Practices that could lead to accidents on training dives

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Good post Jim. Some people have wondered on this thread (and others) recently about their own training and whether they were somehow short-changed.

Some people do indeed get 'short' courses but that is what they signed up- especially in tropical locations where people are on a limited time-frame. I would like to make the point that the typical OW course is not designed to make you a super diver capable of diving in any and all conditions. Just as newly certified drivers are not IMO ready to be driving full-noise on a motorway.

As an example, doing your Cert in a lake or quarry will most probably give you more experience in low-viz conditions but it doesn't prepare you for diving at night or in strong currents. Likewise a gin clear tropical paradise OW doesn't prepare you for murky or cold conditions using a 7mm farmer john. It does give you basic diving skills and the tools to start to learn what you don't know.

This is why there is small-print attached to the certificate which unfortunately is often glossed over at best which says something to the tune of :
'By signing this document, I understand that I'm certified to be diving in 'certain' conditions and different/difficult conditions require additional training. If I don't dive for a while, it's a good idea to refresh my diving skills with an instructor.'

While Jim's post is valid regarding safety, I would draw the difference between instructors conducting potentially unsafe courses (Jim's post) and feelings of being short-changed after completing a 3 or 4 day course on vacation.

3-4 day intensive courses will not give you the same result as a 2 week program- even if the amount of hours is roughly the same. In NZ I taught 2 week programs, teaching locals in local conditions: pool and lake. I was taught in my hometown the same way. While teaching one day at the lake I met a 20'ish couple from another town who were newly certified (in a lake) and had less that 10 dives each. We talked for a few minutes; they asked me about entries and exit points and anything good/bad to watch out for etc.

They then dived and survived! They did this by not waiting a year or more after certification to dive again, and by making a dive in familiar conditions.

As other posters have commented, the additional time to process the information can give individuals a better understanding of diving whereas a 3-4 day course is very intensive but still appropriate if the individuals remember that they are beginners, and choose their next dives with this in mind.

So IMO- there is a difference between unsafe courses and short courses.
 
GUE Fundies courses are very short/intense, yet every class report I've ever read has raved about the amount they've learned from the 4 days packed with information and diving.
That said, if the DM, had handled me like that in my first class, or even in future beginner classes before I was very comfortable diving, I would have probably freaked out from the pulling/holding in the water. Something about a person tugging and grabbing at me and holding me down underwater can literally send me into a panic. I don't think that's terribly uncommon, at least not for women.
 
I am helping 2 instructors with 12 students this weekend at CSSP (quarry) should be interesting.
 
I have less of a problem with the single file issue than taking dive 1 (or dive 2-4 either) students through any overhead environment. That to me is a real problem. As for the single file issue, we train in a kelp environment. Some areas are wide open, others are not. Most of the wide open areas require the divers to swim through the kelp field to get there. Under these conditions, side-by-side buddy teams are a guarantee of diver separation and possibly lost divers and entanglement hazards. Single file is the only way to go through most of it. As the instructor, my standard is to lead and pause after 2 fin cycles to recount noses. If I don't see all, find the missing quickly. This site has trained 10,000s of divers over the years with 100s of different instructors from all agencies facing the same challenges. Single file does not mean solo diver.
 

Back
Top Bottom