PADI Wreck dive course

[Empty V]

This thread is going to give someone an aneurysm.

To the person who brought life back into this thread, I wish you luck on finding a solid instructor and hopefully you won't have to endure anymore bad penetration jokes.

Safe Diving

Billy

 

[Hinalo]

Thanks, I did look up sduadivers.com and this shop is on my list to contact, so there was one referral. I have found the discussion here interesting, and beyond the PADI-bashing there are good points being made about what should constitute the curriculum for a wreck diving specailty and why. I've learned a lot just reading.

However, if someone wants to offer any additional pointers to competent wreck specialty instructors in san Diego, regardless of agency, I'm all ears.

 

[TSandM]

I never did the PADI wreck specialty, so I can't talk about it.

But I did a wreck "workshop" through one of our local shops. We spent an evening of lecture and two days of diving on it. We learned a lot about things related to diving wrecks OTHER than penetration -- About shot lines, and shotting wrecks (and we got to practice this). We learned about managing a team during high current descents. We got an object lesson in the unpredictable nature of wreck diving, when we got blown out of the ones we were to dive for our "experience dives".

We also learned how to handle and use a reel, and we had an opportunity to run line and do lights-out exits on a line. We taught ourselves how fraught with hazard that is, as the distance that took us 18 minutes to do going in took us 32 coming out, at which point the leaders cut the drill because we were literally so tangled up we weren't ever going to solve it with our eyes closed.

We didn't do gas management, because we'd all had it in the prerequisite classes, but we calculated thirds with rock bottom, and matched tanks. We also didn't work with SMBs during the dives we did, but that was also because we had already learned that.

This was an absolutely superb class, and I learned a ton. The biggest thing I learned is that, without further training and a lot of practice, I have no business inside a wreck.

If you can find an instructor who teaches a class like that -- One where you learn useful skills AND come away with a profound respect for the hazards of overhead environments -- you'll have found a good class. I suspect SDUA, from what I know of them, might be a place to do that.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

It isn't really a PADI class then is it?

Maybe not, but I took it for the education and skills development not the card. The card buys me nothing.

Not a single one of those skills is a required part of a PADI wreck diver specialty. What about your hang tank? LOL

We didn't use one.

I've gone through this about 100 times. If we just compare this class to a cavern course we get an idea of what is missing. Just about any cavern course requires propulsion and trim related skills, line drills on land and in OW, no mask/ no vis air sharing ect, ect.

This "wreck" course which states essentially the same penetration limits requires none of those skills.

That's why I found an instructor that adds them in. Again, I didn't want the take the class to get a card, I wanted to actually learn basic, beginner wreck diving.

Rather than just cut down PADI, which I really enjoy, let me clue you in on something else. A PADI instructor who has certified 25 students and documents a few dives on wrecks AND sends in a check can be certified to teach this class. I'm telling you that I was teaching this class before I had any overhead training or experience (aside from the ice diving course). As an instructor, I didn't have a clue. When I got a clue, I was no longer willing to put my name alongside PADI's on such a card. Further, while I am cave trained and do some wreck diving including some penetration, I can't think of anything that really qualifies me to teach it. I hope you get this. I'm telling you that I may not really be qualified to teach wreck diving but there are divers who have wreck cards with my signiture on them. The instructors are being sold an even bigger bridge than the students and many of them don't know any better than the students. I really hope the students that I certified when I was a PADI instructor stay the HELL out of wrecks.

Why do so many people want to make excuses for agencies like this and completely let them off the hook?

Which is why I took the course from an instructor who is actually a serious wreck diver. It just so happens that it was a PADI specialty and I got a PADI pic. Big deal. What matters to me is what I learned.