Monastery: Calm to Rough: How fast?

[TSandM]

Monastery doesn't have to go from flat to over the head breakers to cause problems. The day I did it, it was dead calm when we went in, and the entry was easy. When we came out, the waves were no more than 12 to 18 inches, but as a novice to surf exits and a short person, I got caught where I was standing, just at the shore break, and knocked down and rolled. I could not get up, and I was calm right up until my reg got sand in it and began to freeflow, and I realized the time I had to sort things out had suddenly gotten violently limited. Luckily, I had a rescue-trained buddy twice my size, who exerted Herculean effort and heaved me to my feet. (My beloved husband had taken off for the car, to get the camera to record the event.)

I managed to get out of the water, and fell again trying to climb the steep hill of really nasty, loose sand -- this time, I insisted on getting out of my gear and having someone else carry it up to the car for me

Monastery and new divers . . . I really don't think so. What saved me was that I stayed calm as I went through the "wash" cycle. I had about 600 dives when this happened.

 

[Brewski]

This is why you will see classes crawling out on the beach on beautiful days at breakwater. To teach divers not to hang out in the surf zone and how to get out of the water safely.
We call it the monastery crawl.

 

[dannobee]

As far as Monastery and new divers, there's two schools of thought here:

One, don't ever take students there, don't show them anything about the ocean other than a crawling beach exit. Just tell them, "don't go there."

I was watching an OW class at Lover's 3 where two instructors did exactly that, and the students were getting ready to head down the stairs into fairly large wave sets with short intervals. I pulled the instructors aside and quietly told them that if they didn't show their students the basics of wave sets that I would, as it was obvious that it was big enough that someone would get rolled.

The second one is to make Monastery part of open water or AOW, teach the group how to read wave sets, swells, forecasts, big surf entry and exit (which include other techniques besides "the crawl"), keep the reg in your mouth no matter what, don't count on your buddy to help you if you're in the surf zone, and most importantly, when to just walk away.

The lesson of watching the surf and the nasty, curling break 20 feet offshore pounding the beach and the instructor telling us, "today, it's too big to dive here" was what it took to let us know that it was perfectly acceptable to walk away and go dive somewhere else.


.

 

[micboucher]

I'd dive with you anytime too pacificgal. I think we've all had our "learning experiences"...they just make us better divers.

 

[Gombessa]

As far as Monastery and new divers, there's two schools of thought

I was watching an OW class at Lover's 3

The second one is to make Monastery part of open water or AOW

I was thinking they didn't have to be mutually exclusive; IMO an OW/AOW division of Monastery sounds perfectly reasonable. I don't think I would have been ready to learn to read and judge sets in the setting of an OW class (let alone deal with anything more turbulent than a pool skimmer).

But by the time most people take AOW, they've at least got a few OW dives under their belts and have probably shown some commitment to cold water diving - that sounds like the perfect time for an instructor to go into detail on how to deal with the site.

 

[mikemill]

I think dannobee was talking about using Monastery to teach concepts like wave sets and rough entry and exits that really do apply to any dive site. Even at gentle breakwater you have wave sets and there are times when even it produces some not too gentle entry and exit conditions.

 

[pacificgal]

I do agree that teaching Monastery in an AOW class would be helpful. I don't know that I would pass it...but would be grateful that someone took me out to teach me,.

 

[myriad50]

I just wanted to say I too echo the statements of those who said it wasn't the error that's of critical importance (although certainly at the time I can only imagine how scary it was and I am very, VERY happy to hear Pacificgal is recovering well) but rather not learning from the mistake itself that counts (kudos to those who stepped up and stated they'd dive with her again- I'll dive with any of you anytime if you ever ask me to!).

Coming from a person who's lucky to have his right arm/hand still functioning after making a very stupid mistake that had nothing to do with diving I can testify that it's not the error or mistake that counts, it's whether you've learned from the error and are willing to apply what you've learned to life that's of grave importance.

Before injuring my arm I "really, really, really" wanted to dive Monastery...I guess you talk to people about the 'cool' dive sites and suddenly you find yourself wanting to try something new and more advanced. What's been discussed in this thread should be made a sticky (moderators??).

Prior to my injury I dove to 99', did roughly 10-12 night dives (real night dives), boat dives, and boy was my confidence building in just around 2 months of diving every weekend on both Sat & Sun. I, however, was suddenly humbled....and not even by the ocean, but rather plain old everyday glass. Yeah, go figure.

I applaud Pacificgal for being so forthcoming about her incident and what the aftermath entailed, I think most people would not have. Kudos to her too for sharing, who knows maybe it has or will save somebody else's life that was thinking of trying Monastery without having the the appropriate experience/knowledge/skill-set..I blinked twice when I read TSandM's post - ~600 dives? And I was going to try it with ~32 dives under my belt. At least I know when it's appropriate to feel 'stupid' and I certainly do after following this thread...Me = newbie, overconfident, and very lucky that I did not. Thank you all for this discussion and you're experienced feedback.

I was down for appx. 3 months unsure if I was ever going to have full use of my right arm again, not even close to what Pacificgal has and is going through...

To the member 'dannobee' - kind sir, if you know of someone or some group that actually teaches AOW cert's using Monastery (not even to dive, simply to learn wave sets and, as you so eloquently put it, learning 'when to just simply walk away') please PM me - I am *very* interested. I know people who have their AOW certs, deep diving to depths of appx. 60' and night dives along Breakwater wall at 5am (wall to right on way out, wall to left on way back!?!?!)...I don't consider that 'advanced' training by any means, rather a money making machine. I want to become a better diver, not hold more certs.

And thank you to everyone for being so kind to each other on this board....I've learned a great deal just by reading the posts from everyone who's been doing this for so very much longer than myself.

-Myriad

 

[Thalassamania]

As far as Monastery and new divers, there's two schools of thought here:

One, don't ever take students there, don't show them anything about the ocean other than a crawling beach exit. Just tell them, "don't go there."

I was watching an OW class at Lover's 3 where two instructors did exactly that, and the students were getting ready to head down the stairs into fairly large wave sets with short intervals. I pulled the instructors aside and quietly told them that if they didn't show their students the basics of wave sets that I would, as it was obvious that it was big enough that someone would get rolled.

The second one is to make Monastery part of open water or AOW, teach the group how to read wave sets, swells, forecasts, big surf entry and exit (which include other techniques besides "the crawl"), keep the reg in your mouth no matter what, don't count on your buddy to help you if you're in the surf zone, and most importantly, when to just walk away.

The lesson of watching the surf and the nasty, curling break 20 feet offshore pounding the beach and the instructor telling us, "today, it's too big to dive here" was what it took to let us know that it was perfectly acceptable to walk away and go dive somewhere else.


.

At Berkeley we took the second stance. Almost all of our training dives were at Monastery and we spent an entire day doing little else but entries and exits and surf training. So I'm made many hundreds of dives there, I love it, it's one of my favorite places, but it will eat the unprepared and the unready for lunch. You've got to respect it and be on top of your game all the time there.

Many of these pictures were taken there, a surf mat really helps.

 

[dannobee]

To the member 'dannobee' - kind sir, if you know of someone or some group that actually teaches AOW cert's using Monastery (not even to dive, simply to learn wave sets and, as you so eloquently put it, learning 'when to just simply walk away') please PM me - I am *very* interested.

-Myriad

We've done this in the past. If there's enough interest I'm sure we can do it again.