Skin diving around divers on a safety stop

[Thalassamania]

Well, of course you are talking about radically different experiences. Thal refers to the world of academic diving, with DSO's, supervised, reviewed and standardized dive protocols. String is talking about sport diving which represents the majority of divers who dive once or twice a year. The skill level of these divers won't match Thal's academic divers.

Few sport divers are going to train up to the level of competency that Thal expects from his divers. As desireable as that might be, it's not going to happen. Are there any non-academic dive training which matches Thal's courses? BSAC, YMCA, LA county maybe, but they are not widely promoted or widely available. Perhaps they should be more available, but as long as the market rules, that kind of skill level won't be required for an open water cert.

Two points. The first is rather simple ... there was a time when virtually all divers, recreational and academic were at the same level. Recreational training was gutted whilst academic training remained about the same. Who benefited by the dumbing down of recreational programs? Surely not the recreational divers, most all of whom drop out shortly after their class and leve the gear that they bought molding in the garage. Where would e-bay be if it were no for the high dive dropout rate?

Second, every year I ran an Instructor Training Course for the general public. Our course drew heavily on candidates who were associated with academic programs (for much the same reason I went to Lee Somers' ITC) but was typically more than 50% candidates from the recreational diving community. Year after year I'd see the Instructors that we trained at local dive sites as well as train their AIs and Instructor Candidates (past candidates often came back as staff). I have to tell you, the things that I'm talking about can be done, can easily be done, within the confines of a 36 hour entry level recreational training program.

The divers who want to increase thier skill level will find a way. Damn commercial training all you want, but that's the way it's going to be.

The only honest thing to do is to remind people that training has not always been the way it is today and the it need not be that way, that they are being sold a bill of goods that does not benefit anyone except the shops ande agencies, and that's putting the cart before the horse.

None of this has anything to do with the OP of course, or P-cabbage and his knife-of-doom. I just want to know what ocean he's diving in. Or what road he's driving on. Forewarned is forearmed.
String, Thal; I'd love diving with you guys.

If you come to Hawaii, we'll do it. Be sure to drop me a line.

 

[captain]

While following this quite entertaining thread that has drifted around a few topics including some related to air-sharing and panic, I thought it was quite a coincidence when my "alert diver" mag arrived in the post and there was an article about coping with out-of-air emergencies.

I'm not going to quote much - if you want to read it all sign up for DAN membership - but there were 3 statistics that I thought very interesting.

The article discussed a recent poll on Scuba STAR Network

One of the questions: Have you ever been involved in an out-of-air situation?
49%: No
33%: Yes, as Donor
12%: Yes, as Receiver

I thought this was really high & why doesn't the donor/receiver percentage match. Is it bragging rights of the donors & the receivers are ashamed to admit it? Or are there really almost 3 donors for every OOA diver? Maybe some of the so-called "same ocean buddies" are paying more attention than we give them credit for?

And another relevant question:
Did you or your buddy panic at any time during the situation?
16%: Yes

Question: How was the out-of-air situation resolved?
75%: Octopus
8%: Redundant Air
8%: Spare Air
4%: Buddy Breath (pass regulator)

I read the DAN article and it also listed the percentage and reasons for out of gas situations.

1 Equipment failure/malfunction 30%
2 Procedural/training related (exactly what does that mean) 26 %
3 Air management error 19%
4 Other causes(?) 15%
5 No responce to question 7%
6 Entrapment 4%

I find it hard to believe that equipment failure or malfunction is the highest cause
of out of gas situations.
In 50 years and over 1000 dives neither I or anyone I was diving with ever had an equipment related problem that could have lead to an out of air situation.
I think # 2, #3 and #4 should be lumped together under air management error.
And maybe too many are blaming equipment problems for lack of #2, #3 and/or #4

 

[Missdirected]

The best divers in the world are Cave trained divers! If you are cave trained your are one of the best OW divers in the ocean!

Why do you believe this?

 

[24940]

I find it hard to believe that equipment failure or malfunction is the highest cause
of out of gas situations.

Really? Free Flow is pretty common and can drain about 1000psi/min. I have no trouble at all believing.

 

[Thalassamania]

Why do you believe this?

All the cave divers I know are well trained divers, but not a one of them (except ones that started out in the ocean), can read even the simplest bottom topography by looking at the break or deal with an entry and exit at Monastery on a bad day, in fact their uniform dislike and their inability to use as simple a device as a snorkel might kill them on such a day.

More to the point, it is belief systems like that foster such stupid remarks, and lead the foolhardy to place the more timid in situations dangerous to them both.