Quarry Rangers! Divemasters?

[rawls]

I think that I care a lot more about a diver's skills and experience than I do about their certification.

I totally agree...

 

[oly5050user]

I'm a (very new) DM and I only have 2 quarry dives. When I dove the quarry last weekend I asked the DM that was familiar w/ the quarry pointers. He was happy to help, just as I would if our roles were reversed. Not everyone has the luxury of living by the ocean or the means to go to it on a regular basis. Diving in 45 degree water at 90ft w/ 2ft vis is probably more difficult that 99% of the dives that take place in the Carribbean. A DM is a DM as long as they are limiting their role to the environment in which they have experience.

Good honest and fair answer.."a DM is a DM as long as they are limiting their role to the environment in which they have experience"..that should apply to instrucors that I have seen that never set foot in salt water.Did their ow class,adv,resc,dm etc all in a quarry ..

 

[robway034]

To which I replied, "Let me get this straight. Where I typically dive, I'm doing good to see my fin tips. I have on every stitch of neoprene because the water is 65 degrees below the thermocline at 12 feet, and I have to juggle a big light at noon because it's DARK. Here in the Gulf, the water is 85 degrees and I'm in a lightweight shorty, vis is 150 feet, and I can see my partner so well I can read his thoughts by looking at his eyes. WHAT STRESSES ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" .

I wanted to clarify here if I could. I am not advocating one "type of diver" or diving as better, more stressful or what have you. More or less I was thinking about a DM or higher with a very narrow training envirnment/experience or maybe TOO narrow of Training environment/experience. I have to wonder if a DM+shouldn't have a plethora of expeirences. I honestly believe that many divers, especially the new ones, look to DM's to posess a wide breadth of experience. As a matter of fact I'd guess that many EXPECT it.....

 

[RJP]

We've got lots of "quarriors" in our area, which always shocks me; seeing as we have a gigantic ocean to our east. I know plenty of people who are DMs with 200+ dives where probably 100 of them are swimming around a sunken schoolbus at 50' in a Pennsylvania quarry.

Don't get me wrong, the quarry is a great place to train and practice skills. And If I didn't live near the ocean I would do all my dives in a quarry too. But with "Lake Atlantic" right at our doorstep, I just don't see spending ALL my time in a quarry.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I didn't read the whole thread, just the first page, and I have some thoughts.
-economically and all, it actually seems like it would be a huge benefit to have so much experience in one spot. This DM is probably one of the best DM's for that quarry. He is probably doing most of his DM'ing in that quarry. Was he the DM on the boat, or just a paying diver? He is a specialist in that quarry, and that makes him, in my mind, the perfect person to DM in that quarry.

-And I'm assuming he was just a paying diver on the boat for this salt water dive. He wasn't acting as a DM, even if he was a DM.

Let me compare it to being a flight instructor. There are some instructors who taught my dad who mainly fly in 152's. Yes, they have twin training, yes they are instructors, but they teach single engine small flying, and specialize in that area. Would you criticize them for being a passenger on Delta, because they have only flown a few times on such a large jet and mainly have small plane experience? I wouldn't be worried in the least, because they aren't piloting the plane. Now if they were suddenly flying the plane, that'd be a diffrent story, I might be nervous. But lets say the pilots died, and this guy steps up and says "I have flight training, I'll try to fly it." He probably understands most of it better than the normal passengers. At the very least, he is comfortable with talking to ATC, using the radios, knows how to shoot an ILS, etc. So in an emergency situation, this DM might not be the best at dealing with it, since he's in a situation someone unusual for him, but he still has alot of diving experience, so he's better than no one.

That's all I have to say.....is it good to get diverse diving experience? Yes. Is it wrong for someone to have a DM cert and not be familiar with many types of diving? No, just not ideal.

 

[RJP]

That's all I have to say.....is it good to get diverse diving experience? Yes. Is it wrong for someone to have a DM cert and not be familiar with many types of diving? No, just not ideal.

To continue your analogy, the quarry seems a bit like a flight simulator to me. Would you want a pilot who had never been in a real plane before, even though he had 5,000 hour logged on the simulator?

 

[letterboy]

So does that mean if I log all my Quarry dives and never dive in open ocean I am not a good Dive Con?

If I stay within my lane, and don't try and teach someone about Deco diving the Doria, I don't see how only having one type of dives is not good.

I mean me teaching Deco diving is like the Air Force trying to teach me about Artillery. . . Or me trying to teach an english Professor about spelling and grammar. . .

 

[archman]

To continue your analogy, the quarry seems a bit like a flight simulator to me. Would you want a pilot who had never been in a real plane before, even though he had 5,000 hour logged on the simulator?

A better analogy would be a pilot who had 5,000 hours logged on the same regional flight patterns.

A simulator would be a swimming pool. Quarries aren't categorized as confined water.

 

[Aquamike30252]

I was on a dive trip this year with a DMC who got her 50th dive while on the trip. I'm not sure if she had ever dived in saltwater before.

I was also on a dive trip this year with a DMC who could only get 30 minutes out of an 80cf tank -- on dives where I was deeper than him and was returning to the boat after 1:00 - 1:15 with 1000+ psi left.

PADI requires 60 dives by the time you complete the DM program. You don't have to complete any specialties. You earn OW, AOW, Rescue -- then you're qualified to begin the DM program. You gain A LOT of knowledge while in the program. It's up to the DMC to gain experience and the DM's instructor to make sure the DMC has earned the DM certification.

Maybe it's a location thing, but to get Divemaster in Ga, I have to have 100 dives as well as OW,AOW, and Rescue. And I had to have 5 specialties to get my Rescue diver

 

[JahJahwarrior]

To continue your analogy, the quarry seems a bit like a flight simulator to me. Would you want a pilot who had never been in a real plane before, even though he had 5,000 hour logged on the simulator?

Only true if you don't consider quarry diving "real" diving. Can you die in a quarry from a diving related problem? yes. Can you die in a simulator from a flying related problem (like, crashing, running out of gas, fire from an engine, or in the recent case, a bolt piercing a fuel tank in a wing)? Nope. (you can die ina simulator, but only if you got mugged or something.) Therefore, a simulator is not flying. Since quarry diving is diving, I think the other suggested analogy, of a pilot having experience only in, say, a flight from Gainesville to Atlanta and back, is more reasonable.


And that pilot understands the basics of flying, and if they flew over mountain ranges or long stretches of water, would probably do ok, but not neceessarily. For example, many of the other pilots in my dad's corportation (he owns a Piper Warrior II with about 5 other guys and they all rent it from the corportation, so he can own a plane without being super rich. It's from the 70's, I believe, not new by any means) cannot function as well as my dad can. He'll go flying with them, and they don't get flight plans organized right and misplace maps and charts of taxiways so when things get tough and they are trying to shoot an ILS with foggles on, they are much more at risk of crashing or hurting themselves for making silly errors that they wouldn't make in a VFR environment. So if they always fly VFR, and suddnely are flying IFR, even if they have an IFR rating and have a few IFR flights and landings under their belts, they aren't as safe.

So the DM here might be like that, he's got his "IFR" training but hasn't done that many IFR flights.

But, that analogy could fall apart. Maybe his quarry has bad conditions, so it's more like he's great at landing but only with a crosswind from one side, and his landing is much worse with a crosswind from the other side. So the DM is used to dealing with low viz, but isn't used to currents at all.

That's where the danger comes in.

Sorry to make such a rambling post, I'm trying to study psychology and do some economics homework too. RJP, you made a good point to counter my good point, and while I think you pointed out a flaw, you didn't correct it perfectly. I think that the other guy corrected it better, and hopefully I have improved on it somewhat too. The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe the DM definitely wasn't as "safe" diving in an unusual environment. Still, I do think he was much safer than someone who'd never dov that environment and the simple fact that he's done ots of diving would prevent him from making a stupid mistake, like running out of air, even if he does make other mistakes (like getting carried away by the current, or peeing in his wetsuit or something horrible like that)