New Divemaster air consumption

[Wibble]

I agree with everything you mentioned, but this. You will be surprised at the number of real world emergencies you get involved in. FWIW, when I was a candidate, I worked with one particularly terrible instructor. His students were grossly overweighted and many had little or no buoyancy control. Bad instructors for OW students can be great experience for DM candidates...

If you can get pool/confined water time take it. When you aren't working with students, you have a lot of time to work on your own skills. By the time you've mastered the horizontal hover, you'll find your air consumption to be much improved. Use your "free time" in the water wisely - if you are just watching and waiting, you can work on your own trim, buoyancy, kicks etc.

Lastly, remember being with students/divers is work. If you have to chase students because they've lost control of their buoyancy and they are plummeting to the briny deep as they attempt to inflate their BCDs by grabbing their snorkels, you aren't going to have the same air consumption as you when you're having a fun dive. Start every dive with a full tank. There's less stress, and you always need to have adequate air for contingencies (read about Rock Bottom Gas Planning). If you go in the water with 10 people, but only 9 show up at safety stop it sucks if you have to worry about running out of gas while you drop down to look for a little lost lamb.

You are also going to be in a position when you have to be able to self-rescue. If you are doing an ascent and develop a reverse squeeze, for example, you can't count on anyone else to have enough gas to hang out with you until you get to the surface. The same thing goes for accidental deco. If you are on dive 6 of the day, but your students are on dive 2 or 3 and you loose a lamb, descending to look for said lamb may put you into deco.

(Great description of a day in the life of a DM)

 

[SlugLife]

Reading and thinking about what you and others have posted I am starting to think I should postpone my dive trip to Florida until I have more experience. I want to enjoy myself, see new and beautiful things, see and experience life as I never have. Maybe it would be best if I waited until I have 100 dives or more in a small lake or quarry, better buoyancy, trim, breathing and finning skills. More importantly, maybe I should wait until I have taken a rescue class.

You (probably) don't need 100 dives to get to the point of being a competent, safe, and self-reliant diver. Depending on the dive-site, depth, and conditions, you should be adequately trained to dive it today.

That said, if you wish to pursue safety, consider looking into redundancy (perhaps start another topic), and when ready look into the solo-diving courses. Even if you always dive with a buddy, there is value in being self-reliant.

If you're worried about dive-shops, check reviews, and always stay within whatever limits you feels safe.

 

[NorCalDM]

I'm an active DM here in California and have been for the last 15 years, VikingDives description of a DM is spot on. So air consumption is important and diving more to sort out your trim and buoyancy will help, fitness will help and a bigger cylinder will help so do all. You owe it too your customers whether they are students in an OW class or certified divers on a guided dive. Now that said I have a different expectation of a guide/DM if they are guiding me on a dive which for me only happens when I travel to dive as at home in California whether shore diving or boating diving there is no guide unless you pay extra for that. My expectation for the guide/DM is just that they are my guide because it is their home and they know the site. They are not a safety net for my lack of skills I want them to show me the site I just flew half way around the world to see. To be honest if I do have an issue more than likely I'm not going to the guide/DM I'm going to my buddy that I have dove with for the last 16+ years. When I work with students I have one mind set and when guiding certified divers I have another at some point as a diver you need to take responsibility for yourself.

 

[Esprise Me]

I can kind of see both sides on this. In theory, the OW cert is supposed to prepare you to dive independently with a buddy and no guide or DM at all. (Many agencies have a lesser cert that allows you to dive only with a DM; PADI calls it "scuba diver" instead of "open water," leaving off the fourth training dive and limiting divers to 40 feet in addition to requiring a DM, IIRC.) But in practice, how many newly-certified OW divers are really qualified for that? Especially when diving in a new place for the first time? And especially when diving with an instabuddy instead of someone they know well and have dived with before?

I certainly didn't feel ready at first. After I got certified, I took a day trip to Catalina, where I hired a private guide to take me on two dives within the dive park. I was nervous, but he was an experienced instructor who gave me lots of pointers and reassurance. Then I went to Playa del Carmen and did a total of 9 dives with various excellent instructors leading; I also did my AOW and Nitrox certs on this trip. Then I did a trip to Cabo, where I did 7 dives with an instructor-guide who wasn't actually all that great. But by then I was gaining confidence in myself, and when he tricked me into diving with more weight than I told him I needed, I had the emotional wherewithal to call him out on it. My first dive without a professional was my 23rd dive, and I was glad to have the experience I did because my two assigned buddies and I all lost each other--and unlike me, they didn't feel the need to surface when we couldn't find each other underwater. I did a lot more unguided dives after that here in California, where guides are not the norm. Within my first 50 dives, I had so many bad instabuddy experiences I was already contemplating solo diving, which had been unthinkable to me in the beginning. And I did take the solo course almost as soon as I had the requisite 100 dives. Now I'm a fairly confident solo diver who also has a good long roster of reliable buddies, and I've started to bristle at the requirement for a guide in many places I travel to. But it would've been very difficult for me to get to this point if I didn't have so much local diving available.

I'm also not sure it's necessary for all divers to get to this point. Bristling aside, I've been very impressed by most of the dive professionals I've seen, and I believe a good DM can keep a group of pretty marginal divers safe in benign conditions. If you're a marginal diver, like I was and like some always will be, and you're paying for a dive professional to either help you get better or just keep you from hurting yourself while you enjoy your occasional tropical vacation, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to expect a high level of skill and experience from that person.

 

[yle]

He weighs more than probably 75-90% of the divers and you expect him to have air consumption that is better than 99% of divers? That is ridiculous, especially if you allow children and women to dive.

If you're referring to my post #55... come on. That's not what I said.

My post did not say that his air consumption should be better than 99% of divers. I suggested that he should be confident that his air consumption will be better than 99% of the people that he guides.

The people that he guides, assuming he's working as a DM in a typical resort setting, will not be a representative cross section of all divers. I think you would agree that inexperienced, "once a year" divers are far over-represented in this group.

Also, my statement was subtle but was about his confidence... more so than his actual air consumption. My point was that if he was concerned during a dive that his guests would be unhappy about their air outlasting his, then his concern would be a serious distraction. He needs to gain confidence to avoid that distraction, and that confidence will come with improving his air consumption through experience.

 

[Haiawata]

Don’t rush. Dive more. You will know when you are comfortable step up.

 

[johndiver999]

If the guy was determined to be qualified by a world recognized training agency and has now received his certification as a professional DM and he has paid his membership dues and considerable liability insurance costs, is it not reasonable to assume he is actually capable of doing the work (of a DM)?

Rather than acceptance of his considerable training and qualifications, some people seem to have determined he is currently incapable of functioning adequately and tell him to dive a bunch more, practice zen or yoga or whatever... rather than simply fix the problem at hand... constraints of air supply - which can often be addressed in an instant and without any significant additional costs, training or delays.

Which makes more sense?

Now if you want to argue that the training agencies are crap; that they commonly pump out incompetent professional divers who are ill-equipped to actually WORK in the field- which necessitates remedial training/practice. Well I might listen to that idea, but I don't think that viewpoint is very welcome, and I would not want to be accused of such negative dialog.

Get a bigger tank.

Once he has a bigger tank and knows he is not going to run out, chances are he WILL actually be more relaxed and quite possibly will use less air.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Reading and thinking about what you and others have posted I am starting to think I should postpone my dive trip to Florida until I have more experience. I want to enjoy myself, see new and beautiful things, see and experience life as I never have. Maybe it would be best if I waited until I have 100 dives or more in a small lake or quarry, better buoyancy, trim, breathing and finning skills. More importantly, maybe I should wait until I have taken a rescue class. I don't want to do that until I have more experience and can concentrate on the rescue part and not my foundational skills. I feel I can learn more about the rescue and helping others if I am a better diver first. That is a different subject however.

Ocean diving is easy. I've dived in many places where there is little to no current. Just go and enjoy some shore or boat diving and build up your experience. Lot's of people start their OW from shore dives and boat dives.

 

[DiveProKoko]

Reading and thinking about what you and others have posted I am starting to think I should postpone my dive trip to Florida until I have more experience. I want to enjoy myself, see new and beautiful things, see and experience life as I never have. Maybe it would be best if I waited until I have 100 dives or more in a small lake or quarry, better buoyancy, trim, breathing and finning skills.....

You are free to do whatever makes you comfortable, of course. However, the advice I give my students, to divers in general, and the advice I think most would give you here is that the most valuable thing you can do to be a better diver is to simply dive. If that means more dives in a quarry for you, then so be it. But I would also encourage you to challenge yourself. Depending on where you are diving in Florida, the diving can be amazing and can be done at any experience level. I got certified in a quarry and cut my teeth diving in the Florida Keys back in the day around the Key Largo area. I learned so much about being a better diver, handling myself in the ocean, etc. and got the bonus of diving some really nice shallow reefs! Whatever you decide, have fun and happy diving!

 

[Heat Miser]

Is there anything I can do to decrease my air consumption?

I found that there isn't a great noticeable difference in feeling between low air consumption and high air consumption fo me. However afer I bought an air integrated perdix and could see my sac rate, it made a big difference.

I also agree technique and being relaxed help, I had just finished a fundies course when I bought the Perdix so its hard to say for certain that all the improvement came solely from the Perdix.