Unacceptable Instructor Behaviors...

[The Chairman]

Not sure how to address it.

I address it with each and every student as well as on here. That's the best I can do for now.

 

[boulderjohn]

You are asking someone who has no experience understanding the limits of his or her scuba skills in relation to the conditions to make a judgment call on his or her limits in relation to the conditions when the expert they are paying to teach them those limits is saying everything is fine.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I address it with each and every student as well as on here. That's the best I can do for now.

Understood. Which is why I'm going to repeat it in the dive planning document several times, instead of just once.

You are asking someone who has no experience understanding the limits of his or her scuba skills in relation to the conditions to make a judgment call on his or her limits in relation to the conditions when the expert they are paying to teach them those limits is saying everything is fine.

Yup. I took a pretty good beating on SB when I shared the incident in my first attempt at AOW. I was given a cylinder that needed its o-ring replaced on my first deep dive to 100 feet. "Oh, its fine, you have plenty of air." My instructor was wrong. Dead wrong. I almost ran out of air. I was at 1000 psi at 1000 feet. At that moment, I lost all trust in my instructor to be my backup air source and I headed back up fairly quickly to the surface (had to follow the bottom a bit, this was along the rope line at Cove 2). I just barely made it with 200 psi still in the tank.

 

[Joneill]

I was at 1000 psi at 1000 feet.

One extra zero there, I’m guessing - otherwise you would not still be alive!

 

[BRT]

Understood. Which is why I'm going to repeat it in the dive planning document several times, instead of just once.



Yup. I took a pretty good beating on SB when I shared the incident in my first attempt at AOW. I was given a cylinder that needed its o-ring replaced on my first deep dive to 100 feet. "Oh, its fine, you have plenty of air." My instructor was wrong. Dead wrong. I almost ran out of air. I was at 1000 psi at 1000 feet. At that moment, I lost all trust in my instructor to be my backup air source and I headed back up fairly quickly to the surface (had to follow the bottom a bit, this was along the rope line at Cove 2). I just barely made it with 200 psi still in the tank.

I didn't even know you could get to 1000 feet at Cove 2! Seriously I hate air leaks even though they often are too small to make a difference. New divers need to learn right away to own their dives. We used to dive with a guy who pushed limits. I would say he taught us how to dive 10 years after we were certified but we learned to watch our own air and our own computers. We spent a lot of great dives following him from up above trying to preserve air and lower nitrogen.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I didn't even know you could get to 1000 feet at Cove 2! Seriously I hate air leaks even though they often are too small to make a difference. New divers need to learn right away to own their dives. We used to dive with a guy who pushed limits. I would say he taught us how to dive 10 years after we were certified but we learned to watch our own air and our own computers. We spent a lot of great dives following him from up above trying to preserve air and lower nitrogen.

lol. I'm sorry, but you seem to not recognize the origin of my first name. It is Greek and my ancestors invented hyperbole! . Elliot Bay is almost 600 feet deep. I was just rounding up.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

One extra zero there, I’m guessing - otherwise you would not still be alive!

Yup. I don't want to go back and edit it, due to the humor that followed

 

[KenGordon]

You are asking someone who has no experience understanding the limits of his or her scuba skills in relation to the conditions to make a judgment call on his or her limits in relation to the conditions when the expert they are paying to teach them those limits is saying everything is fine.

This is a very important point. The student is not competent to judge.

 

[The Chairman]

You are asking someone who has no experience understanding the limits of his or her scuba skills in relation to the conditions to make a judgment call

It's not like their life depends on this... oh wait, it does.

​

Central to my teaching is the concept of "limitations". Before we even get into the pool, we go over my three rules of Scuba, the second one being the "Rule of Fun": You can call a dive at any time, for any reason, no questions asked and no repercussions. IOW, if you're not having fun, then we're doing something wrong. Let's stop and figure it out. We go over this with great care, covering limits such as time, depth and air as well as conditions, stamina, experience and training. The whole point of training is to teach them what is appropriate and what isn't. I actually endeavor to impart judgement to my students. That doesn't mean I don't hold my students' trust of me sacrosanct. I know not every instructor is as conservative as I am. They aren't as good looking either! So, I make sure that my students feel comfortable raising concerns and usually I'll throw them a dive plan that is outrageous and see how they react. If they aren't willing to call a bad dive plan, I'm not willing to give them a c-card.

 

[gcarter]

Personally I see a bit of a disconnect here. It is all well and good for an instructor to drill into a diver that they own their own dive and blame the diver for not calling something they were not comfortable with.

But if none of the instructors the new and inexperienced diver comes into contact with don't do that, why is it unreasonable to expect the diver to trust that the instructor knows better than them and to follow along?