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

[vkalia]

I started to ask, ""Should not these fundamental skills not be taught before a rookie like me is set loose on the local divers (and equally more import sesnitive dive sites like wrecks and coral reefs?" The logical answer, to me, was "Yes".

The counter argument is: they ARE taught.

The fact that they werent taught *to you* is a function of the instructor, not the standards.

And there is only a certain amount of buoyancy/trim that can be imparted - the rest of the learning comes from practice and repetition. Whether you do it in a classroom setting or on your own is immaterial, provided you leave OW with enough buoyancy skills to dive *safely* (ie, not be heinously overweighted/underweighted, have enough ability to manage to stay at one depth, etc.etc).

I have said my bit on this as well and this point, the discussion is going nowhere.

Safe diving to you, Storm.

Vandit

 

[Goose75]

I suspect many of the horror stories of quick certs come from cruise\resort packages that offer supervised diving but not actual OW certs. Since most divers don't really understand the supervised programs, when the story is related it sounds like the resorts are skipping requirements.

If you look at the OW programs, the minimum OW dives are all 4 or more. here's a chart I found online comparing them:
http://www.iit.edu/~elkimar/design/organizations/orgtable.html

I used to have a link with a table of the minimum skills compared for NAUI, PADI & YMCA but unfortunatley I can't find it. Although there were some differences, basically there was little disagreement in what minimum skills a certified OW diver should possess.

 

[Storm]

And there is only a certain amount of buoyancy/trim that can be imparted - the rest of the learning comes from practice and repetition. Whether you do it in a classroom setting or on your own is immaterial, provided you leave OW with enough buoyancy skills to dive *safely* (ie, not be heinously overweighted/underweighted, have enough ability to manage to stay at one depth, etc.etc).Vandit

If this is the case, and I agree that some skills can only be learned and not necesarily taught, then why offer a seperate course, card etc. Or I forgot, they make more money that way.

Safe dive to you as well.

Storm

 

[sukellustati]

PADI OWD course include 5 confined water/pool sessions, so that kind of OWD course is not possible if Dive Center follow PADI standars.

It is not PADI's fault if somebody brake standards that is fault of individual instructor and divecenter.

 

[Atticus]

I don't have the energy to go through the whole thing again, however the quick version is: there were two divers (inst. and hoover), both on AL 80's, with the hoover sucking down the instuctor's air before using his own, leaving the instructor without enough air to handle an emergency with the hoover at a later time.

If the instructor is starting out with a lot more air than the hoover, then there may be less risk of OOA, depending on how much of the instructor's air the hoover sucks.

Also, I didn't say that sharing air for additional sightseeing time will result in certain death, I said it increases the risk because there is less air left for actual emergencies.

Terry

Hi Terry, we both agree that allowing someone else to suck your tank dry resulting in two divers being out of air is a disaster.

If proper gas management is practiced then this won't happen. Turn pressure is turn pressure regardless of whether or not you're donating.

Back to my previous example, if 30cf is the amount that we need to end our dive then I'm an idiot if I continue diving when my reserve drops below 30cf whether or not I am donating to someone.

On the other hand if I donate to mr hoover early in the dive and run my tank down to say 50 cf, then stop donating to him and carry out my dive until one of us hits 30cf, then we end the dive we still have a reasonable safety margin.

Perhaps what you were saying is that you don't see this happening, that what you see happening is people ignoring their safety margin (the 30cf in this example) and just merrily swimming along until both divers are out of air. This, obviously, is a very bad idea.

I think we've actually hit one of those rare scubaboard moments where we've come to an agreement

Cheers,
Merlin

 

[Atticus]

There are a couple of parts to my answer to this. First off, you're right, in that once a student meets the agencies requirements they should recieve the agencies certification. Anything else is misleading. So first lets just address teaching to the existing standards because that's what an instructor has to work with... (much text deleted for brevity)

Mike - you make some very good points. I've never been comfortable with the neutral buoyancy requirements for new divers. If we required them to do a mask remove and replace while hovering that would certainly up the ante. Honestly though, how many instructors and dive masters are capable of this? Do we consider them bad divers if they can't do it?

I didn't really learn this level of control until I got serious about technical diving. However I had good enough buoyancy skills to not touch down on a reef before I started my DM training.

What are we really looking for? Lowered injury rates? The numbers aren't terrible now compared with other sports. Less destroyed reefs? (amen!)

Do we want to put up a sufficient blockade that the divers that only want to go once or twice a year will choose another sport?

In spirit I agree with you, but I don't see an obvious path other than by acting individually to train people better and exceeding the standards. This only works for me if I totally ignore the economic issue. Very few people want to pay $1k for scuba certification when the going rate here is under $200.

 

[Storm]

Do we want to put up a sufficient blockade that the divers that only want to go once or twice a year will choose another sport?.

In a way this sort of like asking if we should lower the minimum levels for those drivers who are only going to drive one or twice a year versus daily drivers. While it might appear that the indusrty is doing the new diver a favor here by keeping the minimum geared toward the occasional diver, it may not be, and is this the industries real motivation. Perhaps, but on the other hand the industry then creates a cost based course plan designed to complete the basic training requirements, but with increased costs and therefore increase to their bottom line.

In spirit I agree with you, but I don't see an obvious path other than by acting individually to train people better and exceeding the standards. This only works for me if I totally ignore the economic issue. Very few people want to pay $1k for scuba certification when the going rate here is under $200.

$1K is a bit in the high side. But if you use PADI's costs, just for an example (not promoting here) the total cost (excluding the AOW, which may not be needed) to take a diver from beginning to trained to the point where they are safer than they are now (yes this is an objective opinion) than one would only need add the PPB and Rescue courses to OW (along with their existing open water dives), and add some (5 perhaps) minimum other dives interspersed between each module. Total costs, in my area and according to the one LDS price list I checked, = $500.00. Courses would be spread out over approximately a 2 month period. Even if you add the $150.00 for AOW, you're still talking $650.00.

Now take this and divided it up into 2 installment payments and you're talking about $350.00 per installment to produce a better tainined and prepared diver. I talked to quire a few new divers, and they all said they were planning on taking the course listed above in thier first to second year diving. This would merely front end load the training so that in their second year, they would not require any further training.

Now this would probably not work for the "once a year" diver and in some instances it might even cause some to decide against diving, but on the other hand it might lure a different set of dviers into the sport and keep them in. If, as a result of a new diver not being proficient and comfortable, those first few experiences are not great the new dive may drop out of the sport. If they are armed with a well rounded training and a bit more experience before they hit that tropical destination for their first vacation dive, they may enjoy it more, and stick with the sport

Anyway we'll all have to agree to disagree. As Vandit has said, this discussion is going nowhere. Those who are entrenched are entrenched, and those wanting more will be simply be told to feed the machine.

That is why I elected to go my own way, with the help of the local diving community DI's DM's and LDS'.

Safe diving to all, and cheers!

 

[Atticus]

$1K is a bit in the high side. But if you use PADI's costs, just for an example (not promoting here) the total cost (excluding the AOW, which may not be needed) to take a diver from beginning to trained to the point where they are safer than they are now (yes this is an objective opinion) than one would only need add the PPB and Rescue courses to OW (along with their existing open water dives), and add some (5 perhaps) minimum other dives interspersed between each module. Total costs, in my area and according to the one LDS price list I checked, = $500.00. Courses would be spread out over approximately a 2 month period. Even if you add the $150.00 for AOW, you're still talking $650.00. <snip>

Ok, I agree with your numbers. I like what you're suggesting and can definitely get on board with a program like this. Instead of selling the lowest possible certification lets setup a combined certification which includes additional training and dive time.

Since NAUI includes basic rescue skills in the open water (scuba diver) certification I'm disinclined to throw new divers into the full rescue class, but certainly more time can be spent on it.

I'll suggest this at our next meeting as an option.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Mike - you make some very good points. I've never been comfortable with the neutral buoyancy requirements for new divers. If we required them to do a mask remove and replace while hovering that would certainly up the ante. Honestly though, how many instructors and dive masters are capable of this? Do we consider them bad divers if they can't do it?

Most of my students didn't have too much trouble holding their depth within a couple of feet. The thing is this...you don't loose a mask often but it'll never happen when you have a nice place to sit while you fix it.

You're right some DM's and instructors can't do it and I would not only consider them bad divers but irresponsible because if an instructor looses a mask while he has students in the water he had better be able to keep up with everything.

I didn't really learn this level of control until I got serious about technical diving. However I had good enough buoyancy skills to not touch down on a reef before I started my DM training.

I didn't learn it until no being able to do it almost got me hurt and did make a real cluster out of a dive. Then I realized it was something that I absolutely needed so I spent some time practicing it. Of course it's much easier if you haven't been led to believe that you have to clear your mask in one breath or that you need to look at the stars while you do it. Buoyancy control takes priority whith replacing the mask being secondary. Students need to know that their breathing should remain constant and timmed for controling buoyancy. Sitting on the bottom looking straight up and taking a huge breath to clear just teaches rotten habbits that can be big trouble midwater.

What are we really looking for? Lowered injury rates? The numbers aren't terrible now compared with other sports. Less destroyed reefs? (amen!)[/QUOTE]

The most obvious benefit to all of us would be clean dive sites. The injury rates may not be very hight but look at the nature of the accidents. It's lousy skills. I wonder what percentage reduction we'd get if we really taught diving. "one" isn't all that significan unless it's some one you care about. I guess I'm ok with sacrificing a few every year as long as their some one elses.

Do we want to put up a sufficient blockade that the divers that only want to go once or twice a year will choose another sport?

The less prequently a person dives, the MORE important it is to start out with a solid foundation in basic skills. Besides, teaching with these things didn't take my much longer than without and a side benefit was that my heart wasn't jumping up into my throat throughout the OW dives. I don't see it as a blockade at all and more people would enjoy diving. I see so many divers who look scared to death, or working so hard I can't see how they could possibly enjoying it.

In spirit I agree with you, but I don't see an obvious path other than by acting individually to train people better and exceeding the standards.
This only works for me if I totally ignore the economic issue. Very few people want to pay $1k for scuba certification when the going rate here is under $200.

All things are relative I guess. A trimix class takes less time that a descent OW class and you don't have to rent a pool or provide the student gear and it'll could run you about $1000. How much are half these people paying for their first trip or their first set of gear? They don't want to pay because we've taught them that they don't have to. It's we, in the dive industry, who have devalued training by giving it away as a means of selling equipment. Stop devalueing it and it won't be so devalued. If we weren't giving the OW class away there wouldn't be such a big hurry to get it overwith. Pools cost money. Student gear costs money. Travel to dive sites cost money. Instead of cutting the class to meet the cost, why not raise the cost to meet the class. I will say this though, most OW classes that I'm aware of aren't even worth $200. You don't always get what you pay for but yopu very rarely get something you didn't pay for.


The dive business reminds me of amway or some kind or pyramid scam...dive masters working for free, instructors working for less than they could make on a paper rout all the while spending big bucks for the privilage of doing it. The guy selling the equipment doesn't want to give that away though does he? Note that the co-founder of the largest cert agency was also VP of one of the largest equipment manufacturers for many years and let your imagination run with it and see if you think the business evolved this way on accident? Why would I care if the certification numbers dropped a bit? Who would care? If an instructor could make the same teachine less people it wouldn't be bad for the instructor but who would it be bad for? I don't know about any one else but filling the waters up with divers no matter what just isn't one of my big goals.

 

[NosMadForIt]

I am not too sure either. How could the dangers be fully fully understood in such little time.