While I technically don't cover night diving in my OW class, I do go over diving in zero vis/blackwater conditions. Those are what can be encountered in most of our local sites when poorly trained OW divers are present doing checkouts.
I do spend a bit of time going over light selection since they are useful on any dive. Then the blackout mask drills we do in the pool also would prepare them to a degree.
I remember my first outing after OW cert. Went with the same shop with plans to do AOW the next weekend. They would not let me do the night dive with them. I was told that I needed the AOW cert to do that and to go below 60 ft.
Then during DM training, I found this board and discovered a lot of what I was told were agency requirements, were complete and utter BS. Also discovered that there were other agencies, different types of gear and that the
"in conditions equal to or better than those in which you were trained."
statement is nowhere to be found in the RSTC Guidelines and is, in fact, nothing more than a cover your butt statement used to justify and excuse insufficient training.
Proper training should give new divers the tools they need to evaluate a site and decide if the dive is above their level of training and experience.
I do spend a bit of time going over light selection since they are useful on any dive. Then the blackout mask drills we do in the pool also would prepare them to a degree.
I remember my first outing after OW cert. Went with the same shop with plans to do AOW the next weekend. They would not let me do the night dive with them. I was told that I needed the AOW cert to do that and to go below 60 ft.
Then during DM training, I found this board and discovered a lot of what I was told were agency requirements, were complete and utter BS. Also discovered that there were other agencies, different types of gear and that the
"in conditions equal to or better than those in which you were trained."
statement is nowhere to be found in the RSTC Guidelines and is, in fact, nothing more than a cover your butt statement used to justify and excuse insufficient training.
Proper training should give new divers the tools they need to evaluate a site and decide if the dive is above their level of training and experience.