Pure Rec Diving

[rhwestfall]

Sheesch Sounds like folks stuck at home, not diving, and too much coffee.....it is February already?

 

[Storker]

Sounds like folks stuck at home, not diving, and too much coffee.....it is February already?

Hey! Don't diss February!

The worst time of the year is right now through new year. There's almost no light down below, so it's at least half night diving no matter the time of the day. February is quite nice, with a lot more light than mid/late December and still great winter water viz

 

[tursiops]

Clearly you did not read or were not capable of understanding what any of the six sites I put up said. They told you what plankton are, how many there are, what they do and where their habitat is. These things are what most people call facts. The irrelevant site was the one you put up about life only on the sea floor. You probably need to get someone else to read the links for you and explain it to you in simpler terms.

Back on subject. Why would you push a course like cavern diving on people who do not want it just so they have to buy more equipment they do not need? People like you are what is wrong with the current culture in diving. What is wrong with people taking what they have learned in OW and enjoying shallow dives other then you can not make any money from that? It is bad enough that the training has been dumbed down to the point were almost no one fails an OW course. If they fail OW then they do not buy all that new gear and you can't have that because the money is more important to you then their safety. Then you want to charge them again to learn the rest of what you failed to teach them the first time around. What you now call AOW is what we were taught as part of OW in the early 70s. AOW should really be called OW2, the second half of OW that they have to pay a second time for.

Wow! You've clearly got a burr up your backside with somebody about something, but it is unfair to take it out on me. Maybe you need to know that I'm a professional oceanographer and I don't sell courses or equipment; does that help?

Re Cavern: the skill set is about buoyancy, control, line handling, finning, planning, SAC, lights, all good stuff, useful on most dives, not just in caverns. Yes, sure, it could all have been taught in an intro diving class, but that class would have been months long and in today's dollars pretty expensive. I took one of those long, arduous classes too, before you did, but it did NOT cover any of that stuff. You can't learn everything in one class, nor should you. You can't eat a month's worth of food in one meal, either. By having the basic classes be about basic stuff, it allows people to explore where their interests are as they take additional training. The OP's question was about what kind of additional training might be available, other than technical. Good question, to which most respondents have been helpful. It is not helpful to say you should have had all of that in your basic classes.

 

[tomfcrist]

Bacterial and microbial life are not considered plankton, nor are they considered sea life either as they exist every where not just in the oceans.

Rich, I really don't want to continue poking holes in your education, but:

Bacterioplankton, bacteria and archaea, which play an important role in remineralising organic material down the water column (note that the prokaryotic phytoplankton are also bacterioplankton).


On topic: Quite a few people I know are major history and archeology buffs. Shallow water shipwreck identification and exploration has become the preferred pastime of many of them. How can you go wrong with shallow water, lots of marine life, vibrant colors, and history all wrapped into one?

 

[doctormike]

Shallow water shipwreck identification and exploration has become the preferred pastime of many of them. How can you go wrong with shallow water, lots of marine life, vibrant colors, and history all wrapped into one?

Because depending on where you are, you may significantly limit your range of dive sites.

Again, not telling anyone how to dive, but one advantage of "tech lite" is that you can spend a reasonable amount of time at shipwrecks that are above trimix depths but deep enough to severely limit your bottom time if you can't do staged decompression. Sure, if you are lucky enough to be somewhere where there are lots of great wrecks above 80 feet, that's terrific. But not everyone is in that situation.

 

[tomfcrist]

Because depending on where you are, you may significantly limit your range of dive sites.

Again, not telling anyone how to dive, but one advantage of "tech lite" is that you can spend a reasonable amount of time at shipwrecks that are above trimix depths but deep enough to severely limit your bottom time if you can't do staged decompression. Sure, if you are lucky enough to be somewhere where there are lots of great wrecks above 80 feet, that's terrific. But not everyone is in that situation.

Very true, not everyone has access to shallow water wrecks. Same as folks not having access to caverns, caves, scallops etc. Its just a suggestion.

 

[boulderjohn]

Why would you push a course like cavern diving on people who do not want it just so they have to buy more equipment they do not need?

As Tursiops said, the main skills taught in a cavern class are directly applicable to shallow water diving. I was recently doing shallow reef dives in Puerto Galera, Philippines, and I watched in dismay as one photographing diver after another crashed into fragile reef structures with their poor buoyancy control, all the while smashing everything behind them with their flutter kicks.

People like you are what is wrong with the current culture in diving. What is wrong with people taking what they have learned in OW and enjoying shallow dives other then you can not make any money from that?

Hold that thought.

It is bad enough that the training has been dumbed down to the point were almost no one fails an OW course.

Almost no one fails an OW course because the training theory for the last couple decades has been to remove time as a factor in instruction. Decades ago students were taught for a set period of time, evaluated, and either passed or failed. Almost no agency teaches that way any more. Students are now taught until they master the skills. If they can't do a skill well, they are not failed; they instead keep on learning until they can do it.

If they fail OW then they do not buy all that new gear and you can't have that because the money is more important to you then their safety. Then you want to charge them again to learn the rest of what you failed to teach them the first time around. What you now call AOW is what we were taught as part of OW in the early 70s. AOW should really be called OW2, the second half of OW that they have to pay a second time for.

AOW was created in the mid 1960s by the Los Angeles County program as a solution to a problem they had observed: students were completing OW and then dropping out of diving altogether. The theory was that by creating a class that introduced them to different facets of diving, they might maintain an interest. The purpose of the class was to give them different kinds of dives to give different experiences. That is still the purpose. NAUI followed suit for the same reason, and then other agencies copied them.

Notice that your main message in this section I quoted contradicts your message in the second section I quoted. In the second section, you say divers should be free to enjoy shallow dives without being pushed to take additional classes that will cost them more money. In this section you say divers should be required to take longer (and therefore more expensive) classes right from the start rather than being given the choice as to whether or not they need that extra training. So you are against people being persuaded to take additional training at additional expense. You believe they should instead be required to take additional training at additional expense.

 

[ktomlinson]

Clearly you did not read or were not capable of understanding what any of the six sites I put up said. They told you what plankton are, how many there are, what they do and where their habitat is. These things are what most people call facts. The irrelevant site was the one you put up about life only on the sea floor. You probably need to get someone else to read the links for you and explain it to you in simpler terms.

Back on subject. Why would you push a course like cavern diving on people who do not want it just so they have to buy more equipment they do not need? People like you are what is wrong with the current culture in diving. What is wrong with people taking what they have learned in OW and enjoying shallow dives other then you can not make any money from that? It is bad enough that the training has been dumbed down to the point were almost no one fails an OW course. If they fail OW then they do not buy all that new gear and you can't have that because the money is more important to you then their safety. Then you want to charge them again to learn the rest of what you failed to teach them the first time around. What you now call AOW is what we were taught as part of OW in the early 70s. AOW should really be called OW2, the second half of OW that they have to pay a second time for.

Dude. You have no idea what you're talking about. Cavern diving doesn't really require additional equipment, unless you consider a long hose and a reel cost prohibitive. It's certainly not the scam you implied it was. The issue with biomass and where it resides is not even as issue, just quit arguing and read the damn articles.

 

[TSandM]

A conversation like this one (minus the plankton) used to be quite common here: "I've done OW/AOW/Rescue, don't want to DM, but would like to keep learning and improve my skills, what can I do?". Nine years ago, there weren't a lot of options, other than a cavern class or Fundies. Nowadays, there are a lot of "Intro to Tech" classes, there is Fundies, there is UTD Essentials or their Ultimate Makeover or whatever they call it. The idea of bringing precise skills to the recreational diver has expanded and is expanding. Some of the options are prescriptive about gear (GUE probably the most) and others aren't (my husband's Techreational class has no gear requirements at all, except that you be on scuba ). Excellent buoyancy, non-silting propulsion, and improved situational awareness make ALL diving more fun, and quite possibly safer. There is no requirement that a student in any of these classes be committed to, or even be considering diving beyond the standard recreational limits.

 

[Rich Keller]

Wow! You've clearly got a burr up your backside with somebody about something, but it is unfair to take it out on me. Maybe you need to know that I'm a professional oceanographer and I don't sell courses or equipment; does that help

So you are a master instructor who does not teach? That does not sound right to me. You are an oceanographer but you could only come up with one site that covered bottom feeding fish that had little to do with the discussion. That does not sound right to me either. I am no oceanographer but I was able to find six sites that agree with me from people like NOAA. While I am on the subject of things that do not sound right. Is it a coincidence that the only people here who seem to have an issue with people just taking OW and diving shallow are all instructors? That just does not sound right to me either.