Oversight of Dive shops by Dive Agencies (PADI, NAUI, etc.)

[jbd]

You get no argument from me on this. What I believe you indicate is not an example of additional requirements, but one of interpretration of the existing standards. My point was with regard to additional requirements than those stated in standards.

Understood.
Since I'm interested in your view on this I'll select another example."Share air as both a donor and a reciever from an octupus or alternate air source(not buddy breathing) during ascents in confined water and from a minimum depth of 15 ft(4.6m) to the surface in open water" In addition to this, I do also have the students do the same while buddy breathing, since I do teach buddy breathing in the OW course. To date it has not been an issue so your question, as I understand it, forces me to ask myself, would I not certify a student who could not perform the skill since its not a listed minimum? In trying to imagine what I would see in the student who couldn't do this, I would have to say I would not pass them until they could perform the skill reasonably well.

Does this address the question you are asking about standards?

 

[neil]

The rationale has to do with a scuba diver's endurance, not their swimming ability. Since scuba diving involves the use of a mask, snorkel and fins, then determining if a diver has the stamina and ability to swim while in gear was determined as appropriate. Even if a diver abandons their scuba gear they would still retain their mask, snorkel and fins and be able to swim to shore or boat in most cases. Part of the PADI method of training divers has been to do away with the military type swim tests and get divers on scuba as soon as possible.

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kari

Interestingly enough, some years back I read a DAN report on diver deaths. The report said that a certain number of the deaths involved the loss of one or both fins. I forget the exact percentage but I recall it was more than ten percent. That doesn't prove a direct correlation, but when I read it as a brand new instructor, it made me think twice. To this day I teach students how to swim on scuba with one or no fins.
I venture to say, with 13 years of teaching now, that most scuba students would be helpless without their fins, and so I insist on mine being able to swim without.
It's better than chicken soup: it can't hurt and might save someone's sorry butt some day.

I'll try to find that old reference from DAN and post it here.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Please see the following:"

DAN Medical Center
Injury Report and Statistics

Fifty years ago, fatalities and serious diving injuries were common. Today, they are rare and often seem to be associated with unsafe behaviors or hazardous conditions, but they also occur without apparent cause. Understanding the contributing factors could lead to safer diving. The primary goal of DAN's Annual Report on Decompression Illness, Diving Fatalities, and Project Dive Exploration is to further this understanding. "

I think this explains why I say diving fatailties are lower today than during earlier times.

Thanks,

Stan

Your from LA, isn't Laguna beach near there? Don't they average about 1 dead diver a month some years? That doesn't sound rare.

I know I've seen plenty of accidents and ambulance runs around here. Sometimes it seems like about every trip. Divers get free flows and end up in a rapid ascent. AOW students doing their "deep dives" have all kinds of problems. One lost a fin, sunk some, paniced, rapid ascent and hit the surface unconsious and not breathing.

Of all the ambulance runs I've seen none involved hazardous conditions or unsafe behaviors aside from people who didn't know how to dive (but were certified) were in the water.

DAN seems to conveniently neglect to discuss some of the more interesting accidents and the conclusions that might be drawn from them. For instance, the DAN data clearly shows that buoyancy control problems figure prominently in accidents. The data clearly shows that divers with little training and/or little recent experience are a high risk group. We hear lots of talk about divers not keeping their skills current. But...anyone making that arguement isn;t looking at what's right in front of them. Divers are being certified with no buoyancy control skills. They don't need to stay out of the water and let their skills get rusty. They aren't any good in the first place The reason for this can be found right in the training standards and the evidence can be seen by watching almost any OW class on the day they get certified. To DAN's credit they do identify poor skills as a problem. Unfortunately they stop short of pointing out that divers start out with poor skills and they often just don't get much better.

When it comes to accident analysis and identifying problems, DAN is about as useless as the agencies.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Yes, I did... just haven't gotten around to letting you know the result. Here's what I got back:
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The snorkel swim was added as an option in the 2001 Instructor Manual. The rationale has to do with a scuba diver's endurance, not their swimming ability. Since scuba diving involves the use of a mask, snorkel and fins, then determining if a diver has the stamina and ability to swim while in gear was determined as appropriate. Even if a diver abandons their scuba gear they would still retain their mask, snorkel and fins and be able to swim to shore or boat in most cases.

But look at all those no mask skills they put into the class like swimming under water without a mask. If divers are always going to have a mask why bother with that? I don't know about you but I've seen lots of lost fins and masks.

Part of the PADI method of training divers has been to do away with the military type swim tests and get divers on scuba as soon as possible.
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The swim test they did away with was not in any way shape or form a "military type" test. It was 200 yards with NO time limit. I've seen people doggie paddle it. Whats more it didn't people down from getting on scuba because the requirement was that the swim test be done prior to certification...it could be done after all the diving...not that I think that makes any sense.

Not only are agencies getting people in the water on scuba quickly but they're getting them out of the water and on down the road quickly too by not requireing that they do much when they are in the water.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Ted,

An example. From the NAUI S&P manual, regarding the Scuba Diver Course i.e an OW diver. Underwater Skills-- Hover without support or significant movement Thats all tha manual says. What does that mean? Pretty obviously it will mean different things to different people in different situations. I have heard the sggestion that if the student can hold the hover for one minute then that is acceptable. I don't find that acceptable and look on the situation much differently. I consider that "standard" to be addressing buoyancy control.

The problem with standards that are written like that is that many will interpret it so that it's convenient for them.

PADI requires a one minute hover in confined water. In open water they require the diver to get neutral at some point during dive 4. The standards ARE NOT written loike that on accident.

Why not REQUIRE that students exibit good buoyancy control throughout the tour portion of the dives...ooops but wait, some students don't get much of a tour. We need to REQUIRE that a significant amount of time be spent DIVING during training dives as apposed to kneeling for twenty minutes waiting to do skills. If a diver isn't swimming they should be hovering. If they're swiming it shold be done cleanly.

If they intended that divers learn these most basic of diving skills it would be an incredibly simple matter to write it into the standards. They clearly do not intend that divers learn them and they do NOT intend that instructors be required to teach it.

An example of how it might be done can be found in the IANTD standards. A skill evaluation form must be filled out for each student on each dive where they are graded on various aspects of dive technique, practices and awareness. In order to be certified with the minimum allowable number of dives they need a minimum score. If they have to do extra dives the minimum required average drops to take the poorly scored dives into account but they need to clean up their act. The point is that standards actually require them to demonstrate that they can actually dive in a real diving environment. Some other agencies don't require any such thing.

The scoring is, unfortunately a bit subjective but an instructor would have trouble argueing that he doesn't get it in front of Tom Mount. Unfortunately, I don't know that IANTD instructors perform any better in the field than other instructors. I also don't think they issue many OW certifications...if I have my history right they introduced the recreational courses so their cave courses would be accepted.

Some years back I spoke with them and suggested that they clean things up in the field and give agencies like GUE a run for their money...the standards they need to do it are almost there. The reply was that they had to dum things down to compete with the bigger agencies. I dropped my IANTD membership the year after I dropped my PADI membership.

I really think diving is ready for another agency. Better yet lets set it up so an instructor can teach without the useless agency. The "agencies" have been the worst possible thing for diving. Oh, it's been great for the resorts but lets not confuse that with diving. There is only one agency that I know that demonstrably really teaches actual diving and that's GUE. Unfortunately there are things that come with the package that not everybody wants...like certifications written with disappearing ink. The tourist who wants a quick cheap certification can go to their corner dive shop. For the person who wants to really wants to learn to dive, there aren't many options at all.