So what is a basic certification today?
- Thread starter Ana
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How come some of us (instructors) come on here and defend the instructor on the watch issue by quoteing standards yet can't be bothered to point out 17mins is not long enough to count as a dive? (by standards)
Bottom line, looks like the OP witnessed an all too common course where the instr. barely meets (or slightly below) standards.
I'm so sick of hearing Instructors(and agencies) justify a crappy course with "It meets standards", don't we have an ethical need to do a good course?
Agency aside, why don't we start a new thread on Scubaboard where "our" (Scubaboards) instructors post a commitment to teach a great course that makes divers, not just people with a card who have breathed underwater. With all of us on here we can cover each state and we know enough people considering learning to dive check out Scubaboard. We would also hear soon enough if any of us don't live up too the commitment!
Bottom line, looks like the OP witnessed an all too common course where the instr. barely meets (or slightly below) standards.
I'm so sick of hearing Instructors(and agencies) justify a crappy course with "It meets standards", don't we have an ethical need to do a good course?
Agency aside, why don't we start a new thread on Scubaboard where "our" (Scubaboards) instructors post a commitment to teach a great course that makes divers, not just people with a card who have breathed underwater. With all of us on here we can cover each state and we know enough people considering learning to dive check out Scubaboard. We would also hear soon enough if any of us don't live up too the commitment!
My dear Ana, I've been telling you this for years. I think Mike nailed it:
Yeah and I'm sick of people with the untrue mantra, "it's the instructor, not the agency." As long as instructors can justify a crappy course with "It meets standards", it's simply not true. Ethical instructors will teach the best course they can. One major problem is most instructors, even those teaching those crappy classes, think they are doing an excellent job. They believe the BS they heard in their IDC & IEC.
MikeFerrara:
cerich:
Yeah and I'm sick of people with the untrue mantra, "it's the instructor, not the agency." As long as instructors can justify a crappy course with "It meets standards", it's simply not true. Ethical instructors will teach the best course they can. One major problem is most instructors, even those teaching those crappy classes, think they are doing an excellent job. They believe the BS they heard in their IDC & IEC.
kchFLA
Guest
My first purchase was a dive watch. I saw a similar incident when I did my boat dive during class. Another instructor had students and all of his students asked him how much time. On the other hand my instructor was asking me how much time.
Oh and the class was being taught was one agency's system, but the instructor used the dive table from another agency because it was more liberal. Is that acceptable?
Oh and the class was being taught was one agency's system, but the instructor used the dive table from another agency because it was more liberal. Is that acceptable?
cerich, brilliant! People are always saying that it's not the agency, it's the instructor . . . if fine instructors are scattered like the raisins in breakfast cereal, how is the prospective student to find them?
kchFLA:
That depends on the agency's standards. Which agency? With YMCA, it would be a violation to use PADI's RDP because it is more liberal, but I can use DCIEM's tables because they are more conservative. Some may require their own tables regardless of which are more liberal.
Diveral
Contributor
cerich:
Hear Hear What a splendid idea.:god:
kent_1848
Guest
One problem, could be that a lot of instructors (the ones that took their open water class 8 months ago) don't really learn to dive. There are instructors out there with fewer hours in the water than many open water divers. They are teaching what they were taught to teach. If they weren't taught to use a watch, it may not dawn on them that it is essential to have one. My instructor emphasized that everyone have a way of keeping track of their bottom time. Hence I also emphasize it with students. However, I have helped out instructors where there was no mention of "How are you going to know how long you have been down?"
I took a PADI OW cert in late 2003. During the checkout dives at no time were we expected to know the bottom time, or the time of the surface interval (I knew it because I was paying attention to detail, but the info was not required, nor did we run tables between dives, or undertake any other activity to ensure the repeat dives would be "safely within NDL")
The dive instructors were all using computers, not stopwatches, and they did not (to my observation) make any effort to do other than track the "bars" showing nitrogen loading on their computers; and when that was done, it was done by the team that had gone out early to set the dive flag and run the lines used for the instruction, so they were more N-loaded than the rest of the crew.
Last comment:
While I thought the procedure was lax and I endorse heartily the idea that people need to be trained on procedures, not just expected to take control of their own diving on the very first day spontaneously, I will readily admit that at no time did I feel the diving was "unsafe". The instructors teach many classes at this location, the dives were task-scheduled, not time-scheduled (in other words, we did our drills and then exited, and the total time of the drills was almost always less than 20 minutes) and we had a surface intervals of more than an hour between dives. At no time did we come anywhere close to a NDL; nor would we have been able to given the depth we were at and the consumption rates of the students. Underwater, PSI was checked frequently, and I know the DMs and instructors had a rough (but good) estimate of all our gas supplies during the checkout dives - I think everyone in the class was gas limited, not ND limited anyway.
Would I recommend this procedure as SOP? Never. But it is the kind of thing you get when everyone rents their gear, the "purchase equipment" bar is set as low as possible (i.e. no dive computers, and likely no underwater timepieces), and the instructors are conducting training under conditions and on a schedule where no diver is likely to have any NDL issues whatsoever. I do think it is an immediate cause of the over-reliance on dive computers by new divers; many probably have not looked at an NDL chart since getting their C-Cards and would be flummoxed by how to use it without a refresher course. On the other hand, those computers keep 99% of recreational divers in the safe area anyway. (Reminds me of when I was a kid, and my dad kept insisting that I learn to solve math problems without a calculator, because "someday" I might not have access to one....a legitimate issue, but a low-percentage chance issue.)
The dive instructors were all using computers, not stopwatches, and they did not (to my observation) make any effort to do other than track the "bars" showing nitrogen loading on their computers; and when that was done, it was done by the team that had gone out early to set the dive flag and run the lines used for the instruction, so they were more N-loaded than the rest of the crew.
Last comment:
While I thought the procedure was lax and I endorse heartily the idea that people need to be trained on procedures, not just expected to take control of their own diving on the very first day spontaneously, I will readily admit that at no time did I feel the diving was "unsafe". The instructors teach many classes at this location, the dives were task-scheduled, not time-scheduled (in other words, we did our drills and then exited, and the total time of the drills was almost always less than 20 minutes) and we had a surface intervals of more than an hour between dives. At no time did we come anywhere close to a NDL; nor would we have been able to given the depth we were at and the consumption rates of the students. Underwater, PSI was checked frequently, and I know the DMs and instructors had a rough (but good) estimate of all our gas supplies during the checkout dives - I think everyone in the class was gas limited, not ND limited anyway.
Would I recommend this procedure as SOP? Never. But it is the kind of thing you get when everyone rents their gear, the "purchase equipment" bar is set as low as possible (i.e. no dive computers, and likely no underwater timepieces), and the instructors are conducting training under conditions and on a schedule where no diver is likely to have any NDL issues whatsoever. I do think it is an immediate cause of the over-reliance on dive computers by new divers; many probably have not looked at an NDL chart since getting their C-Cards and would be flummoxed by how to use it without a refresher course. On the other hand, those computers keep 99% of recreational divers in the safe area anyway. (Reminds me of when I was a kid, and my dad kept insisting that I learn to solve math problems without a calculator, because "someday" I might not have access to one....a legitimate issue, but a low-percentage chance issue.)
PerroneFord
Contributor
As a newbie diver, I am going to climb onto a high horse here that I don't own. I hope you'll forgive the indulgence.
1. If you can't afford a dive watch that is good to 100ft, you don't need to have SCUBA gear on your back. One of my dive watches was less than $7 at Wal-Mart, and yes I DID take it to 100ft.
2. If, as an instructor, you don't require your students to have a means to time their dives and work the tables BY HAND, you should have your instructor card removed on the spot. Period. I don't give a rats ***** what agency you instruct for.
3. As a student, if you leave dive class without a fundamental understanding of how to follow the dive tables, you don't need to be a diver. This is like taking a driving course and never learning how to use the brakes. Foolhardy, and potentially deadly.
4. It is *MY OPINION* that EVERY OW diver should have to learn to dive with a depth guage, a watch, and an SPG as their only instrumentation. I did my first 30 dives this way.
I could go on, but these are my huge pet peeves. Hopefully I don't piss anyone off too badly with them, but that's just the way I feel.
Again, thanks for your indulgence.
1. If you can't afford a dive watch that is good to 100ft, you don't need to have SCUBA gear on your back. One of my dive watches was less than $7 at Wal-Mart, and yes I DID take it to 100ft.
2. If, as an instructor, you don't require your students to have a means to time their dives and work the tables BY HAND, you should have your instructor card removed on the spot. Period. I don't give a rats ***** what agency you instruct for.
3. As a student, if you leave dive class without a fundamental understanding of how to follow the dive tables, you don't need to be a diver. This is like taking a driving course and never learning how to use the brakes. Foolhardy, and potentially deadly.
4. It is *MY OPINION* that EVERY OW diver should have to learn to dive with a depth guage, a watch, and an SPG as their only instrumentation. I did my first 30 dives this way.
I could go on, but these are my huge pet peeves. Hopefully I don't piss anyone off too badly with them, but that's just the way I feel.
Again, thanks for your indulgence.
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