Pending changes for certifications required for JDC dives

[boulderjohn]

Well I’m not checking anything l. I’d never own a shop….too much liability for very little profit. An AOW requirement is just how JDC and others manage that liability.

TBH, all that is why I got out of instructing. The cost of my liability policy wasn’t worth the minuscule amount of money I was making doing it on this side.

Glad your log book is up to date. Not many divers keep a good log.

I think you missed my point--my fault, really. I actually thought I was too vague when I wrote it but left it as written anyway. Sorry!

When I said if you required something in a log book I could show it to you pretty quickly, I did not mean that I (John Adsit) have such a log book right now. I said I could sit down with a log book and fill the blank pages with whatever is required while sitting at my desk.

What I meant was that evaluating a diver's log book could be evaluating the diver's ability as a creative writer more than as a diver.

I sold my first computer many years ago, and the diver who bought it could show a diver operator a computer log with hundreds of dives to a maximum depth of 181 feet, so a computer log is not foolproof.

 

[boulderjohn]

@boulderjohn ,,,You have been diving in all kinds of difficult conditions. If a diver on your charter boat has the cards and talks a big story,, so you just watch them setup their gear for this 125'ft deep ledge 4knot current, drop site. And you see this diver who then:
*) Has an AL80 yoke rental
*) Rental BC with pockets so big it traps air
*) He puts the reg on but the valve is backwards
*) He's still yapping stories, but asks you if you know how to set the nitrox on his 'puter
*) His mask is completely fogged because he's walking around the boat with it on.

I've seen DM's sit down a customer and tell them they are not ready to do this dive and sits them out. I've seen customers show up still drunk & smelling it from the night before & wanting to dive. None of us want to see another diver die, much less be on the boat when it happens.

I am not sure how to respond here. You started off as if you were going to ask me a question, but you didn't ask it.

If I were working as a DM and saw someone who was manifestly incapable of doing the planned dive, then, yes, I would certainly have a chat with that person and I could potentially stop that person from diving. But therein lies the problem. It is my judgment. What if the diver was only borderline incapable and it is my job to make the decision? If it all comes down to me as to whether or not a person can dive, then there is a good chance I would have to defend my judgment in a court of law if something bad happens. As I have said perhaps 100 times on ScubaBoard, having a black and white policy of AOW or better takes the onus of judgment away from the staff. The staff can still step in to override that if things look really dicey, but that would have to be a serious case.

 

[CosbySweater]

I think you missed my point--my fault, really. I actually thought I was too vague when I wrote it but left it as written anyway. Sorry!"

When I said if you required something in a log book I could show it to you pretty quickly, I did not mean that I (John Adsit) have such a log book right now. I said I could sit down with a log book and fill the blank pages with whatever is required while sitting at my desk.

What I meant was that evaluating a diver's log book could be evaluating the diver's ability as a creative writer more than as a diver.

I sold my first computer many years ago, and the diver who bought it could show a diver operator a computer log with hundreds of dives to a maximum depth of 181 feet, so a computer log is not foolproof.

Reading comprehension was never my strong suit .

I think we are in agreement. A diver certification level is really the only, non objective way to evaluate a divers competency, quickly. It’s certainly not perfect because of the variation in training quality, location, and experience of the diver. But it’s better than nothing.

 

[Skeptic14]

I'm curious if this trend (requiring AOW for dives deeper than 60') in South FL will spread beyond that area, if it is being driven by insurance companies, perhaps, but I'm not sure if that'd work for some areas of FL.

As example, I lived and dived the FL panhandle a lot right after certification; there are no boat dives less than 60' out of Destin. There's 1 less than 70', a few less than 80' but the vast majority, at least worth diving, are between 80-90 feet.

That's very similar for both PCB and Pensacola, the majority of the diving is beyond the 60' depth.

Some of the ops do "require" you've dived in the Gulf or similar conditions before or have logs showing diving to similar depths, but my log book was never checked.

I think it would be extremely impactful to dive ops in that area if they could no longer take OW divers on any trips.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm curious if this trend (requiring AOW for dives deeper than 60') in South FL will spread beyond that area,

It's been going on in many places for a very long time. Here is a video from (I think) 13 years ago that reflects that.

 

[scubadada]

I was recertified OW in 1997. I was nitrox certified in 2002 and did A0W in 2004. Prior to 2004, about a quarter of my dives were below 100 feet, mostly in Grand Cayman. I did AOW because I planned to start going down to Key Largo and wanted to dive the Spiegel Grove, Duane, and Bibb by showing my cert rather than proving recent deep experience, which I could have done.

Since then, I think the only place I have actually been asked to show my AOW card has been with some operators in SE Florida. I also did Deep Diver in 2004 and have never been asked about it. I have been asked about my number of dives but have never been asked for any kind of log proof.

I was somewhat surprised that AOW was not required when I did the Red Sea, Cocos, Galapagos, or the Revillagigedos. These locations were said to be for more experienced divers and may have had a suggested, but I don't think requisite number of dives. On all of these trips, there were some divers who were diving over their heads, so to speak. Fortunately, they were not in my group, but I certainly heard about some of the resulting limitations.

One major exception was my 2021 trip to Malpelo on the Ferox. Colombia requires all divers in Malpelo to be AOW certified and have 50 logged dives, 35 in the ocean. The log proof had to be submitted. I chose to book on a half day charter with guide, Sten Johansson. He required 200 dives and an email interview with his wife, Tanya. These requirements ending up having benefits as our dive group all did very well under some challenging conditions. Our dive times were routinely longer than the other group and we heard of several minor incidents affecting their dives. This trip was so good that I am headed back this next July.

I guess we may all see the ramifications of requiring AOW by an increasing number of operators on dives off Jupiter and West Palm.

 

[NothingClever]

*) He's still yapping stories, but asks you if you know how to set the nitrox on his 'puter

I feel for these people. They’re so preoccupied with nervous chatter, trying out their stand up comedy routine and throwing out disclaimers for their poor readiness or weak skills that they miss opportunities to orient their eyes and ears to learning/improving. I’m very grateful for the opportunities I’ve had in my adult life to get past the nervousness and focus my energies on learning/training.

Anyways, back to Jupiter charters requiring Nitrox. Meh…the DPS math works out that you do get more bottom time so to me it’s not a big deal. If for some reason the charter were to drop on a really shallow profile, I’d ask that the 50 min rule be relaxed so that folks get what they paid for.

 

[drrich2]

One of the problems for diving these deeper dives on air is the NDL. For the routine reef dives, air divers were allowed a bottom time of 25 min on the first dive and could dive their computer on the second. All the nitrox divers have a bottom time of 45 min.

When I did 10 dives with JDC on a trip back in 2014, IIRC it was 45 minutes bottom time on nitrox, 30 minutes air, and what I came to think of as a fairly common briefing situation was diving over flat, sandy bottom, 90 feet to the sand, doing a modest drift dive and a mostly 'square profile' dive.

One thing that distinguished that trip from some elsewhere was the availability of 120-cf steel tanks. For some of us, those are a game changer, and people used to watching their gas pressure remaining as the dive limiter may have to make a mental shift to being mindful of NDL. Diving out of Morehead City, NC with Olympus Dive Center was also like this (albeit depth to the bottom was a bit deeper, so the typical 'house mix' of nitrox was 30% with ODC).

If JDC is still handling the dives like they were in 2014, they're drift, followed by the boat, and if part of the divers dive air and come up separately, the Captain's got to deal with getting them re-boarded while not losing the nitrox divers. Don't know whether having everyone on nitrox will cut down hassle or not.

As I have asked probably 100 times on ScubaBoard, how does learning tables teach dive computers and NDL?

I certified in 2006 with tables; I don't know what current OW instruction looks like. Tables didn't prepare me to understand all that well what a computer does, and I don't push to teach them. I see one potential benefit of the tables approach.

With tables, we cross-referenced time and depth to get pressure groups, and saw how close they theoretically were to violating our NDL. Then we factored in surface interval time to get an idea of residual nitrogen loading and how it impacted our next dive.

I don't retain a useful understanding of that, but I admit it's better than looking at a computer and thinking 'It's magic.'

My real world understanding resulted from typical 2 tank boat dives in the Caribbean where I figured out a couple of dives on air in 80-cf AL tanks, the 1st with a 45-minute max. depth up to 80 feet but average depth maybe 30-something to 40 feet, the 2nd over a half-hour later and shallower, seemed to work out okay with nobody going into deco. The operators conducted these dives regularly for vacation divers, and in theory wouldn't do anything commonly resulting in serious bad outcomes. I also learned as an air hog an 80-cf tank might last me around 40 minutes, more with time and experience. In other words, I went on a number of 'trust me' dives while building the experience base to better grasp what I faced.

What helped me get a ball park idea of nitrogen loading was running across the Rule of 120; 120 - depth (feet) = total dive time (minutes) when diving air. It didn't tell me how to estimate NDL for a 2nd (or greater) dive; real world diving 4 or 5 times/day in Bonaire helped with that.

What level of ability to anticipate estimated dive times for 2 to 4 dives/day does the typical OW graduate come out with these days? I wonder how much dive education remains experiential for most.

 

[tarponchik]

The Nitrox certification is just a money grab. The difference between breathing air and Nitrox can be explained by a short video.

AOW certification is a money grab too.

 

[tursiops]

What helped me get a ball park idea of nitrogen loading was running across the Rule of 120; 120 - depth (feet) = total dive time (minutes) when diving air. It didn't tell me how to estimate NDL for a 2nd (or greater) dive; real world diving 4 or 5 times/day in Bonaire helped with that.

Info - The Rule of 120

(This is an updated version of a post made 4 1/2 years ago....) You will sometime hear divers (especially older ones) refer to the Rule of 120. this was an approximation to working out No-Decompression-Limits based on the old U.S. Navy tables. The "Rule of 120" was based on the sum of depth (in...

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