PADI Holds The New World's Record for Fastest OW Class

[vkalia]

If a student is hanging of your long hose for an OOA or low on air, the dive is over. W.T.F.

Rubbish. I dont buy black and white thinking.

I dont do air sharing swims with OW students. But with certified divers - and that includes AOW students - they should be able to keep diving while sharing air.

Obviously, this is situation dependent. Conditions, depth, my own air, how much air the receiver still has in their tank, etc. all come into play. The way we do it is on the shallow part of the reef, and in benign conditions, while the low on air person still has 60-70 bar in their tank. And we still come up with 50 bar in our tanks.

That is something any certified diver should be able to do. So *** indeed - why should this be beyond the ability of an AOW diver?

I am sure you can dive while sharing air. So why assume that other divers are not only incapable of doing so, but also incapable of learning to do so?

Most beginner divers arent stupid. Inexperience doesnt equal stupidity. So dont give me the "they'll learn bad habits" this way. They still leave the water with 50 bar in their tank and I still rip them a new one if they dont signal 100 bar/50 bar to me.

Once again, I dont get it. On one hand, people complain courses are too easy. Then they also try to coddle students and keep standards low. Make up your mind one way or the other. Another ***?

As someone else put so eloquently in that post on safety stops, I dont believe in gearing my teaching to cater to the lowest common denominator - I'd rather the lowest common denominator improve their own skills to meet my standards. If you simplify your teaching on the assumption that you are training idiots, then everyone is only trained up to "idiot level."

Vandit

 

[Web Monkey]

What ever happened to "When you reach your planned minimum pressure, ascend to the surface?".

On a shallow dive, it would seem reasonable that the diver with 60 BAR would be at least starting his/her ascent, not coming over to suck your tank down. If they wanted a longer dive for their particular SAC rate, they should have brought a bigger tank.

Terry

Rubbish. I dont buy black and white thinking.

I dont do air sharing swims with OW students. But with certified divers - and that includes AOW students - they should be able to keep diving while sharing air.

Obviously, this is situation dependent. Conditions, depth, my own air, how much air the receiver still has in their tank, etc. all come into play. The way we do it is on the shallow part of the reef, and in benign conditions, while the low on air person still has 60-70 bar in their tank. And we still come up with 50 bar in our tanks.
Vandit

 

[RadRob]

Continuing diving with no air of your own IS stupidity. That is an accident waiting to happen. Anyone who condones it or practices it, is putting their life or someone else's in danger. Absolutely unacceptable. There are guidelines for a reason. If it were safe to "share air", then they would have a section in class to teach you how to continue safely. But they don't. They teach you that when you are out of air, you surface immediately. But I guess those people who have done this for a long time and have studied how/what to teach students are just idiots.

 

[vkalia]

"When you reach your planned minimum pressure, ascend to the surface?" - yes, that is what we do as well. Read my post.

"No air of your own?" At the risk of repeating myself: do read what I wrote.

Doing air sharing in a controlled environment is "putting their life in danger"? Really? I suppose if they dont do a safety stop while coming up from 10m, they are also flirting with death? Give me a break. Stop reciting dogma, and let's start using our brains, fer chrissakes.

And the agencies *do* teach you to share air and swim. It is part of the OW training curriculum, actually. And out of curiosity - what is the difference between this, and doing air sharing swims as a more formal exercise? Thought so.

Considering that it is fairly common practice in most parts of the world for buddy teams with disparate air consumption rates to dive together by sharing air, I guess it aint all that difficult or unusual an idea - and what exactly is the downside of having people practice it a few times in controlled situations with an instructor supervising?

Seriously - if you are complaining about the ability of beginner divers, get out there and stop treating them like idiots, and make them actually practice different sorts of task loading. You might find that they actually start to resemble advanced divers when they leave.

Vandit

 

[Web Monkey]

The recreational cert agencies I'm aware of teach an Air-Sharing Ascent, not an "Air-Sharing Continue Your Dive".

Terry

And the agencies *do* teach you to share air and swim. It is part of the OW training curriculum, actually. And out of curiosity - what is the difference between this, and doing air sharing swims as a more formal exercise? Thought so.
Vandit

 

[Scuba_Steve]

I cannot comment, but completing a dive while sharing air isnt exactly a catastrophe. I often do that when I have 1 diver who's an air hog and his buddy isnt - with my longhose, we get an additional 10-15 min of diving in, the divers get to practice OOA swims and get additional bottom time and everyone's happy.

This is real low on air, not practice. There's a world of difference.


Don't fight it Vandit, you said you were extending yor dives "X" mins when the "Hoover" diver was either low or OOA........you may not buy Black and White, but that's your problem.

Last I checked drowned is a pretty black and white state.

That's some scary thinking there bud, and I'd suggest a re-think of it.

This is also why the onus is mostly on the Instructor, who generally around our parts don't really have a clue either. I guess it's not part of the curiculuum.

Hope you guys see better.

Regards

 

[vkalia]

The recreational cert agencies I'm aware of teach an Air-Sharing Ascent, not an "Air-Sharing Continue Your Dive".

Air sharing swims *are* part of the training curriculum. PADI has them as part of the CW training. And SSI is happy to let me exceed minimum standards.

And obviously, no one would *ever* actually have to share air and swim in the real world, right? Silly me - here I thought that a properly trained diver should be able to handle a low-on-air emergency with minimal stress.

But it seems that I shoul actually stick to to teaching at minimum standards. Right.
And then people wonder why beginners are not equipped to handle "real world" diving.

Vandit

 

[vkalia]

Don't fight it Vandit, you said you were extending yor dives "X" mins when the "Hoover" diver was either low or OOA........you may not buy Black and White, but that's your problem.

Yes, I do it when one diver hoovers air ahead of another. I dont wait till they hit 30 bar, though - we switch when at 60-70 bar, then switch back/end when the next person hits 50.

Even if the goal is to extend divers, so what? The divers get to practice air sharing. And they get to dive longer, work on their skills and hopefully, see some sharks/mantas/etc, which keeps them diving some more. From where I sit, that's a good thing.

Little anecdote - after a weeklong liveaboard trip in the Maldives, we didnt see any mantas. Last day, Manta Point. No mantas. Captain decides to fit in 1 more dive. Nothing. My friend hits 70 or something, I pass my air, we keep diving for another 15 min. Everyone else is up on the surface. I hit 50, I take my reg back and as we are about to begin our ascent, a 4m manta comes, loops around us twice and takes off. No, I dont have a problem with this, either

Happy diving to you, Steve.

Vandit

 

[RadRob]

The only thing that is even close to "air-sharing swims" is exiting a cave or wreck when one person is out of air. Once an ascent is possible, you ascend. No where in PADI or any other certification agency does it ever state that continuing a dive while sharing air is acceptable. I have a feeling that if these agencies knew that you were teaching divers to "just keep swimming" they would come down on you very hard.

Practicing in a controlled environment to PREPARE THEM ON HOW TO DO IT PROPERLY is totally different than learning to do it in an effort to EXTEND your dive. It should be taught, yes. But only to safely ASCEND, not to extend your dive.

I think web monkey said it best - "The recreational cert agencies I'm aware of teach an Air-Sharing Ascent, not an 'Air-Sharing Continue Your Dive'.'

Edit - "And they get to dive longer, work on their skills and hopefully, see some sharks/mantas/etc, which keeps them diving some more. From where I sit, that's a good thing." One other thing they might see, while so excited to see the animals, is death when they don't check their pressure guage. Not a good argument for the pro-air share side.

 

[Atticus]

(minor hijack)

I'd like your thoughts on something I do with my girlfriend (an assistant instructor) on non-training dives when it's just the two of us.

When we dive together for fun I wear doubles and she prefers a single. At out favorite local site there's a long swim at 10'-20' before we get to the drop off.

1/ Drop down in 10' of water or so and get comfortable.
2/ I give her my long hose
3/ We swim for 10-15 minutes both breathing off my doubles
4/ At the site she gives back my reg and switches to her (full) tank
5/ We do our dive around the site
6/ When she hits 1000 psi we turn our dive and start swimming back in
7/ If she hits 500 psi before we're back in we surface (most of the swim in is at 10')