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

[vkalia]

When I plan my dive, I make my calculations based on my SAC and desired depths/times, plus enough extra to get me and my buddy to the surface in an emergency, at any point in the dive.

I don't shorten my dive by letting my buddy suck down all that annoying "extra" gas I'm carring around. If my buddy (or anybody else) has screwed up bad enough that he's sucking on my tank, the dive is over and we're surfacing.

It's very nice of you to be willing to cut your dive short so your buddy doesn't have to get a bigger tank.

Terry

What can I say - you're a paragon of dive virtue, Terry, and a role model for the diving industry.

Vandit

 

[caseybird]

I don't shorten my dive by letting my buddy suck down all that annoying "extra" gas I'm carring around. If my buddy (or anybody else) has screwed up bad enough that he's sucking on my tank, the dive is over and we're surfacing.

It's very nice of you to be willing to cut your dive short so your buddy doesn't have to get a bigger tank.

Terry

And not at all deadly, as has been implied. Hey, looking at your quote, I just realized you're cutting your own dive short! Notice how you call the dive when the Big Breather reaches his ascent pressure! If you share air you might be able to extend the dive 5-10 minutes. Instead, you immediately surface in accordance with the "RULES"! Way to GO!

As for the bigger tank, you know as well as I do that a majority of dive destinations worldwide have only the Alum 80cf tank available. So let's try to adapt our behavior to reality, OK?
Besides, it's not all about MY dive. Someone helped me, I can help someone else. It's good for the soul.

 

[Web Monkey]

What can I say - you're a paragon of dive virtue, Terry
Vandit

Why?

• Because I think divers should plan their own dive, dive their own plan and bring their own gas?
• Because I think planning a dive and not bringing enough of your own gas to execute it is irresponsible?
• Because I think the emergency gas I carry for myself and my buddy is for emergencies?

The really sad part is that these turned out to be radical concepts to a surprising number of people. Even sadder is that you are an instructor and apparently believe that either dive planning is irrelevant or that it can include another diver's gas.

and a role model for the diving industry.
Vandit

As an instructor, you're supposed to be the role model. The concepts I mention are in the course material you're supposed to be teaching.

Terry

 

[Web Monkey]

And not at all deadly, as has been implied. Hey, looking at your quote, I just realized you're cutting your own dive short! Notice how you call the dive when the Big Breather reaches his ascent pressure! If you share air you might be able to extend the dive 5-10 minutes. Instead, you immediately surface in accordance with the "RULES"! Way to GO!

Giving up a few minutes of a dive because another diver hoovered his air won't kill me. Wasting my emergency gas might kill somoene else.

In fact, they're usually apologetic about hoovering their gas, and coming up early means we can hang around the boat and adjust his weight and trim, so maybe next time he'll do better.

Terry

 

[nawtical]

While I'm not a huge PADI fan, I do hold some certs from them and am somewhat familiar with their standards.

It sounds like the program we're discussing offers 4 dives in a pool and 4 OW checkout dives (which probably include tours as well as skills).

This is very close to NAUI standards which would add only a required skindive or 5th scuba dive. The required skills are a slightly different, but that's not the topic in this thread. I'm not familiar with SSI's standards, but I would be surprised if they require more than 4 pool sessions and 4 or 5 OW dives for basic certification.

The other issue is academic requirements - PADI has decided that students are capable of learning by reading the text book themselves instead of having it read to them. I can't really fault them there.

Maybe you can be more specific about what you believe the problem with this operation is.

Caveats: If the OW dives are not conducted in conditions appropriate for checkout/skill review then that's a problem. If the OW dives allow unsupervised touring then that's a problem. If the OW dives don't follow reasonable instructor/student ratios then that's a problem. If the students don't read the text before hand, and they barely pass the exam, and there is no check and balance to actually teach them the material (ie: something better than someone saying the right answer is C for question 14) then that's a problem.

I agree with the problems here. As a PADI MSDT instructor, I agree that some of these courses seem rather quik when sitting on the sidelines but maybe some of the facts are missing that would make a proper judgement unfare. The PADI standard is to review allth knowledge reviews from the book after the student has read and filled them out and make sure they understand everything to 100% then a quicky test after each review to confirm corrected to 100% then 5 pool sessions followed by 4 OW sessions with an optional 5th ow dive which covers snorkeling also. PADI is very strict on student instructor ratios and how dives are to be conducted/managed. If anyone has a question on how instruction is being done they always have a recourse of writing to PADI Standards to have it checked out.
I know at some resorts, it is not a problem to pass the course no matter how bad or good your skills are in the water as long as the VISA clears to pay for the course.
Myself I like to spend alot of extra time training my students in the open water as I will not qualify a diver unless I feel I could trust them with their skills to be a buddy for me. That is how confident I want them to be in the water. I am lucky to be an independant instructor who can teach for the enjoyment of diving and not the pressures of keeping a business afloat. Anyone like discuss this some more don't hesitate to drop a line to nawtical@yahoo.com

James A. Cormier

 

[vkalia]

Why?

• Because I think divers should plan their own dive, dive their own plan and bring their own gas?
• Because I think planning a dive and not bringing enough of your own gas to execute it is irresponsible?
• Because I think the emergency gas I carry for myself and my buddy is for emergencies?

The really sad part is that these turned out to be radical concepts to a surprising number of people. Even sadder is that you are an instructor and apparently believe that either dive planning is irrelevant or that it can include other another diver's gas.

As an instructor, you're supposed to be the role model. The concepts I mention are in the course material you're supposed to be teaching.
Terry

Once again, Terry, you prove to be a beacon of enlightenment. An electronic Messiah in aqualung, even.

I'll make sure a memo goes out to all the dive centers in the world that they HAVE to start stocking bottles other than Al80 from tomorrow onwards. And any recreational diver who doesnt do rule of thirds planning will be severely flogged with a piece of string.

We wont go into your tendency to make ridiculously asinine extrapolations and puzzling inability to follow elementary logic.

I'll let you in on something: I actually do all my in-water training over the Internet. That's how I've managed a certification or two without a single in-water incident (no matter how mild) ever. Dont tell PADI or SSI - it'll just be between the two of us as our little secret.

Vandit

 

[vkalia]

If anyone has a question on how instruction is being done they always have a recourse of writing to PADI Standards to have it checked out.

What I *would* like to see is for PADI, SSI et al to publish a list of standards for each course, in language that can be understood by students of that course, and make this available for download on the web.

Give every student diver the chance to compare what s/he was taught versus what PADI, SSI etc say should be taught. Hell, make it part of standards for every instructor to give a copy of that document to each prospective student before that class.

If that doesnt effectively reduce the cutting of corners by instructors, I dont know what will.

Vandit

 

[Storm]

Au contraire - this is *very* relevant to the issue at hand. Everyone and their dog has an opinion on diver training, with everyone having ideas on how to fix it. But the basic question remains: ThIs diver training really becoming unsafe?

Since individual experiences may *NOT* be an accurate reflection of reality (shocking as that may be to some people on this forum), it would behoove us to actually get some hard facts to back up blanket statements like "diver deaths are becoming all too common these days" - especially if those statements are being used as the basis of an argument for change.

They may be, or they may not. I for one dont know. I only know what I've seen - and what I have seen after diving in the North Atlantic, Florida, Red Sea, Maldives, Thailand, Mediterranean, Mozambique, Guam and a few other places is not the same as the state of diving that I hear about on Internet forums. And there are lots of people here who apparently have never seen a single competent beginner. I am sure they cannot *ALL* be wrong (they are all honorable men, or words to that effect).

It is simple:
- either argue from the viewpoint of personal experience, in which case subjective data is fine, but then you have to be prepared to allow for other people's experiences as well as be prepared to elaborate on the breadth of your data
- or argue using hard data, in which case you better have hard data

You cannot extrapolate your personal experiences into hard data - pick one or the other, not both. That is faulty logic and one of my pet peeves.

Vandit

I Agree that using anecdotal information as backup to one's argument must limit the scope of that argument to that one person's expereince. However when discussing something as subjective as this topic, especially in the light that the some agencies do not keep perfromance stats (which they should) on both their courses' effectiveness (via post course evaluations by students) and their intstructor's abilities (same survey type method), it is not faulty logic to take many anecdotal incidents of a similar nature and compile them into a reasonable conclusion.

In short if 1000 posters all share the simular expereinces, with regards to the same subject matter, and only 100 say they experience the opposite ( assuming as we do here that all are honest), and in the absence of broadbased statistical recordsw, than a resonable conculsion may be draw from the larger number of complied experiences. However the conclusion should be viewed as a sampling, with the potential to be incorrect.

What I *would* like to see is for PADI, SSI et al to publish a list of standards for each course, in language that can be understood by students of that course, and make this available for download on the web.

Give every student diver the chance to compare what s/he was taught versus what PADI, SSI etc say should be taught. Hell, make it part of standards for every instructor to give a copy of that document to each prospective student before that class.

If that doesnt effectively reduce the cutting of corners by instructors, I dont know what will.

Vandit

This would help establish student expectations, but without the instructor evaulation, course evaulation, (along with the final recourse of reporting the instructor) you're not going to get effective change (when necessary). The only reason I can see, and this is just my opinion, that teh agencies are not doing this type of evaluation is the fact that they would eventually have respond to the evaluations, and and if warranted adjust their courses, change their methodologies, etc. All of that takes cash away from their bottom line.

As to the big debate over the air sharing that seems to be running parallel to this one,if you're sharing air with an OOA dive to extend bottom time, am I to assume that you are dving without any other divers in the area? I ask this as it might have bearing on how other divers who are witnessing this respond to the situation. With limited comunication available this could have the potential to cause other divers to try to respond to the OOA as well as they have all been trained that what you are doing is unsafe and may assume that something else is wrong. Most everyone has been trained to immedeately surface as safetly as possible. People are people. When they see something that they have been taught is wrong, it's in their nature to respond.

 

[oly5050user]

What I *would* like to see is for PADI, SSI et al to publish a list of standards for each course, in language that can be understood by students of that course, and make this available for download on the web.

Give every student diver the chance to compare what s/he was taught versus what PADI, SSI etc say should be taught. Hell, make it part of standards for every instructor to give a copy of that document to each prospective student before that class.

If that doesnt effectively reduce the cutting of corners by instructors, I dont know what will.

Vandit

the standards of what they are to be taught are in their text books and training log books..

 

[caseybird]

Giving up a few minutes of a dive because another diver hoovered his air won't kill me. Wasting my emergency gas might kill somoene else.


Terry

Ah, sure death. The trump card of Scubaboard.

Hey, in defence of my friend Terry, I see he is a Great Lakes diver. In that environment, with access to all types of gear, cold water, low viz, any wreck penetration at all and current in the seaway, air sharing to extend the dive it not at all warranted. My remarks were addressed to the vacation, tropical OW diver touring reefs. In that situation, air-sharing is safe and appropriate.