Where to become a scuba instuctor? Help!

[SDAnderson]

I just see it as two different things. Cold water, more equipment is like operating a bulldozer on a hillside. Warm water is driving a car. Each has it's limitations.

Let's not call them limitations, how about unique requirements and conditions?

My point is that training in cold, low viz water won't make you more competent in warm water than one who dives only there just as a bull dozer operator is no better driving a car than say, a traveling salesman.

I don't think the bulldozer analogy is a particularly good one, but let me try and stretch it for you with a couple of rhetorical questions. Which driver is more skilled, the one that has mastered a car equipped with an automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes and a gas peddle or the driver that can handle two independent drive trains, a manual transmission, manual steering, all on a muddy and slippery slope while operating a giant blade? Who is going to have an easier time transitioning from one vehicle to the other?

But please, explain what you'll be better at in warm water than a warm water trained diver. Buoancy? Trim? Gas consumption?

This isn't universally true, but it's been my experience that in comparing similarly trained and experienced divers, you will find that cold-water divers are significantly better at bouyancy control - they have to be. The great changes in lift at varying depths imposed by 7mm wetsuits or drysuits means that cold water divers have learned to be more sensitive to and more careful about their bouyancy. We grok Boyle's Law. Likewise trim, which is essentially part of the bouyancy issue. Obviously, a cold water diver showing up for a warm water dive is going to need some time to adjust weighting and trim (yeah, I know what we look like on day one of every dive trip), just as the opposite is true. The point is that the conditions the cold water diver is used to have honed his skills at managing the issue to a finer edge, making the transition easier. Though gas consumption is definitely related to conditions, I doubt that conditions have a lot of impact on gas consumption skills.

To me, diving in bad vis, cold water would be like climbing a high mountain. You may feel great afterwards because of what you accomplished, but was it fun while you did it? No. More like a hard day's work. But a warm, clear, deep wall.....lots of fish...aahhhhhhh

Hey, there are few things in this world sweeter than a long, slow, lazy dive on a reef, watching the fishies and contemplating that first apres plongeur beer. One of the few that is higher on my list is dropping down on a 150 year old wooden wreck that is so well preserved there is still rigging attached to the mast. YRMV, but that's what makes the world go 'round.

But, to get back to instructor training: if you're going to teach in cold water, learning to handle all of the extra gear, both yours and your students, that will be required is going to give you a leg up. It's possible to make the switch - people do it all the time - but why set yourself up for a difficult transition if you don't have to? Most of the training agencies take a lot of heat for the quality of the training their students receive, maybe it starts with instructors who decide to take the "easy" way out and short-change themselves on their own training...

 

[cerich]

If you are interested in getting a quick start with plenty of students I suggest GUAM. Micronesia Divers Association and Guam Tropical Dive Station have IDC's several times a year. There are two large military bases on the island and as a consequence there are always students. The water is warm and you are in the middle of the Micronesian islands where the diving is nothing short of spectacular.

Northern Coast in the Dominican Republic, least expensive IDC I've seen and a flight from T.O. won't kill you price wise. Cheap to stay there as well.

 

[Hank49]

This isn't universally true, but it's been my experience that in comparing similarly trained and experienced divers, you will find that cold-water divers are significantly better at bouyancy control - they have to be.

I guess the only way to prove my point is to have you come here and make me look like a lizard in the water....or I'll come up north and demonstrate that I can learn to dive in cold water with all your gear just about as fast as you'll adjust here. Once one has the feel of the water....??
Your average (warm water) surfer from Hawaii will learn to dive and be better in the water just because of so many more hours in the water. Diving is easy. I did it the first time with no training. I got a few words of advice and went down. Surfing? Way harder to learn. Midwest cold water people don't have near the waterman skills of island people (on average). But, no sense arguing this anymore. It's been fun.

 

[SubMariner]

Let's not call them limitations, how about unique requirements and conditions?

I don't think the bulldozer analogy is a particularly good one, but let me try and stretch it for you with a couple of rhetorical questions. Which driver is more skilled, the one that has mastered a car equipped with an automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes and a gas peddle or the driver that can handle two independent drive trains, a manual transmission, manual steering, all on a muddy and slippery slope while operating a giant blade? Who is going to have an easier time transitioning from one vehicle to the other?

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Well said.

 

[Hank49]

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Well said.

:wave-smil

ok, I'm convinced...I'm packing up, moving north and buying a dry suit so I can learn to dive in bad vis and become a better diver too..... ...not....

 

[TheYellowSubmarine]

I guess the only way to prove my point is to have you come here and make me look like a lizard in the water....or I'll come up north and demonstrate that I can learn to dive in cold water with all your gear just about as fast as you'll adjust here. Once one has the feel of the water....??

I think you have to have dived in both to really know the difference. Most of my dives have been in relatively cold water. When I went to Thailand, the dives were easy, and I was just as good as anyone with a similar number of dives who had only dived in warm water. However the opposite is not true. I'm in a uni dive club, so we get lots of foreign students that have only dived in nice warm water. Some have difficulty for quite a while. This is only in temperatures on the edge of drysuit territory (in winter, you have to be just a little crazy to stay in your wettie), so we don't even have to worry about drysuit hassles. Diving in low vis cold waters the first few times is definitely more stressful, and adds to your task loading. There is also the wearing of thick wetsuits and gloves that make movement and operating some stuff a bit of a challange.
So I wouldn't say an experienced warm water diver is any better than me in warm water, but I'd definitely say I'm better than someone who has only dived in cold low vis a couple times.
Cold water diving just means you're more prepared to dive anywhere as opposed to a warm water diver. But if you're just going to dive in warm water anyway, it doesn't make a difference.