An interesting aside, I then logged in 20 more times just to prove a point.
Ahh, the good ole days.
Ahh, the good ole days.
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
Lolyou and I agreed several years ago when this was brought up last. Since the CDS almost never mints new instructors because no one could be bothered with them the list hasn't changed...
An interesting aside, I then logged in 20 more times just to prove a point.
Ahh, the good ole days.
What do you mean?
Y'all were taught these things, right?
Do any of you think the CDS does a poor, dangerous job of training divers to dive in caves? @tbone1004 @rjack321 @rddvet @CptTightPants21 ?
Depends on the instructor.Is cave diving history from the 1960s to present day taught and tested as part of Intro to Cave?
You would hope so but I've found quite a few people who haven't been.
I don't think the CDS does a poor or dangerous job of training cave divers because the CDS doesn't train them, instructors do. I don't like the 4 part system of training that the CDS and others have adopted. I think especially intro pushes people to speed up their training and break rules. I think the apprentice plus is not a good idea because it falls uner this heading. I think that there are agencies such as GUE that have oversight of their instructors and you can usually (not always) assume someone got excellent training from a GUE instructor. I think that the CDS has some excellent instructors that teach excellent classes. I think the CDS also has some very crappy instructors who got their instructor card because they are friends of IT's, but that happens in many organizations. I also think there are alot of antiquated, washed up instructors that put out horrible students and it's known and spoken of around cave country, but the CDS does nothing about it since they're legacy instructors with big names. I think the CDS could do a better job of oversight. I don't think telling someone to get a CDS card guarantees they'll get good instruction, I know of several excellent CDS instructors that I think everyone could benefit from training with. But to say it's the norm is far from accurate. My issue is the CDS boasted comnservation for many years. Now it's a training agency.
What I want to know (off-topic) is who puts those handprints and fin prints in the floor of the cave like at the bottom of the breakdown room on the Peanut line?
Depends on when they certed, doesn't it? When I first started, cookies were kinda new and we used only arrows. Boy did I get jumped on when I asked "What you mean, drop cookie?" I've seen many instructors do their thing and very few of them seem to cover the same stuff, much less in the same way. In regards to thirds, I don't remember Sheck's Blueprint for survival mentioning "in low flow add more gas" at all. I didn't encounter that concept until full cave and I had already figured it out by then. Teaching evolves. Not all cavers know the latest "best practices"... not even instructors. It's one of the things that makes SB incredibly valuable to divers.