What one thing do you wish you'd learned in BOW?

[torbaydiver]

Help to do a direct dissent and assent safely into deeper water!
All our training was done walking into and out of the sea from the beach .
The location of quick dumps on the BCD-didn't even realise they existed
how to cope with a stuck inflator !

 

[fgray1]

I learned all the things you guys say you wish you learned in my open water class. I was able to take extra pool sessions at no charge. I was invited to go on extra open water dives to fine tune my skills, I learned how to calculate my SAC rate. The use of my equiptment and all emergancy procedures. I was able to sit and talk with the instuctor one on one and ask questions. I was invited to site in on class room work with other student as a reveiw. I guess it depends on who you choose to teach you.
The one thing I learned in my life is that at some time you have to stop practicing and start learning. Maybe thats the one thing everyone should learn.

Oh ya so everyone knows. GDI is the instuctor that I have taken all my training from and will continue to do so.
All the way from OW to Intro to cave. And if you ask the people that have dove with me they will tell you GDI has done a good job.

Just my opinion
Fred

 

[tonyc]

I agree with everyone, but I would have liked to learn more on....


1. communication skills other than the basic signs. Actually, I still need help here.

2. Ascending slowly and in control in a deeper environment than a pool (where you need to compensate for air expanding in the BC and your wetsuit gaining bouyancy. My wife and I could always manage ascents at a snails pace in the pool, but alone in the ocean we looked like a pair of yoyo's (Hey we are ascending too fast...hey, we're on the bottom again :wacko: ) I've learned a lot here on Scubaboard, especially the tip (I think from UP) to watch the "stuff" in the water column.

3. More on air consumption (in cubic foot per minute rather than PSI) and when to start your ascent from various depths based on your sac. Our instructor touched on this, but he said it wasn't part of the BOW curriculum. Thank god, otherwise I would have had some issues on my first 80 foot dive- Thanks Bill Mitchell! )

Tony

 

[cudachaser]

1 & 3, I work well in the pool with...2 is difficult to simulate in 6 to 10ft....I treat as careful skill in the open water sessions

 

[DFC5343]

Mo2vation once bubbled...
Buoyancy control would have been nice, but trim is at the top for me. There's no way I could have actually learned this in OW... I would have liked to have seen it. At least a demo of where the bar should be with trim and byouancy.

I was on Catalina this weekend - and we were at the old swim platform (55') in perfect viz. Just checking it out... I'm horizontal, a couple of inches from the bottom and just lighting up the thing... it was fun.

Then the eggbeaters came in. They had what would be considered by most as "good buoyancy control", but because they were "diving" essentially standing up (maybe 3 or 4 feet off the bottom) their kicks raised such a cloud that I just had to sigh, and motion to my buddy it was time to go.

It was sad - I mean, they weren't BAD divers. They weren't UNSAFE. I'm sure they were having a great time. They're just ignorant. I wish someone had told me and showed me the benefits of diving horizontally in good trim when I first started.

K

People in Ca. dive like they drive...in a hurry for no reason.

 

[ElectricZombie]

There were a ton of things missing from when I was certified.

-Bouyancy not really mentioned
-Only flutter kick taught
-Trim not mentioned
-Proper weighting ignored
-Poor equiptment setups used
-OOG situations not effectively handled
-Use of hands allowed

The really sad thing is that none of this stuff was even mentioned on my way to becoming an Instructor either. I ended up having to figure all this stuff out myself.

 

[BEM]

One thing that would have been beneficial is teaching students how much air is in a charged system, with the tank valve shut off.

I didn’t realize how much air was in the system until I forgot to open the value after I had checked my pressure and then closed the valve. I checked the air and got quite a few breaths before there was nothing left to breathe. My buddy would have caught the closed value on our check, but if she missed it, I could be 10 feet down before I ran out. I made sure I practised turning on the value under water after that.

I would suggest having the student in the shallow end, open the value, charge the system, close the valve, get the student to breathe and have them put their heads just below the surface, to let them know what it feels like.

 

[Mo2vation]

tonyc once bubbled...
I agree with everyone, but I would have liked to learn more on....

1. communication skills other than the basic signs. Actually, I still need help here.

Tony

Have you been here? Apart from the most basic stuff ("You OK?", "thumb the dive", "OOA", "Show me your huge friggen brick of a console so I can see how much gas you've hoovered") and the easily discernable stuff ("I gotta Pee", "WOW", "You're missing an arm") most of my buddy communication is with numbers.

Stuff like, "move up to 50 feet, level off" & "lets go to 20 feet and hold," etc. Getting the numbering basics locked in helps eliminate buddies flashing 4 sets of numbers at me, or worse, trying to communicate they have 1550 pounds left in the can (with 2 hands, backwards, of course...)

People I often dive with - we have our own signs for stuff, but in communicating the basics (especially numbers) there should be no waivering and no room for mis-interpretation.

K

 

[Cave Diver]

torbaydiver once bubbled...
Help to do a direct dissent and assent safely into deeper water!
All our training was done walking into and out of the sea from the beach .
The location of quick dumps on the BCD-didn't even realise they existed
how to cope with a stuck inflator !

Wow! While I'm not surprised at the trim/bouyancy answers, I'm astounded that you didnt learn how to do these skills.

Even doing a beach entry, you should have been able to swim out a way and do an ascent/descent with a reference line, then do it without using a reference line.

Ditto on the stuck inflator. Disconnecting the LP inflator hose and doing oral inflation of BCD should have been standard training.

What agency did you do your class through?

 

[ScoobyPat]

Buoancy Control for me as well, along with the excitement and fear of my first OW dive. I'll never forget that day. Nothing beats being neutral for the first time in open water.