Mantra
Contributor
Working out what belongs in an OW course curriculum is an interesting design challenge, for sure. You need to balance safety and skills versus length of course and associated cost. I think a good balance has generally been struck. If you are talking someone who does a resort course, and then doesn't dive again for a year, I think you could argue that the more skills given, the more there is to forget. Our sport has such low incident rates that something seems to have been done right.
I see the point, though, about allowing any kind of conditions to a dive on a basic OW card. I did a dive not long after getting certed that was to 20m, with current and strong surge, on a wreck, and it was a fairly brief and unenjoyable dive as I was so task loaded with a DM who wanted to set speed records to boot. It was a safe and even benign dive, but I was very unskilled for it.
We are about to take some more instruction, being at the point where after 20 or so dives we feel like we want to build skills a bit more. We practice skills on every dive, and I'm sure to do at least two mask removal/replace skills each dive because it was something that initially made me uncomfortable. So we are looking at buoyancy/trim, propulsion, buddy and nav skills, as well as instruction on moving to a long hose setup and shooting a DSMB. I don't feel that these were omissions in our initial instruction, though, but rather just that our diving is slowly evolving as we get more comfortable.
That said, I remain very suspicious of three day OW programs. I'm glad we did five. I think the OW skills are comprehensive and basic, but I really don't see how you could get them all properly in a fast-and-cheap type of course. It smacks of getting certification rather than skillset to me.
I see the point, though, about allowing any kind of conditions to a dive on a basic OW card. I did a dive not long after getting certed that was to 20m, with current and strong surge, on a wreck, and it was a fairly brief and unenjoyable dive as I was so task loaded with a DM who wanted to set speed records to boot. It was a safe and even benign dive, but I was very unskilled for it.
We are about to take some more instruction, being at the point where after 20 or so dives we feel like we want to build skills a bit more. We practice skills on every dive, and I'm sure to do at least two mask removal/replace skills each dive because it was something that initially made me uncomfortable. So we are looking at buoyancy/trim, propulsion, buddy and nav skills, as well as instruction on moving to a long hose setup and shooting a DSMB. I don't feel that these were omissions in our initial instruction, though, but rather just that our diving is slowly evolving as we get more comfortable.
That said, I remain very suspicious of three day OW programs. I'm glad we did five. I think the OW skills are comprehensive and basic, but I really don't see how you could get them all properly in a fast-and-cheap type of course. It smacks of getting certification rather than skillset to me.