POLL: How many dives per year do you consider a minimum necessary for skills not to degrade?

[bowlofpetunias]

Thank you for your contribution. You're right... Being that there isn't a known set of dives to complete does make it harder to know if your skill level after the hiatus will vary. I believe it will and with greater experience, veteran divers might, as well. It's the beginner that is often fooled into believing that they are better than they are. The industry is definitely vague about the entire concepts of ongoing training and refresher courses...

Actually over the last 20+ years I have seen more "experienced" and highly certified/qualified divers who are fooled into believing that they are better than they are. I won't go into "Normalization of Deviance" and just say some people just get too relaxed and overconfident with time and experience. It may be overconfidence has eroded the skill of a diver who is still diving "regularly" and the hiatus may have nothing to do with the loss of skills. That is why the question can not be answered.

I wouldn't necessarily advocate for a refresher course but a skills assessment by an experienced diver who can give a reasonable assessment. That is a better way than pushing for a set number or dives in a set time frame to determine need for a course... unless you own a dive shop of course

 

[RockiesFan]

Some skills are like riding a bicycle and you never forget. Others not so much and are very perishable. The person to person variance is too large for there to be any meaningful hard and fast rule.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I don’t know how to answer the survey either.
I can say that I taken many months off because I only dive locally at this point in my life, and winter storms can get in the way, hip replacements can get in the way, having my weekends booked with work gets in the way. But when I get back in the water it’s like I never left. I know my gear, I feel comfortable, I don't forget stuff because it’s so ingrained that I can’t forget it. The only thing I forget is how awesome and relaxing diving is. When I first started diving I was out there every weekend, couldn’t get enough. Then I started helping with classes etc. which put me out there even more. I am lucky that I live fairly close to the Pacific Ocean and was able to get a lot of local dives. The initial learning stage is when it’s important to dive a LOT. I think the people who are new but only get to dive a few times a year are the most susceptible to forgetting stuff or having to get reacquainted with comfort.
If you’re talking about mechanical skills like mask off drills or something similar, some people can barely do it out of OW and hope they never have to do it again. Some never do it again for the remainder of their careers, so that would be one skill that was never fully there to start with. In a case like that how do you make a skills retention assessment on a person who may have never had the skills burned in in the first place?

 

[diverintheflesh]

Actually over the last 20+ years I have seen more "experienced" and highly certified/qualified divers who are fooled into believing that they are better than they are. I won't go into "Normalization of Deviance" and just say some people just get too relaxed and overconfident with time and experience. It may be overconfidence has eroded the skill of a diver who is still diving "regularly" and the hiatus may have nothing to do with the loss of skills. That is why the question can not be answered.

I wouldn't necessarily advocate for a refresher course but a skills assessment by an experienced diver who can give a reasonable assessment. That is a better way than pushing for a set number or dives in a set time frame to determine need for a course... unless you own a dive shop of course

I'm very familiar with "normalization of deviance," (i.e. Space Shuttle Challenger disaster)

I think refresher course is just a generic name for making sure your skills are adequate by someone that can adequately verify them. However, with upwards of 40% of instructors admitting to overconfidence, you are correct that an experienced diver might also be appropriate.

Thank you for your contribution.

 

[diverintheflesh]

If you’re talking about mechanical skills like mask off drills or something similar, some people can barely do it out of OW and hope they never have to do it again. Some never do it again for the remainder of their careers, so that would be one skill that was never fully there to start with. In a case like that how do you make a skills retention assessment on a person who may have never had the skills burned in in the first place?

You're absolutely right! Would that mean that certifications are issued before they are earned? Very likely! Is another valuation of skill competence probably a good idea? That is a whole other discussion on its own...

Thank you for your contribution.

 

[diverintheflesh]

Some skills are like riding a bicycle and you never forget. Others not so much and are very perishable. The person to person variance is too large for there to be any meaningful hard and fast rule.

The interesting part of getting back on a bicycle after years off of one, my skills at 12 years old were far better than they ever would be today. I ride so infrequently. So, while I've not forgot how to ride a bike, I'll also never get back the level of ability I was at all those years ago... While my diving skills have greatly increased as I've gotten older, a valid question would also be, "will my scuba skills one day be as a awkward as a bike ride?"

Thank you for ypur contribution.

 

[beester]

Not sure what to answer here... but it does hit home in a certain way, because my personal circumstances changed this year. Before 2019 I would do on average about 100 dives, about 20 of them teaching dives, 30 training dives and the others or cave or wreck dives of various depths (40-90m).

This year I became the proud father of a beautiful son (born in February)... so when I did my first dive end of March my saldo should have already been 25-30 dives in a normal year... instead of just my first. So far being mid year I've amassed the grand total of 15 dives, and I'm happy about that taking care of a baby together with my girlfriend and also working part time abroad.

So how many dives are enough. Well for recreational diving I could easily take a couple of year hiatus and be able to dive comfortably within 1-2 dives (meaning trim and buyoancy being on level). For deeper diving or cave diving it would think it should be different. However dives 8-11 this year were deepish T2 dives (50-70m range). I was at a local dive base and a GUE T2 instructor invited me to join his class' experience dives. Since there were just 2 students I was to be the 3rd student. I told him that my last deep dive had been almost a year ago and I hadn't practiced my skills a lot, but still I joined on those dives. In the end I felt comfortable (also being a "student" and participating in some of the "issues" they encountered during the dives), even comfortable enough to play around a bit.. at deco depth (stealing the instructors tanks, etc).

Now I'm plugging in my breather again... but for sure I'll be diving it just in recreational range for a long time after a 1 year hiatus... because I'm just not familiar with the machine.

So after this long answer... still don't know what to answer ;-)

 

[EireDiver606]

It depends because people are at different levels of experience, different levels of task loading ability, skill, and muscle memory recall. I see a degradation in my comfort, and buoyancy if I haven’t dived in a while and may not be as confident or as quick performing skills but I can still do them as required. What sort of survey is this? You can’t quantify unquantifiable data.

 

[AfterDark]

It depends because people are at different levels of experience, different levels of task loading ability, skill, and muscle memory recall. I see a degradation in my comfort, and buoyancy if I haven’t dived in a while and may not be as confident or as quick performing skills but I can still do them as required. What sort of survey is this? You can’t quantify unquantifiable data.

Nail on the head here. Let's not forget the individual either, some people are at home in the water with just a swim suit, others need to "work" at getting comfortable. IMO those 2 people as divers would learn and retain skills differently. While one diver is working at becoming comfortable the other is learning and retaining skills. After a long hiatus the diver comfortable in the water by nature is going to do much better with handling tasks and executing skills than the other, that diver doesn't have the distraction of concern, IMO.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

“It depends” is going to be the short answer. For the average recreational diver though...I’m going with 24 dives/2 per month to maintain basic/minimum proficiency to ensure safe execution of dives without requiring your buddy to be a crutch for you.