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

[Belzelbub]

I wonder how many recreational agency instructors would refuse to allow primary donate/bungeed second configuration in OW since it’s not considered “proper” by the book in current training?

I'm betting that most agencies consider it proper.
My first OW cert was with PADI in 1990. In that class secondary donate was taught.
My second OW cert was a combo class where we could get up to three agency certs. (YMCA, NAUI, CMAS). Primary donate was taught.

It would make the regulator sweep kind of silly and the “triangle” would no longer be relevant.

Not sure I'm following on the sweep. As I understood it, the sweep was taught to retrieve a primary, didn't have anything to do with regulator donation.

I only recall the triangle being mentioned in my first PADI course.

 

[VikingDives]

Yeah it would have helped to either not have a snorkel at all or stow it somewhere else, then it wouldn’t have been there to grab. I honestly don’t know why he grabbed it, brain fart I guess?

One of the things I saw a lot of during my time as a DM was students grabbing snorkels instead of their low pressure inflators. Why? It's in about the right place, and they don't have muscle memory yet. In my experience, that muscle memory kicks in somewhere between dive 12 and dive 20. You could be in rescue training with 10 dives.

One of the first decisions I made as an instructor was that no student would have a snorkel attached when they were underwater. Now that I run my own shop, we only sell roll-up snorkels.

 

[BoltSnap]

One of the first decisions I made as an instructor was that no student would have a snorkel attached when they were underwater. Now that I run my own shop, we only sell roll-up snorkels.

In contrast, I teach snorkeling/skin diving along with scuba and emphasize good skin diving skills throughout the course. I don't have students confuse or struggle with snorkels by the middle of the course at all. When students drop underwater, they learn to push back the snorkel keeper on the mask strap (it is usually pushed back for optimum location while snorkeling on surface anyways). If anyone confuses using the BC inflator or anything else with the snorkel, they will go through exercises switching between all without confusion. I don't have any issues afterwards with snorkel confusion.

 

[boulderjohn]

One of the things I saw a lot of during my time as a DM was students grabbing snorkels instead of their low pressure inflators.

My first experience with this gave me a valuable tool in my teaching.

I was a newly minted instructor, and my very first assignemassignment was joining my Colorado shop for a trip to Key Largo, where I would do the OW certification dives for 3 OW students on that trip. I had not taught them in the pool, so the first time I saw them in the water was on those dives. One of them had significant buoyancy and trim problems that I resolved to fix by the time we were done. He was swimming at a 45° angle and kicking constantly, which meant he maintained his depth by being negatively buoyant. Whenever he stopped to look at his console, he would go completely vertical, ascend, become positively buoyant, and begin an uncontrolled ascent. He would then dump air from the BCD, descend, and replace the air in the BCD.

When he did it one time, we were all looking up at him, waiting for him to come back down to us. He fumbled to get ahold of his inflator hose, and he got the snorkel instead. He held it high above his head. pressed the top of it, and then sank down to join us. The other two students looked at each other in amazement, looks that clearly asked, "How in the world did that work?"

That gave us something to talk about after the dive, and I explained that when he had finally found the snorkel, thinking it was the inflator hose, he he breathed out a great sigh of relief, and that sigh of relief had been enough to make him negatively buoyant again. That story eventually became a staple in the academic portion of my classes.

 

[VikingDives]

In contrast, I teach snorkeling/skin diving along with scuba and emphasize good skin diving skills throughout the course. I don't have students confuse or struggle with snorkels by the middle of the course at all. When students drop underwater, they learn to push back the snorkel keeper on the mask strap (it is usually pushed back for optimum location while snorkeling on surface anyways). If anyone confuses using the BC inflator or anything else with the snorkel, they will go through exercises switching between all without confusion. I don't have any issues afterwards with snorkel confusion.

No doubt that it can be done, and most students do not have a problem with it. I take a very reductionist view towards scuba training, meaning I eliminate some of the things that I used to teach (or would still teach in a PADI course) because I don't have unlimited time. So there's no skin diving (or compass navigation) in my (SDI) class. I'd rather spend the hour that that portion of the training takes on scuba skills. The only time my students wear a snorkel is when performing SDI's required skills.

My view is you should train the way you fight. Close to 100% of divers ditch their snorkels by the time they've got a few non-training dives, and I'd rather eliminate potential failure points. As I mentioned, my experience is that most new divers are still in the stage of learning where the process of using their low pressure inflator requires active thinking. Something like, "I'm decending too fast. I'd like that to stop. How do I do that? Oh yeah, grab the lpi and add air. Where's that lpi?" is going on each time they're making a correction even after they are certified. Eliminating the snorkel is one way to ensure that they don't grab it when they aren't in training (and they're likely to ditch it anyway).

None of this is meant to be a knock on the way you teach btw, there's more than one way to create a good diver and I think I'm probably in the minority when it comes to my view on teaching snorkeling.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

When students drop underwater, they learn to push back the snorkel keeper on the mask strap (it is usually pushed back for optimum location while snorkeling on surface anyways).

What snorkel keeper do you use? As I don't see this working very well.

 

[BoltSnap]

So there's no skin diving (or compass navigation) in my (SDI) class

There is no requirement for any compass navigation work in the OW SDI course, not even reciprocal course??

Close to 100% of divers ditch their snorkels by the time they've got a few non-training dives, and I'd rather eliminate potential failure points.

My students don't drop the snorkels at all. Everyone I have trained uses them afterwards. They don't consider them as failure point because they were trained how to use.

As I mentioned, my experience is that most new divers are still in the stage of learning where the process of using their low pressure inflator requires active thinking. Something like, "I'm decending too fast. I'd like that to stop. How do I do that? Oh yeah, grab the lpi and add air. Where's that lpi?" is going on each time they're making a correction even after they are certified. Eliminating the snorkel is one way to ensure that they don't grab it when they aren't in training (and they're likely to ditch it anyway).

In my entry level course, my students do 8 - 10 openwater dives in addition to pool and class time. They are very used to their equipment by the time they graduate. I don't say that they are perfect but they have done the basic skills many times to the point where they are almost second nature.

I emphasize skin diving/snorkel (including swimming 1.5Km with full free diving kit) because it makes all scuba skills seem much easier.

 

[BoltSnap]

What snorkel keeper do you use? As I don't see this working very well.

Whatever that comes with SP, Omer and XS Scuba snorkels, usually the plastic clips. Just push it as far back towards the rear of the head and it will be moved away from the mouth reducing the chance, no eliminating it though, of grabbing it by mistake or interfering with anything else.

 

[Wibble]

What’s the point of a snorkel when diving? To identify newbies?

 

[BoltSnap]

What’s the point of a snorkel when diving? To identify newbies?

Swim from A to B on surface without wasting air from tanks or for emergencies to get back to exit point when you have exhausted your air perhaps??

I use it extensively myself, been doing that since I started scuba diving circa 1973; I am not old but not "newbie."