on improving technique, and getting a good example of what a more advanced diver looks like and functions like underwater.

I really think part of the problem is that the original certification course isn't enough, and sometimes (or all too often) the "advanced courses" don't address or remedy the problems with the basics. What novice divers need (or at least what I needed) was somebody to dive with who provides a reference of what you are trying to accomplish, and is willing to spend a little time talking about how they got where they are.

Educate a diver that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. Show him what good skills look like. Tell him how to achieve them (such simple things as distributing weights for horizontal positioning). If all of us who are moaning about the awful state of training stepped up and did some of this, we could make at least a small difference.

Of course, just the willingness of a diver to get in the water here in Seattle selects a group which is unlikely to be a four-dive-a-year warm water person.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I wasn't referring to your student, but the mother you described sitting in 30 feet of water with her husband and child and for some unknown reason freaked out and bolted to the surface. Maybe she was perfectly comfortable in her OW class, but there are people who are not comfortable and make themselves do the skills. I think that would be a lot easier in a three day class than in a four week class. We had a woman in our class with those issues and she dropped out after a week. It it had been a quickie class, she might have become a certified accident waiting to happen.

She didn't just freak. She was agitated. When the husband tried to help her to the surface they "fell" off the plane and sunk though they were trying to swim up. Things then got more complicated because they silted everything out and ended up in ZERO vis. When they finally started up it ended up being a rapid ascent because niether did anything to control their ascent speed. By the time she reached the surface she was paniced.

I don't know what her original problem was but the problem in the end was that they couldn't control their position in the water ie, ascend and descend in a controlled manor. Maybe she just got sick or something who knows? but if she had better dive skills she could have just ended the dive normally. As it was she had no chance of being able to do that with the additional stress of whatever the original problem was.

I guess the posters point was that it would all be ok because they could just ascend and as long as she didn't hold her breath it's ok. Maybe, she did live. My point, though, is that if they learn to dive you don't have that silly crap happening in the first place. She would have started feeling ill (or whatever) signalled to turn ot surface, and they would have calmly ended the dive.

My beef with the agncies is that stundets can be given a much better skill base without spending a ton of time on it. It's more a difference in what and how than it is in how long. It has NOTHING to do with the fact that a person is a casual diver and isn't going to be in the water all the time!