What is the problem with doing a Scuba Review/Refresher?

[boulderjohn]

I don't really understand how a checkout dive assesses a divers skills. I didn't do a checkout dive in Cozumel, but our dive op did easy dive first, and then progressively more challenging (but still pretty easy). In 11 dives, my mask never needed to be cleared, my regulator never left my mouth. How did these dives show my skill at anything other than not crashing into the reef, holding a safety stop, and my ability to equalize/descend?

It seems like if an op wants an assessment of a diver's skills, they need to have them demonstrate them.

Think about that a minute.

First of all, congratulations on never having to clear your mask. I have a great-fitting mask, and I still have to clear it at least a few times on every dive. If you are having a little trouble with that, it's pretty much just your problem. Regulators almost never come out of anyone's mouth, and when they do it usually just drops in front for easy recovery. Dive operators are not worried about those skills.

What they are worried about is your buoyancy control, crashing into the reef, making an unexpected uncontrolled ascent--just generally looking like you are confidently in control of your diving. That tells them whether they have to worry about you or whether they can take you to a more advanced site.

A few years ago I went on some dives in Cozumel with an operator who had only one boat, one DM, and no requirements for checkout dives. It was an operation that advertised itself as doing more advanced dives. The first day there was only one other guy and me, and we had a great time on great dives. The next day we were joined by another couple. From the start it was a disaster. The wife looked like she should not have gotten through the confined water portion of the class. We spent the first 5 minutes of the dive in a sandy patch watching the DM give the woman a buoyancy lesson, the kind that is done during PADI confined water dive #2 now. Then when we tried to do the actual dive, the DM realized he needed to hold her hand the entire time. This was on a dive scheduled to go to 100 feet. You can bet we skipped all the intended swim throughs. The second dive of the day was the same--the DM held her hand throughout the entire dive. I sure wish that operator had the capacity to require a checkout dive. It would have made the rest of us much happier.

 

[redacted]

I don't really understand how a checkout dive assesses a divers skills. I didn't do a checkout dive in Cozumel, but our dive op did easy dive first, and then progressively more challenging (but still pretty easy). In 11 dives, my mask never needed to be cleared, my regulator never left my mouth. How did these dives show my skill at anything other than not crashing into the reef, holding a safety stop, and my ability to equalize/descend?

It seems like if an op wants an assessment of a diver's skills, they need to have them demonstrate them.

You did a checkout dive but did not realize it. That is fairly typical of a good Cozumel op with an unfamiliar diver. This works pretty well in Cozumel as there really aren't any "bad" dive sites.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

In my job I see people practically every week who during a checkout dive:

express fear when asked to clear their mask,
can't clear their mask worth a damn,
refuse to do it,
can't set up equipment,
don't know how much weights they normally use ("about 4" is not an acceptable answer.... 4x 1lb? 2lb? with alu tank?),
don't know how to use a BCD underwater/push the wrong button to deflate and vice versa,
breathe like a horny buffalo,
make a complete shambles of an OOA drill, etc. etc.

Some people even manage all of the above and are required to take a course prior to diving as they have forgotten or ignored many things from their training. Most just need a reminder after the check dive, a little coaching and easy dive site selection.

This is not really indicative of the posters on Scubaboard. Here we care enough (or are bored enough at work) to think about scuba when we do our day to day thing... hence the chest-beating which inevitably arises with threads such as these. The vast majority of people who do a bit of diving on vacation have probably never heard of Scubaboard- they may well 'like' diving but it takes a certain kind of person to devote energy to considering the different aspects of this sport that we love.

Apparently, some people have 'real' lives to live. I pity the fool

Well, what do you expect with the level of training these days.
Do you really expect people to get a grasp on diving with an abreviated course such as what is the norm these days?
All the things you listed above are the most basic skills that should be automatic, just like riding a bike. Anybody who decides they want to submerge themselves into an environment that can easily suffocate them really should take it a little more serious.

This is my problem with how the industry has just focused on profits and not a quality product. It's also my problem with consumers that don't take this sport serious enough to give a damn about acquiring skills and keeping skills. It's all about how many people they can run through in the shortest amount of time possible and keep feeding the machine and the people who are down with putting no time into learning. I blame both sides equally.
If people are forgetting the simplest most basic stuff then maybe they really never learned it to start with.
I know people who if they were out of the water for 10 years they would STILL know more than half of these fakers, these posers, that pass as open water divers these days.

 

[Storker]

We do lots of refreshers in the fall and winter months, one a week. There is a strong demand for them here by those folks diving on vacation once or twice a year.

I suggest some sort of refresher for divers who have been out of the water for any serious length of time (over say 1 year), but I can't see why doing such a refresher with an actual Instructor should be required. A good DM reviewing the basic skills and gear set up should be enough for most, unless there have been some major changes in gear since you last dived.

Around here, a diver is assumed by default to be competent enough to dive independently with a buddy, and to plan and execute the dive without being hand-held. Maybe it's because a very large part of the diving around here is non-commercial, either through non-commercial diving clubs or just a few friends diving together.

In my club, we've had new members who either were recently OW certified or who haven't been diving for a long(ish) time and therefore were feeling a bit insecure. It has happened more than once that we've taken some of those new members on a dive at our training site - which is quite easy and benign - and just mentored them through a dive or two. After that, they're assumed to be competent to dive with a normal buddy. We can also do that on a normal club outing, and club outings are usually organized to give everyone, from the newly minted OW diver to those with decades of experience, a nice, fun and comfortable dive. Refresher courses? I don't think there's much of a market for those around here...

With that background, If I'm on a diving vacation, I'll get somewhat pi$$ed off if the guide/DM/whatever treated me as a kindergarten kid needing hand-holding and overseeing. I like to think that I'm competent enough to do the dives I feel comfortable with, without some lowly paid peon taking control over my diving (I'm responsible for my gear and my diving myself, thankyouverymuch!). And if the conditions are at or beyond the border of my training and experience (e.g. current so strong that I can't hold my position against it, waves >1-2m height, or other conditions I haven't dived in my home waters), it's my responsibility to determine if I'm competent to do that dive. It's on me to either call the dive or ask someone familiar with the conditions (e.g. the guide or DM) to help me out and mentor/tutor me. It's not the responsibility of someone with a commercial interest. I don't trust them enough for that.

This difference in attitude and diving practice between the (sub)tropical PADI "diving industry" and the way a lot of us dive in Northern Europe is something I don't stop wondering about. I guess it takes all kinds...

 

[BiFfMaN]

For myself (the new guy), i would venture to believe that when traveling to a new location location would require some getting used too. To add the different dive conditions with gear that could have possibly been damaged during the plane ride there would warrant a good check in the water before doing what was before a simple task. Point being, Complacency can kill you just as fast as Incompetence.

 

[Storker]

You're quite right, complacency kills, different locations have different diving, and I totally agree that when you're diving at a new place, it's a very good idea to take it a bit slow and start simple and easy.

Which is another reason I don't have any problems with a guide who is making my first dive a simple one, keeping an eye on me to check me out and assess my skills. But that's different from being required to take a refresher or being treated as not competent to dive without a babysitter.

 

[BiFfMaN]

Storker, you do make a great point on Dive Masters treating you poorly because of a assumed diver skill knowledge is a bad practice. Even as a new diver i would find this behavior disturbing.

Self-reliance to me looks like a invaluable skill for both new and old divers. Once you master yourself, the better you can help others.

 

[chrisch]

A diver master can answer that with -"very easily"

If I was a professional, I personally wouldn't be worried whether a diver could accomplish low level skills like being able to clear their mask if by watching how they dived I could see them accomplishing higher level skills. In other words a diver displaying a high level of skilled diving is going to get the benefit of the doubt they can clear their mask without actually making them do it. Like any professional in any activity, I would imagine a professional, experienced dive master can observe a diver for 60 seconds and make a pretty accurate judgement call as to their skill level.

Sorry that's rubbish. Firstly, I'm not sure that mask clearing is a "low level" skill (whatever that means) it is a skill that seems to trouble many new divers. I can still remember the pleasure of water up the nose and the bolt for the surface on my OW course over 20 years ago. Not nice. A good diver should be able to make an ascent and safety/deco stop without a mask. Heading topside at 200mph from 40m is not a good idea.

What you can see (whether of not a PADI Pro) in 60 seconds is someone's buoyancy control. In that I can see the merit of assessing this skill where there is delicate coral or other life that needs to be protected.

Perhaps therefore you have given us the answer (thank you). It is buoyancy and buoyancy alone that is the purpose check out. If so it (for the first time ever) begins to make sense to me. If so, this makes even more silly the (so called) Pro DM that wanted the skills performed kneeling on the bottom. A 2m hover in the pool would be a quicker and easier way to achieve the goal. (And the weight check).

I see a lot of new/inexperienced/holiday divers over-weighted and finning to maintain buoyancy. Losing some lead and using the BC properly is not hard. PADI's PPB specialty is a good place to start for the holiday diver, or a GUE-F or IANTD-F for the committed. I think if I were a dive op I would be trying to sell this course a lot harder than the review.

 

[AdivingBel]

Well, what do you expect with the level of training these days.
Do you really expect people to get a grasp on diving with an abreviated course such as what is the norm these days?
All the things you listed above are the most basic skills that should be automatic, just like riding a bike. Anybody who decides they want to submerge themselves into an environment that can easily suffocate them really should take it a little more serious.

This is my problem with how the industry has just focused on profits and not a quality product. It's also my problem with consumers that don't take this sport serious enough to give a damn about acquiring skills and keeping skills. It's all about how many people they can run through in the shortest amount of time possible and keep feeding the machine and the people who are down with putting no time into learning. I blame both sides equally.
If people are forgetting the simplest most basic stuff then maybe they really never learned it to start with.
I know people who if they were out of the water for 10 years they would STILL know more than half of these fakers, these posers, that pass as open water divers these days.

Gee wiz Eric, I took a 3 day OW course several years ago. I was already comfortable in the water, and with my work schedule, it was the only way I could fit it in. Now after a couple hundred dives, I generally hover and let the wildlife come to me, scull around for a walk in the park, or sometimes I take a nap...seems like a pretty small hole you're stuffing all us pigeons (i.e. fakers and posers) into...

 

[Hawkwood]

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