What to do when an instructor is out of line?

[Diver0001]

A DM should not have any problems in any conditions they are likely to encounter in training dives while assisting.

Quite right, Jim, but as he pointed out he's not a DM yet. He clearly has a challenge in this area but what matters in DM training is the *result*... ie, what they can do at the end of the course. People often confuse required results with entry-criteria.

That said, I didn't want to comment on the DM angle but since people are getting on him about it, I'll agree that I don't think 25 dives is nearly enough experience.

We dove to the platform, spent 25 minutes holding the edge of the platform and then after confirming okay began our dive.

I just assumed this was either a typo or a case of memory drift. It wasn't clear to me how deep the platform was but the way it sounded, it would be a highly unusual way to approach the deep dive. I've heard of these things before though. 2 years ago my dive team rescued a drowned diver from an AOW deep dive who ran out of air waiting his turn on a 60ft platform for a tour to the deep part. When he ran out of air the DM who was watching him bolted and left him for dead. Fortunately for the diver we happened to be standing nearby with our gear on when the buddy(!) surfaced (also with the tank empty) and raised the alarm.

What happened to the OW students while the instructor went deep with you?

It would appear that the OW student was the "buddy" given that there were only three of them on the dive. That's how it sounded to me.

R..

 

[Wookie]

I'm surprised no one has already commented on this:

We dove to the platform, spent 25 minutes holding the edge of the platform and then after confirming okay began our dive.

You spent 25 min with the OW class depleting your air supply BEFORE proceding to depth?!?

This dive was a fustercluck well before the buddy separation happened.

What happened to the OW students while the instructor went deep with you?

That was my first thought. Your instructor cared so little for your safety and the fact you'd paid for a class that you were the second class citizen on a more technically challenging dive that he let you hang out on a platform for 25 minutes while he taught another class? I call BS here. Whether or not a standards violation, you just described why modern instruction is BS. For a deep dive, regardless of agency, you should be fully briefed by the instructor, you and your buddy should discuss all aspects of the plan with your instructor paying attention to yuor plan so he can help you with the items you forgot, then he should follow you both to the depth you have specified to observe you perform your skills. If anything less was performed, you got ripped off.

Jim, I too am uncomfortable in 75 feet in Lake Travis. I don't think it makes me a poor instructor to be uncomfortable in low vis, cold water in the pecan grove as described. I've been there once, and didn't like it. I choose not to teach in places like that. It's why I don't dive in fresh water. It's why I don't teach in Texas.

For the OP, you need to spend some time with a buddy or mentor working on what makes you uncomfortable. Drop out of training for a while and go get some experience. 25 dives in duck poo lake or e-coli pond (sorry, I used to live in Houston, I know where you been divin') or Travis or the Comal or wherever doesn't make you ready yet for continuing ed. Go get a buddy and spend some weekends at the Green Latrine (Blue Lagoon?) perfecting skills, working on buoyancy, and generally becoming a better diver. I remember when I had 25 dives. I thought I was pretty hot stuff, too.

 

[Diver0001]

Whether or not a standards violation, you just described why modern instruction is BS.

That's a pretty big generalization there, Wookie.

Is what happened here a problem with "modern instruction" or a problem with the way this particular course was delivered?

Some combinations work just fine. As long as the dive plan is compatible, it's not that uncommon to have a group consisting of students who have to do different skills but are making the same profile. A good example might be adding a student doing a drysuit specialty to an OW group doing dive 4.....

Obviously, combining an OW training dive with a deep specialty dive is pure nonsense, of course. The dive profiles would be completely incompatible.

R..

 

[Wookie]

I've reread the initial post, and I'll accept your questioning of my use of the term "modern instruction". Let's just call this a case of poor pre-dive planning on the case of the students and instructor, and piss-poor instruction.

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

So no DM to watch over you guys? Interesting in itself.

I doubt that being a rude jerk is against any agencies standards but my main concern would be the instructors attitude. Boy was he displaying signs of stress, perhaps from being in over his head?

 

[Hotpuppy]

I'm surprised no one has already commented on this:

We dove to the platform, spent 25 minutes holding the edge of the platform and then after confirming okay began our dive.

You spent 25 min with the OW class depleting your air supply BEFORE proceding to depth?!?

This dive was a fustercluck well before the buddy separation happened.

What happened to the OW students while the instructor went deep with you?

There were two instructors. The OW students went with the 2nd instructor back to the surface..... My buddy and I went with our instructor on the training dive. Our instructor was acting as DM on the platform with the OW students while they did their standards. My Buddy and I had full tanks to start and I believe I had 2300 when the descent began.

 

[Hotpuppy]

I just assumed this was either a typo or a case of memory drift. It wasn't clear to me how deep the platform was but the way it sounded, it would be a highly unusual way to approach the deep dive.

It would appear that the OW student was the "buddy" given that there were only three of them on the dive. That's how it sounded to me.

R..

The other student was also doing Deep and was an AOW diver. There were approximately 11 students present. 7 were OW. There was a DM and a DM Candidate present. There were 2 AOW students. During this dive they were working with the DM and DMC on the kick cycle counting portion of the dive.

You heard correctly. We dove to 30 feet, stayed for 25 minutes and then began our descent to a planned depth of 85 feet or so. My air was fine or I wouldn't have gone. I had 2300 psi and my computer was reading an RBT of 99 minutes. I'm particularly conservative with air reserves. I distinctly remember this because I watched it go from 45 to 60 to 7x to 99 and I recall thinking how it was cool that I had relaxed enough to get my breathing down. While I was on the platform I also figured out how to harass the perch in the lake. The perch were being particularly curious so I would occassionally reach out to "touch" one and make them swim away. I figured out that if I "flicked" them that my finger was faster and I could flick their tails. Here is the dive profile. Sorry the image is a tad fuzzy... had to print and then scan it.

Dive Plan attached to post.

 

[Diver0001]

Wow, he really did spend 25 min waiting his turn.

This just leaves me astounded, to be honest.

An OW group with 7 divers and 2 AOW divers go with 2 instructors in 6ft of viz. That's 11 divers in 6ft of viz...

We train in conditions with about 3m of vizibility too but with that group it would have been split into 3 groups. 2 OW groups with 3 and 4 divers, both with 1 instructor and 1 DM and the AOW students would have been asked to come at about 3pm for their dives after the OW students were done with their 2nd dive. That dive would have been done with 1 instructor and 1 DM too.

It's just dumb luck that they managed to even keep the group together.... oh wait, they didn't.... that's how this got started.

R..

P.S. can you please reformat that picture to about 60% of it's size. It's wider than most people's screens are and it makes the thread harder to display.

R..

 

[Hotpuppy]

Jim, I too am uncomfortable in 75 feet in Lake Travis. I don't think it makes me a poor instructor to be uncomfortable in low vis, cold water in the pecan grove as described. I've been there once, and didn't like it. I choose not to teach in places like that. It's why I don't dive in fresh water. It's why I don't teach in Texas.

Captain, You hit the nail on the head! Pecan grove. Yes campers there are entanglement hazards galore not far from our planned dive. And yes, entanglement hazards scare the sh*t out of me.

I have issues with dark, low viz, cold water..... I don't like it. I'm not scared of it, I just like to go slowly, have lots of backups and plan the heck out of it.

On our first dive my buddies light died. I gave her my primary and then discovered my backup was dead from having flooded. My backup lives in my BCD and probably got F'd up the weekend before during Rescue class. That's my fault for not checking the backup prior. Protocol says dive is over when you lose a primary. This instructor says, no, take my primary and go do your out and back depth nav exercise... so buddy and I did just that. We swam shoulder to shoulder with our compasses and lights. We swamp out about 15 kick cycles (which is far enough in low viz) and then swam back. Not the perscribed formation, but both of us were comfortable and we made it out and back with no hassle... other than gaining a few feet of height... but frankly the water was warmer there....

On the ascent the instructor insisted we hold a rope (for dive 1). I found myself overcrowded with 3 other divers on one stinking rope.... so I let go dropped down and grabbed the rope when the instructor motioned to. The instructor had explicitly said not to exceed his position when ascending. He was the "controlling" depth. As a rescue diver I felt comfortable being a few feet down the rope. As we were ascending one or more of the AOW students was struggling with the rope and pulling on it. This left me with alot of slack which became entangled in my right fin. I also found myself ascending chest up in a lean-back position. I decided that I'd had enough of the rope at this point and let go to untangle myself and then backed away and held position about 1 foot from the rope.

There are a couple of points here....
1) We'd already had issues on our first dive. The second dive shouldn't have happened without proper lights. It was out of protocol, but still inside my tolerance for safety so I was okay with it.
2) The instructor alleged to the Course Director that I was misbehaving on the first dive. I'm sorry but I don't think it's necessary for me to hold a half inch rope with 3 other people kicking me and jostling me. That makes me uncomfortable. I like my reg in my mouth and my mask on my face...... which is contraindicated to contact diving. Dropping down a few feet didn't materially affect my safety stop 15 vs 19 is really irrelevant. Entanglement is always a hazard when diving around ropes. Removing myself is a valid call. Provided that I could hold position it doesn't matter if I'm holding the rope.
3) Lastly, I've taken peak performance buoyancy. My buoyancy isn't perfect, but heck, neither are most divers. I'm still pretty good. I can hover, go up and go down if I need to. I can do it in a dry suit, 3mm wetsuit or 5mm wetsuit.

A moment about buoyancy. Travis is very challenging for buoyancy. First it's dark and low-viz. Second you are descending down a 45 to 60 degree slope along a chain and it's challenging to say the least to keep the chain in site and your fins high enough to stay off the bottom behind you. We don't normally dive head first down for any length of time. Normally we train for horizontal or vertical buoyancy. Travis requires you do descend head first feet up.... I can do that, it's just more difficult then other dives where you descend horizontally or vertically.

Lastly I was diving with 10 pounds. That's a tad more than I think is needed, but it makes it easy to go down and stay down on a training dive. The most important part about weight is making sure you can hold your safety stop at 15 feet with a nearly empty tank....So I don't see any issues with the weight. In Blue Lagoon on a fun dive I'd probably have dove 8 lbs.

I see buoyancy as something that you aspire to improve. It's like meditation in my opinion. So I'm proficient at it and can avoid touching things. However, I've seen others who are better and I recognize I can be better. That doesn't mean I have buoyancy trouble.

Anyhow, Captain you are so right. I didn't get my cert to dive in duck-poo-pond or Pecan Graveyard. I got it to dive in the tropics. My Fling trip keeps getting killed for weather or now oil reasons. Your boat is on my "to-do" list.....

 

[Hotpuppy]

Wow, he really did spend 25 min waiting his turn.

This just leaves me astounded, to be honest.

An OW group with 7 divers and 2 AOW divers go with 2 instructors in 6ft of viz. That's 11 divers in 6ft of viz...

We train in conditions with about 3m of vizibility too but with that group it would have been split into 3 groups. 2 OW groups with 3 and 4 divers, both with 1 instructor and 1 DM and the AOW students would have been asked to come at about 3pm for their dives after the OW students were done with their 2nd dive. That dive would have been done with 1 instructor and 1 DM too.

It's just dumb luck that they managed to even keep the group together.... oh wait, they didn't.... that's how this got started.

R..

P.S. can you please reformat that picture to about 60% of it's size. It's wider than most people's screens are and it makes the thread harder to display.

R..

Fixed the format.

Yea, the dive plan was this:
AOW + DM and DMC to do kickcycle exercise off of platform.

OW + Instructor 1 and Instructor 2 (ours) as DM to do exercises.

Deep Divers (me and buddy) look pretty and hold the platform down for 25 minutes while OW students do skills. I took advantage of the opportunity to observe skills being done.

I personally switched into DMC mode (even though I'm not qualified to intern) and just watched how the skills were being done, what skills were being done, and how the students reacted. Instructor 1 is someone who I admire professionally. He has a great rapport with students and takes time to explain things. He's the kind of diver I want to be so I didn't mind sitting there and watching.... I also didn't expect to be there for 25 minutes sitting still in a 3mm getting cold in 76 degree water before descending to 65 degree water where I was uncomfortably cold.

The AOW students were doing a night dive, so the class schedule didn't start until Noon to accomodate this. The instructors arrived at Noon.