Water skill levels of Open Water students & course pace

[TMHeimer]

I would think that the majority of scuba students take the course because they love being in water and can't wait until they are able to spend 20 or 30 minutes underwater. It seems odd to me why someone who is so uncomfortable in the water and dreads being underwater would consider scuba to be a fun sport for them.
When my daughter took a summer camp scuba class there was a 12 year old girl that her parents made her take the class to get her over her fear of water. She couldn't even put her face in the water standing in the shallow end of the pool. Kudos to the dive shop who had an extra person come in just to spend the whole classes with just her. At the end of the week she was snorkeling in the deep end. But... if the class as a whole had to move at her pace then none of them would have gotten certified.
I admire the op for accomplishing his goal to be certified even with the difficulties faced but I think it us unfair to the instructors and other students to feel they should have slowed the class down beyond a reasonable expectation to be able to finish the class in the time allotted.

Yes, good for her and good for the shop. The puzzling thing to me is when an adult with the same problems jumps right in and signs up for OW course. When I signed up (having a lifetime of water experience) even I knew I was getting into something that involved a lot of skills--something much more complicated than what I had been doing.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Jim, when you say buddy breathing swim, do you mean shared air swimming? Or are you talking active 1 reg per buddy team?

Can you explain what the bailout drill is?

Also, what is the objective of the black out mask drill?

Thanks,

-Arturo

No I mean actual one secondary reg buddy breathing swim. We are still allowed to teach it and I do as I feel it is a necessary and useful skill. Especially given the care I have seen some rental regs given. And it is also a good task loading and confidence building skill.

Just as the station breathing is. You put a scuba unit in each corner. The tank is on. On a signal the diver takes a breath or two from one unit and swims to the next leaving the unit. They are wearing weight belts. When they reach the next station they put the gear on, take a few breaths, take it back off and swim to next and repeat. What makes it fun is when you have different sizes and types of BC's. I use jackets, back inflates, and a BPW. They don't have to get each adjusted perfectly. It is, again, a task loading and equipment familiarization drill.

The bailout drill is where the student sits or stands on the edge of the pool and with the tank on and primary in their mouth. All the rest of their gear is held in or on their arms. They then jump or fall in and as the settle to the bottom they begin to put their gear on until they are fully geared up and able to get neutral and swim a lap around the pool. It is used as a gear familiarization and confidence building skill. The way I demo is that the mask is the last thing I put on. Divers should not need to see to put their gear on in the water.
DM/AI/ and Instructor candidates do this same drill but the tank is off and reg held in the hand, not in the mouth. And they have to jump in. No easy falling into the water.

The blacked out mask was something I picked up from the way our CEO teaches his OW classes. Here in the northeast and Midwest we do much of our diving in lakes and quarries. Most of these have bottoms composed of very fine silt. Get too close or get behind a class with yoyo OW divers and vis can go to zero in the blink of an eye. The blackout mask prepares them for that. It is a couple loops around the pool by feel in touch contact with your buddy. At some point they will also do an air share during this swim. Communicating OOA or LOA by touch on the donors arm in a slicing motion.

It shows them that not being able to see suddenly is not an emergency. It is an inconvenience and they can react slowly and calmly to it. They do not need to immediately ascend. They can stop and wait for the vis to clear, continue on slowly in another direction and come out of it, or they can indeed abort the dive and ascend. Point is they have choices they can make and make those choices even blind. All using good buddy procedures and touch communication. They also have fun identifying various objects they "come across". I'll drop a torpedo, plastic fish, a slate, etc. as they are feeling their way around and ask them to ID those items after the swim and where they were.

 

[TMHeimer]

I think these are good drills. I haven't done the blacked out mask, but have been in 0 viz and can imagine this drill is good practise. While I was a DMC, an instructor from another shop offered to help me with skills. He put everything on the bottom of the pool and I had to go down and put it all on. Of course first was the reg, then mask (without the mask on, it would obviously have been harder than if I had all the gear already in my arms). I didn't find it at all difficult. Just a matter of putting it all on--probably could be done this before that or vice versa, etc. These were just OW skills anyway, all put together. I was antsy pantsy about the equipment exchange, but we had a method and it was easy. I would think that is realy harder than just putting your own stuff on without having to buddy breathe.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Yep. All OW skills.