Things Scuba Instructors teach that are either bad or just wrong.

[gamon]

My girlfriend just completed her OW and AOW training last week and as an experienced bystander I couldn't help but notice that several things her two different instructors told her are simply wrong or just bad form, (in my opinion).

Comments and any additional observations others have seen when watching students being instructed that are not good practice are welcome.

Her OW instructor told her to turn her SPG away from her face when pressurizing the rig to avoid injury if the face exploded. To my knowledge and understanding, the pressure blowout plug on the back of the spg will be most likely to blow if there's an over-pressure situation and by turning the spg away from the divers face they are more likely to be injured from the plug should this occur.

Her OW instructor told her to blow out the dust cap with compressed air from the tank before putting it in the regulator. I find this incredibly annoying when divers do it on a boat, if they all did it, it would be over the top annoying, and all it accomplishes is to possibly blow water all over the place including INTO the first stage of the regulator.

Her OW instructor did much of the training on the sand, and didn't make all that much of an attempt to avoid stepping, kicking, and hitting the bottom on many occasions, in fact she did better than he did! It's my belief that divers should never, ever contact the bottom intentionally except maybe on an intentionally overweighted shark dive where the divemaster wants the divers to stay in place and move as little as possible. When the instructor makes contact with the bottom, and teaches students to kneel on the bottom it encourages this bad practice going forward.

Her AOW instructor asked me why I didn't get her Nitrox for a particular dive, since she had just completed her Nitrox course. This was a 25 foot reef dive. I said "Um.. Because there's no advantage to Nitrox on a shallow reef dive". He shook his head and said "At our age (55+) we should ALL dive Nitrox on EVERY dive." Really?

 

[Akimbo]

Buy all your dive gear from the dive shop I work for.

 

[gamon]

Buy all your dive gear from the dive shop I work for.

Reminds me of something else her AOW instructor said. "Take my Peak Performance subspecialty course". There was a kid doing his course when my GF and another girl were doing her AOW. This kid was all over the place, bumping into her and the other student and the instructor made no attempt to correct him, nor did she see him instructing the kid in any way.

Other divers who I know who are familiar with this instructor says he recommends his course to every diver regardless of their experience or skills.

Can't imagine why :-(

 

[The Chairman]

He shook his head and said "At our age (55+) we should ALL dive Nitrox on EVERY dive." Really?

Yeah. I dive NitrOx in a pool as well. Old cells aren't as elastic as younger cells. What doesn't go in, doesn't have to come back out.

I certainly feel students that learn to kneel are disadvantaged.

 

[TMHeimer]

--the SPG... My Rescue Instructor (a PADI Course Director) said to hold the 2nd stage purge button down when turning on tank air-- then release it. The high pressure air then "has somewhere to go" (other than directly to places like the SPG I assume). Someone here on SB said that makes no sense. As far as the glass side of SPG vs. back side blow out plug-- you could be right, I never though about it.

---The dust cap blow thing.... You can do this without shooting water into your tank valve, as it isn't rocket science. Whether it does any good or not, I dunno. I suppose it can be annoying-- I almost always dive alone so that's not a factor if I do it. People get annoyed at all sorts of things nowadays-- like the guy who shot the fast food guy in the face recently because his mom said her fries were cold.

---Touching the bottom. Depends where you are and what you're doing. Holding onto a rock in Maine to steady yourself catch a lobster or spear a flounder isn't the same as grabbing a reef in Belize to get a better photo. I won't get into the teaching of skills neutrally vs. kneeling or sitting in sand or on the pool bottom. Too many threads on that already and too many have been bored by my ramblings about it.
.

 

[Angelo Farina]

Yeah. I dive NitrOx in a pool as well. Old cells aren't as elastic as younger cells. What doesn't go in, doesn't have to come back out.

I am also well over sixty. I always thought that oxygen is very toxic and causes inflammation.
Young cells withsand better this toxicity, in fact when I was a teenager I was trained diving using the pure oxygen CC rebreather (ARO), and we were using it down to 12m (with a p.pressure over 2.2 bar!).
Growing older I became aware of the bad effect of oxygen at higher-than normal pressure, and I try now to minimize the exposure of my cells to oxygen as much as I can.
I am aware that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can cure some diseases, under medical guidance.
But I classify it among powerful drugs: to be used only when needed and after prescription by a medical doctor...
So I would never use Nitrox when not needed, exactly as I do not use any drug if not strictly necessary.

 

[saxman242]

Her OW instructor told her to turn her SPG away from her face when pressurizing the rig to avoid injury if the face exploded. To my knowledge and understanding, the pressure blowout plug on the back of the spg will be most likely to blow if there's an over-pressure situation and by turning the spg away from the divers face they are more likely to be injured from the plug should this occur

As a pure anecdote, I was taught this during my ow course 25 years ago.

While setting up my gear at the pool for the pool session, I did what I was told, aimed the spg face to the pool deck, pressurized the reg, and promptly shot the glass off the front of the spg as it failed, exactly as warned could happen.

Instructors said they'd never actually seen it happen, but it was enough for me to make sure the glass is always pointing away (and I make sure I'm not in direct flight of the plug on the back) every time I pressurize my tank to this day.

 

[rick00001967]

As a pure anecdote, I was taught this during my ow course 25 years ago.

While setting up my gear at the pool for the pool session, I did what I was told, aimed the spg face to the pool deck, pressurized the reg, and promptly shot the glass off the front of the spg as it failed, exactly as warned could happen.

Instructors said they'd never actually seen it happen, but it was enough for me to make sure the glass is always pointing away (and I make sure I'm not in direct flight of the plug on the back) every time I pressurize my tank to this day.

same thing happened to one of our instructors. blew the face right off at the pool one night.
i have also been told that regs never fail closed. they only fail open. i have seen a reg fail to deliver gas three times. go figure.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

i have also been told that regs never fail closed. they only fail open. i have seen a reg fail to deliver gas three times. go figure.

Can you describe that? I only know of one instance, and it took a while to stop delivering gas all together. For each of the 3 instances, how quickly did it shut off completely?

 

[Bob DBF]

Her OW instructor told her to turn her SPG away from her face when pressurizing the rig to avoid injury if the face exploded. To my knowledge and understanding, the pressure blowout plug on the back of the spg will be most likely to blow if there's an over-pressure situation and by turning the spg away from the divers face they are more likely to be injured from the plug should this occur.

My first point in red above. There was a time when the blowout plug in an SPG was nonexistant, I still have some around so it's a good rule for me.

Another thing to take into consideration is that one is pressurizing equipment to 125+ psi and 3000+ psi and a failure may occur. I, personally, don't want to be looking at a HP failure when I know I won't be wearing eye protection. I also open valves slowly to minimize any shock to the system which could trigger a failure. Sometimes divers forget how F'n dangerous HP air can be.