PADI Deep Diver Standards

[grazie42]

Given the existing structure of courses, standards, etc., I think it is much more preferable to permit a new diver with less than 10 dives (OW + AOW) to go straight on to the Deep Dive Spec and get in some real world deep dives under instructor supervision, and gain some more knowledge and experience before venturing out on his own, rather than the same guy coming out of AOW with the "I'm certified = qualified for deep dives" perception, and doing deep dives with just one single prior deep dive under his belt (from AOW).

There´s a thread on here right now about how the kind of diver you describe did that.

He went down with a pony (that it seemed he´d never used before), two other students and an instructor. One of those students was a "trainwreck" (the OPs term, not mine) so the instructor was paying attention to this @ 90ft. The OP then had a freeflow and (accidently) went to his AAS, he thought he was breathing his pony. When he alerted the instructor to the situation he proceeded to shut off his tank (which he was breathing from :11: ). Panic ensued and he bolted to the surface. What happend to "trainwreck" during this is unclear but it seems everyone survived the dive. The OPs "lesson learned" was to make sure he could find his pony-reg on the next dive :11: :shakehead

That poster had at least a few dives in before diving with "instructor supervision", I´d hate to see someone with 9 lifetime dives try to survive that sort of instruction...With a few dives you have, at least a reasonable chance, to have some sort of experience that will allow you to evaluate whether a dive-plan is "sane" or not...

I think you have an unreasonable faith in instructors...

 

[in_cavediver]

Given the existing structure of courses, standards, etc., I think it is much more preferable to permit a new diver with less than 10 dives (OW + AOW) to go straight on to the Deep Dive Spec and get in some real world deep dives under instructor supervision, and gain some more knowledge and experience before venturing out on his own, rather than the same guy coming out of AOW with the "I'm certified = qualified for deep dives" perception, and doing deep dives with just one single prior deep dive under his belt (from AOW).

On this we are just going to have to disagree. The current system and standards do not teach everything IMHO needed to safely dive deeper. To argue that we should take a diver who may have 9 lifetime dives to 100' before they have any real diving expierence is nuts.

To take this to the next level, should we start allowing a diver with OW,AOW and deep to do deco procedures at 11 or 12 dives simply because they now have the deep card telling them they are qualified to go deep and they might get into deco?

 

[Thalassamania]

The guidelines that we use in the scientific community (and remember that this is after qualifying for 30 feet through a minimum 12 dive course) is 12 supervised dives between 30 and 60 for a 60 foot card and the 12 supervised dives between 60 and 100 for a 100 foot card. I most cases the dive will have made at least as many unsupervised dives in their depth bracket as the have supervised qualification dives meaning that they might first get to 100 feet on a qualification dive with on the order of 50 dives under their belt and would be qualified to that depth with around 75 dives total.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I don't know how many dives it should take but the fact is that diving deep is pretty risky if you can't dive well shallow.

If they refuse to teach real diving, buoyancy control and midwater problem managment they really should stop trying to deep dives.

It may sound good to say "well at least they're starting under supervision" but quit a few of those who have been hurt were with an instructor and taking a class when it happened.

Besides, how did the instructor get to be such a star on a deep dive and who checked to see that they are? The fact is that I've seen some real fire drills on AOW deep dives and half the time you can't tell the instructor from the students.

One of my favorites was when I was teaching an Advanced nitrox course and we were on the deep side of Gilboa. We were doing a free ascent and decompression and we spotted two divers floundering in a cloud of silt trying to climb up the line. We halted our descent to drop back down for a better look and I thought for sure a rescue was coming up. Eventually the two got strainghtened out (sort of) and managed to climb up the line.

I later realized that what I was seeing was a PADI "deep diver" course and the instructor was having trouble climbing the line carrying his goodie bag full of stupid colored objects. The only clue as to which was the instructor was in what he was carrying. You could never tell by his diving.