Self Reliance

[CaptainNemo]

While reading thru these various Accidents and Incidents you see a lot of the commone elements. Just like the visions in the news of the New Orleans hurricane survivors looking for the Government to take care of them.

A couple of years back, my long time dive buddy and I went with a LDS we had not dove with before. We dove on a 467 foot wreck with limited visability, current, and a Divermaster from the shop. He said he had dove this wreck several times and would show us around. Needless to say we followed him, he got lost and couldn't find the line to the boat that he had set. He signaled to us he was lost. My buddy and I have been diving for 25 plus years and our training thankfully kicked in. We pulled ourself along the wreck up current as far as we could go and then surfaced. We let mother nature carry us back to the dive boat. Pretty obvious choice based on the situation. The point is we were depending on the experienced Dive Master but we had to get him back to the boat. The moral of this story is to know who you are diving with. Don't expect someone else to rescue you. By the way, this dive shop is now out of business? I can't imagine why.

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

Too true - I dont know if my upcoming spiel will get this thread moved to wine and cheeze, but:

Don't get me started on DM's I've had to assist. Many places now offer 'zero to hero' courses where some backpacker who has never dived before can be an instructor in a matter of 3 or 6 months: diving all their qualification dives in the same warm, clear and still water....

A common comment in accident threads is: 'but my DM was not close enough to help', often followed by 'should I sue him?'. Courses nowadays appear to produce divers with the minimum amount of training required to get in the water. Some of these divers seem to see DM's and Instructors as some sort of infallible god-like figure that will protect them from themselves. Although a DM being paid to guide a trip has a duty of care I feel OW divers should be divers capable of diving in open water BY THEMSELVES. If divers expect hand-holding and need someone else to keep them safe then they should do other divers around them a favour and burn their open water C-card - they will find the comfort they seek in a 'Discover Scuba' or 'Scuba Diver' hand holding exercise.

At risk of sounding like an old fart when I did my OW we covered, over the three months of part-time training that it took, everything now covered in OW, AOW, Rescue, First Response and Decompression Theory. Back then diving was seen as a dangerous activity - a foreign environment where you had to be prepared for anything to happen (thats why we all had 12" dive knives....). Of course the Australian organisation that did this training went broke in the 1990's because everyone just wants to watch a video and jump in the water, and people want to see diving as some aquatic walk in the park....

Instructors shouldn’t release their students out into the wild until they display a degree of self reliance and are ready to go off and do a dive by themselves - as a functional half of a buddy team with another non-professional unpaid diver. Fortunately most new divers are like this.

Imagine if another sport with a similar risk level was taught this way: say rock climbing or mountaineering: do a test to see if the student can walk 12 steps, show a video and off they go!

OK – this codger is off his soap box and with shuffle back to the old persons home…

Cheers,
Rohan.

 

[Doc]

OK – this codger is off his soap box and with shuffle back to the old persons home….

I've been looking at this thread for a few days.

A week ago I responded to someone who was looking for a dive destination where DM's were attentive and could assist them through their newbie wobblies. I mentioned that they might wish to hire a DM to personally be their guide, which, fortunately was an accepted answer!

Self reliance. Maybe your first 30 or so dives should be solo dives, kind of a Darwin-esque sorting process. Then, ok, be a buddy.

It isn't just the training- it's the equipment. Look at what divers are inspired to buy (Why You Should Buy Your Own Dive Equipment... or whatever that page is repetitively titled in the Dive Training Magazine)

I don't want to engage in the argument (here) over renting vs. buying, for that there should be beer and peanuts involved

I recently was retained to watch over a party of a well-to-do family of divers on their Caribbean vacation. Great people, very receptive, fun to be around, good newbie divers.

They came equipped with every shiny object the dive industry ever built and somebody at an LDS could pile into their Hummer (not the small one, btw).

Just had their OW dives done... only. 6 months before. That's it.

Here's a partial list: (some had all, all had some)

We had blinking tank valve thingies, in-line octopus, bp/wings, HUB, Reefmaster Cameras (everyone), Three (3!) "main" dive lights, Bio Fins, (2) Hydro-optix masks (for people with inconsistent eye corrections), nice sharp knives, mixed gas computers.

There were no bang sticks, but everyone did get a Spare Air.

I don't want to engage in a discussion of Spare Air, here, either. But it is the single easiest to see object that and LDS can offer up... the single most likely object that a diver will grasp for... Ahhh... this will make me a (better, safer, cooler) diver.

We teach people to look for (buy) mechanical solutions. Bad idea.

Gas management, dive planning, awareness... good idea. {I heard someone recently defending their secondary air system use (in 40fsw Caribbean dives) as a "crutch until they gain experience". Talk about a self defeating prophecy!}

Self reliance? Can it be taught? What happend to UW Harassment or doing calesthenics in full gear? Who let all these girls into the sport? Where the heck is Mike Nelson when you need him? Joking aside, we have dropped that part about "using your head" from the classes. Follow the course text.

This SCUBA is no less a step into outer space than NASA would take. This is life support equipment. Nice that you've bought it, do you know how it works? (Really?) Do you know what to do when it doesn't?

Can someone rely on another? Never.

Self reliance. If you got that, and only if you got that, can you begin to help someone else.

 

[socialist77]

A couple of years back, my long time dive buddy and I . . .

If you're preaching the virtues of self-reliance, why are you diving with a buddy?

 

[Doc]

If you're preaching the virtues of self-reliance, why are you diving with a buddy?

Nicely phrased and illustrated.

Maybe he was a "fellow traveller".

.

 

[TheRedHead]

If you're preaching the virtues of self-reliance, why are you diving with a buddy?

So you won't become a dependent buddy - like Mike Nelson was to Zale Parry.

 

[2Tours N Iraq`]

As a newbie, I feel like I am old-school in my train of thought. I agree 100% on self reliance. If you see some of my other posts, you will see I treat every dive as a solo dive if I am unsure of the slightest thing in a buddy. There are only 2 people that I trust completely underwater: my twin brother and my instructor. I can almost literally read my brother's mind and my instructor harasses the crap out of all of her students to drill into them the importance of self rescue. In my OW cert, we covered self rescue, buddy rescue, underwater navigation, deployment of a lift bag, and various other "Advanced" skills. Not only that, but I studied (and continue to study) my butt off on dive principles and theory. Currently, I am re-reading the USN Dive Manual to better understand the all of the aspects of diving. Am I educated/experienced enough to start doing more advanced skills? Simply put, the answer is no. Do I plan on getting proficient to be able to do everything with my gear by touch the first time when I get home from Iraq? Yes. Understanding how your gear works and where everything is located by touch alone will make you more self reliant. As I mentioned in several other posts, SITUATIONAL AWARENESS will save your life. If you can not maintain a high degree of situational awareness then you need to do your fellow divers a favor and burn your C-card as Rohan so eloquently put it.

 

[roakey]

If you're preaching the virtues of self-reliance, why are you diving with a buddy?

I drive defensively, but I still wear a seatbelt.

Roak

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Self reliance? Can it be taught? What happend to UW Harassment or doing calesthenics in full gear? Who let all these girls into the sport? Where the heck is Mike Nelson when you need him? Joking aside, we have dropped that part about "using your head" from the classes. Follow the course text.

It's only harassment when presented by someone on some sort of power trip. Those old exercises can be adapted to divers of every comfort level if the confined water instructor is willing to pay attention to the personalities of each student and make the needed adjustments. You're right, many classes have dropped the "using your head" part. Diving is a thinking sport and being trained and conditioned to keep your head in the game when things are falling apart should be a part of the curriculum. I cannot tell you how many times, at the end of my last pool session, I have told my students "Some people call the exercise you just completed harassment" and they say "Well where do they expect us to learn to deal with problems? On our own in the open water? That's stupid!"

BTW, I'm a girl
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Doc]

BTW, I'm a girl
Ber :lilbunny:

Not blocking the view of the aft rail of the Nekton, I see.