Small incident, but wondering....

[justleesa]

love2godeep, I think you made good choices and that your post evaluation was very smart. sorry that you you didn't finish the class though....I hope they at least signed you off on what you did do (did you complete any dives?) and that you took that with you.
Just wondering here....if she got in without doing the skills it wouldn't have been counted as a deep dive anyway, would it? and the instructor would know that.... They might have just called it a "Drift dive" which would also count towards the certification.

 

[love2godeep]

love2godeep, I think you made good choices and that your post evaluation was very smart. sorry that you you didn't finish the class though....I hope they at least signed you off on what you did do (did you complete any dives?) and that you took that with you.
Just wondering here.....

I am negotiating with them right now about getting signed off for the dives I did accomplish. They are wanting the $ and refusing the certs at this point, but I think that would be another mistake on their part. I contracted with them not to do recreational dives, but to learn the skills for my AOW cert. None of the dives I did were up to par; on none of them did they cover all the required skills mentioned in the handbook. If it was me I would cover MORE than required, but I suppose they get tired.

I think they are not really set up to do AOW. I did two shore dives with them (PPB and UN), and even though they were sketchy, I had already done enough work in these areas that I felt comfortable in being signed off for them.

It got much worse on the boat. I was supposed to do the deep dive and Fish ID. For the Fish ID, she handed me a plastic card with a few fish on it, and told me to see what I could find. That turned out to be the "deep dive," as the other dive spot we went to wasn't deep enough to qualify for a deep dive. I don't see that either objective was accomplished.

They said that since I took up space on the boat, I should pay for the dives and also give a $100 cancellation fee. I feel like if I went to a restaurant and ordered lobster and was served a tuna fish sandwich, I shouldn't be charged. At this point, they are backing down on insisting on payment for the botched boat dives, but are insisting on the cancellation fee. I am still contesting....

Surely they realize that they survive on referrals, especially since they have no storefront.

Do you think I should report the incident to PADI? I too am wondering how she thought she would manage my deep dive while looking after the newbies. As it turned out, they went down to 84 feet. What would she have done if one of them had gotten narced and had sailed off in that current? It was too strong to swim against!

Well, I've learned buckets, so maybe it was worth the $!!!

 

[love2godeep]

Scubaholic,
I don't know 4 sure what you mean about "not comfortable" at depth, but the opposite is my problem! I have absolutely no fear or discomfort at depth. I love to go deep. I very much wanted to stay down when I found I was on my own, and I wanted to go deeper.

The first time I went below 80' I was absolutely no-fear reckless; and the more I study (and read here on SB), the more I realize that this is foolish. There is much I don't understand about the effects of deep dives. Until I understand better the physiology; the nitrogen and oxygen tox issues, and gas management, I need to hold back. I was hoping this class would teach me that; is that asking too much of an AOW class?

Also, i agree if the others disappear, you might as well surface immediately and not continue the dive. In this case, the others didn't disappear out of my view until I was nearly down; I saw which way they went, and hoped I could catch them, but soon realized that was into the current, and they couldn't have continued that direction, as the current was too strong.

Any recommendations for a good instructor in the Maya Riviera, preferably as far south as possible???

How about Sodwana Bay? Those are my next two dive destinations.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

From what I see and hear though there are lots of instructors who just jump into AOW and often even put the deep dive first. I don't know if I'd say that most do it that way but it certainly isn't rare either.

I really think we have a lot of dive instructors who just aren't very experienced. I know that I was in that boat. We believe that diving is as safe as bowling just as we were taught until we see for ourselves that it just isn't so. They just don't respect the fact that while the chances of a real problem may be small the consequences can be extremely severe.

The "all fun and games" attitude that they use to sell diving just scares me half to death. Diving can be done "safely". If I didn't believe that I wouldn't dive and I sure wouldn't have started my family diving. That safety though is dependant on knowing how to do it. Like anything else once you learn how it's easy and the risk is acceptable. Believing that it's safe without the skill that makes it so though is like playing in the middle of the street. You might get hit and you might not but either way it's not up to you.

oops I'm rambling...

You aren't rambling at all Mike.

Man that was well said.

Keep going Mike, you're getting through to some of us.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Believing that it's safe without the skill that makes it so though is like playing in the middle of the street. You might get hit and you might not but either way it's not up to you.

Keeper Mike.
I'll use it in my very next class.
Rick

 

[Scubaholic]

Scubaholic,
I don't know 4 sure what you mean about "not comfortable" at depth, but the opposite is my problem! I have absolutely no fear or discomfort at depth. I love to go deep. I very much wanted to stay down when I found I was on my own, and I wanted to go deeper.

love2godeep,

I was referring to this comment you had made in your original post:

but I was looking forward to going a little deeper and discovering more about the effects of depth on diving and divers, etc.

I was taking from that that you may have had a little uncertainty about what the effect of that depths would be....possibly a little apprehension and excitement, which would only be normal. I didn't mean to imply that you don't like deep dives. And a little fear is healthy!

 

[Lightning Fish]

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.

You should always have someone with you, otherwise what is the point of having a dive buddy? Unless you are a solo diver and willing to accept the risks that come with solo diving.

As for anxiety, feeling anxious is a symptom of being narced. As you become more comfortable in the water the feeling of anxiety can give way to other manisfestations of narcosis.

Cheers,
Bill.

 

[Diver0001]

...snip...

Do you think I should report the incident to PADI?

Well.... that's obviously up to you. The PADI standards state that the instructor and not the DM must be in the water supervising the dive. If you're absolutely sure that the person leading the dive was a DM and not an instructor then it's against the standards. This part will get PADI's attention if it turns out to be true.

The ratios are max 8 students to 1 instructor so there's nothing to report there even if you don't agree.

Also skipping the safety stop goes against the performance requirements for the dive (meaning that the dive can not be counted for certification but in itself isn't necessarily a standards violation as long as the dive is repeated).

Standards also state that the students are supposed to plan the dive on either the RDP or computer and it didn't sound to me like you did that either.

Your call.

R..

 

[Scubaholic]

As for anxiety, feeling anxious is a symptom of being narced. As you become more comfortable in the water the feeling of anxiety can give way to other manisfestations of narcosis.

Cheers,
Bill.

Yes, but normally not at 85ft. It is also a symptom of several other things, like situational anxiety, CO2, medication side effect, etc.

 

[RiverRat]

Wow, I really appreciate the instructor I've been using for training so much more now. 2 of us did our AOW dives in a dark, cold quarry to 60 ffw. May as well have been 200 feet as far as I was concerned 48-50 degrees and pitch black at the bottom. We did the color charts with a light, we all had Primary and Secondary lights because it was dark. Did the crushed tennis ball, math problems etc. We decended on a line to control decent rate and were told to monitor guages on the way down. Did our stuff and ascended very slowly monitoring guages and the instructor held her hand on the line over ours to "force" us to ascend slowly, in a controlled manner, forcing us to control our BC's etc. We did a 5 minute safety stop. Even though we "only" went to 60 feet it was a challenging dive to me and I really learned alot. I even got disoriented in the dark and got to practice re-orienting myself by watching my instructors bubbles. Awesome dive I thought at the time, I actually LEARNED something. That's what it's all about, learning, not just how deep you go, that's just part of it.