Holy crap!!!!!
That is the watered down version Dan. I don't know how that shop's owner can freaking sleep at night knowing what a scumbag he/she is.
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
Holy crap!!!!!
There was a recent thread on ScubaBoard that began with a former customer of a dive shop in California lodging a complaint. She had gone into the dive shop expressing an interest in learning to dive. The owner sat down with her and, over a couple of glasses of wine, convinced her that she would be best served if she bought all her gear ahead of time. She did. It didn't work out well for her. She only lasted a pool session or two and never got certified. The shop refused to take back any of the equipment she had purchased, because all of it was used in the pool sessions--including the rebreather.
Hmm... Just three courses will get you to 300ft on CCR, i.e. Mod 1, 2, 3. For around $3000 USD, minimal gas cost, and a keg of scrubber you can have all the training you need for dives from a 15 foot reef dive to an hour long 100-Meter tour of an ocean trench. With OC Tec, the training companies have configured the training offerings requiring you to take a half dozen gas intensive courses. For example, PADI Tec/Rec; Beginning from say AOW w/Deep Diver you'll take Tec 40, Tec 45, Tec 50, Tec 65, Tec Trimix.
I guess it comes down to it's all what you rationalize.
Sorry, but any instructor worth their salt can figure that out after one class.With many advanced classes, you have time to separate the chaff from the wheat....( whatever the expression is)....you get to find out which students have catastrophic learning and doing issues, with underwater events that could not be guessed at ahead of time....
With zero to HERO in 3 classes, there is no separating out many of the students that look like they may be fine--but are harboring issues that will prove in time that they are not fine for the tech dives...or rebreather dives.
instead of blowing it all for a just year's worth of training on a new CCR system.
sorry, but there are far to many instructors that are not worth any salt...and even for the good ones, 3 classes will not put the student through every conceivable type of stress they need to deal with.Sorry, but any instructor worth their salt can figure that out after one class.
What other skills need to be taught in 5-10 classes that can't be covered in 3?
Doc, in this example, I am in agreement. My issue is the gene pool.
There is the one of overall divers, that is a gene pool not suited to doing deco at all, or doing helium....this is the masses. The CCR would not be smart for them.
Then there is the very, very small gene pool of divers that evolve skills to tech levels, and do the dive type you just described. In this group, I would not jump into an argument about the comparative safety...and in fact I agree with you that at near 300 foot depths to 400, and with bottom times from 40 minutes to an hour, the OC needs become ridiculous with all the gas that needs to be carried....it just gets far beyond what OC is good for....In this mission type, I would be diving a rebreather.
The big BUT....Dive shops all over the US have decided that all of their wealthy divers NEED to get into rebreathers. I think this is the wrong gene pool for this
There was a recent thread on ScubaBoard that began with a former customer of a dive shop in California lodging a complaint. She had gone into the dive shop expressing an interest in learning to dive. The owner sat down with her and, over a couple of glasses of wine, convinced her that she would be best served if she bought all her gear ahead of time. She did. It didn't work out well for her. She only lasted a pool session or two and never got certified. The shop refused to take back any of the equipment she had purchased, because all of it was used in the pool sessions--including the rebreather.
With zero to HERO in 3 classes, there is no separating out many of the students that look like they may be fine--but are harboring issues that will prove in time that they are not fine for the tech dives...or rebreather dives.
sorry, but there are far to many instructors that are not worth any salt...and even for the good ones, 3 classes will not put the student through every conceivable type of stress they need to deal with.