My questionable rebreather training experience

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Jim,
How many days does your advanced wreck course take?

Minimum of five days -- planning for seven is better. if you are cave certified five days will do it if you had a NSS-CDS cave instructor.

 

[bumcikaz]

Minimum of five days -- planning for seven is better. if you are cave certified five days will do it if you had a NSS-CDS cave instructor.

Thanks for the info, i will talk abou this course when i will be back at Rainbow Reef in march

 

[cerich]

Like the CDs pitch Jim, but I base mine off the students demonstrated skills versus any particular agencies card..

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Like the CDs pitch Jim, but I base mine off the students demonstrated skills versus any particular agencies card..

*IF* the student has an NSS-CDS cave card I'll schedule the class for five days ahead of time. If the student has a XXX card, I'll schedule the class for seven days. After I dive with the XXX diver I *may* be able to do it in five days, unless the XXX instructor sucked as many do.

 

[tbone1004]

I get amazed how often we see people blame the student for not "knowing" they should have done something. That's why they pay us, to learn what they need to learn. The assumptions that earlier training OC will teach stuff like weighting that they should somehow "know" will work cc is only half the story.

Students "don't know what they don't know" and unfortunately often end up being certified "not knowing what they weren't taught"

i only said that, and I did preface it with somewhat, because the OP started his post off by saying he had been diving for at least 10 years with over 1000 logged dives. At that point, you really should know that any major change in equipment requires a full weight check, and if an instructor says something that sounds wrong, question it. Very different than if it was 1 yr/50 dives where I might buy the whole you don't know what you don't know, but if something sounds fishy, it probably is...

 

[RainPilot]

To play devils advocate a bit...
When I do a crossover from another agency I know that I'm going to have to spend some time on the technical differences in the way agencies teach stuff. Thinking things like line protocols, team aspects, gas planning etc are all subtly different. When someone comes from my agency, at least I have a good chance they will be on the same page as to HOW to do things.

How WELL they do them is a bit of a crapshoot after that.

 

[The Chairman]

Guys... I deleted the bicker battle and posts associated with it. Don't silt out the thread.

 

[victorzamora]

To play devils advocate a bit...
When I do a crossover from another agency I know that I'm going to have to spend some time on the technical differences in the way agencies teach stuff. Thinking things like line protocols, team aspects, gas planning etc are all subtly different. When someone comes from my agency, at least I have a good chance they will be on the same page as to HOW to do things.

How WELL they do them is a bit of a crapshoot after that.

In my experience, most of the details aren't dictated by the agency but by the instructor. This is both Tech and Cave related. One cave instructor I know doesn't believe in (or teach) gas matching. Another instructor, from the same agency, teaches gas matching as strictly required. Two instructors from the same agency both teach very different techniques and procedures for lights-out drills, air-share drills, lights-out+air-share drills, stage planning, etc. Two instructors for the same agency teach different gas switching techniques, tank marking standards, deco algorithms and strategies, etc. The list goes on and is much more instructor-specific than agency-specific. I think the exception is, as it so often is, GUE.

 

[cerich]

One cave instructor I know doesn't believe in (or teach) gas matching.

that's moronic

 

[Caveeagle]

Do instructors really have that much freedom to vary from the cert agency requirements?

..If that's a common practice, that tends to reinforce some of by skepticism on the trend towards 'official' certification required for darn near everything. I certainly yield to greater base of knowledge.. But darn! If an agency can't maintain some form of consistency, than how am I that much better off vs having a trusted buddy/mentor show me the ropes?