Small incident, but wondering....

[love2godeep]

I've decided to pull out of the rest of the AOW cert course, and try again later, somewhere else. The input here has been very helpful.

 

[jagfish]

Wow
I assume you must have paid for the class up front, and also assuming you lost that cash?

Well good on ya. Sounds like you're not taking a chance of learning more lessons "the hard way", and not the ones that outfit was intending to teach...

JAG

 

[aquaoren]

I've decided to pull out of the rest of the AOW cert course, and try again later, somewhere else. The input here has been very helpful.

Smart choice.
You shouldn't do anything with them if you don't trust them.
Forget the money, there are more important things.

 

[H2Andy]

That's why you deploy your surface marker from depth.

yes indeed...

 

[argonuat]

Just a thought. Why would an instructor much less a DM be taking "newbies" on an advanced certification dive, much less the deep dive? Was the intention that some part of the group, you or them, dive without supervision? You may think about reporting the incident to the certifying agency, as has been suggested in previous posts. Let the training agency decide if it is within their standards. If nothing else, since you have wisely decided not to continue your training with them, you may save someone elses life. Having experienced both I can empathise, there is a huge difference between good instruction and bad instruction.

 

[Falconer]

Today there were six of us on the dive: The divemaster, 2 fairly experienced divers, 2 newbies and yours truly. One of the newbies got her cert a year ago and hasn't dived since her check-out dive. The other had a few more dives under his belt, but nothing more recent than a year ago.

These group type things invite these kinds of problems
with having a buddy. I've seen instructors doing this without assigning buddies and I've also seen captains try to throw
a bigger group together apparantly a little easier to pick
up a bigger group at a time. I've been seperated by an entire
pack before myself, I can't say they lost me or i lost them but the bottom line ws no one specifically was my buddy, so
contact with any one diver was not present. A lot of time the
newbies will request they go along with someone else for their
own security, but in my opinion if your certified and on a boat and have a partner not only should you be going down as a
twosome but you should in fact insist on the twosome as to
not blur the buddy responsibility and obligation. I've noticed
when I have a cute dive date other male divers tend to want
to pair up and even join my twosome once under, I frown on this and my female companions tend to think it's a jealousy
thing but in reality it's knowing that as soon as you start adding extra bodies it begins to foul the entire concept of
the buddy system, not to mention it can also distract my
real buddy from performing her half of her duties as my buddy.

Kevin Falconer Fort Myers, FL

 

[Falconer]

The divemaster was supposed to be my instructor. (She had been on previous dives.) She also had the other four people to look after, and of course could not do much with me.

others to "look after" ? If you were doing a training dive
(pre-arranged ?) you should have been the instructors
number one consideration, if it was a case where the instructor was being used to babysit other divers as well, then
this should definitely be discussed with instructor (we'll
leave the dm out since she apparantly and hopefully knew
she was operating as an instructor on that dive) I dont believe
you can be instructing and babysitting other divers at the same time, if this is what they are doing you should find another agency. The instructor should have arranged the groupings in a way that she could have performed her job as
an instructor certifying a deep dive. It's not uncommon for this kind of stuff as it's not a perfect world. The less experienced divers probably wanted to tag along with a dm.
The instructor/dm should have said "i'm doing a check out dive
and really cant take any divers, this of course would foul up
a promise the dive charter probably made in order to get the newbies to book their dive and get their money, It's many times this blurry, you as a diver need to learn whats being
arranged for the convenience of the boat but not necessarily
in the best interest of safety.

Kevin Falconer Fort Myers, FL

 

[Falconer]

The rest of the divers may have known this rule, that may be why you got separated. The divemaster really dropped the ball on that one.[/QUOTE]

They got seperated because the buddy system was not used.
When my buddy is having trouble clearing whether on a line or a free ascent I stay with them, period, none of this meet you at the bottom bull****, this is how and why accidents happen.
It pisses me off when any buddy of mine acts as if they are diving alone, they screw up my dive if they swim directly away from me, I cant tell you how many times i've maintained
buddy contact by finning abrubtly toward my disappearing buddy, when she had nary a clue I just saved our dive !
LEARN, UNDERSTAND, and PRACTICE the buddy system it can
and has saved lives !

Kevin Falconer Fort Myers, FL

 

[Uncle Pug]

I just returned from a boat dive,

... is the instructor of circumstance, times 10.... times 100 if in a restort location. :shakeshead:

Glad you survived... you did fine... hope you learned the lesson.

<edit: I resonded before reading all the rest of the responses... and at your last post above I see you did indeed learn the lesson and chose not to finish the *course* with yet another IoC.

You will do well.

 

[Scubaholic]

Since you're clearly not comfortable yet at those depths you should have someone with you at all times, including during the descent. Frankly, it's unlikely you'll notice an appreciable change at 100fsw. I think some people think they are narced because they get anxious when going deeper. Nonetheless, and anxiety attack can be more dangerous than narcosis.

I think the best move would have been to abort the dive on the descent, especially in declining vis where you are less likely to find the group. This would have enabled you to save your bottom time for the next dive, and been all around safer. Even if at only 15 or 20 ft, everyone else is gone, just come up. Wait for the next dive, and then take the DM to task for not having a better plan.

Man, I hate cattle boat operations, and this is clearly what you found yourself if. If the DM had barked at me for taking a safety stop I would have told her what she could do with it, and then asked if her certifying agency would be interested in her directions. 80ft certainly justifies a safety stop, even if it was a short dive. Also, she is supposed to be the pro. She lost you....not the other way around.

Find a good instructor who works closely with his students.