A fun dive and silty training

[wreckchick]

I want to make one thing clear about what happened to me on my AOW dive at Gilboa. I did not rocket to the surface because I was light at depth, I went up because unbeknownst to me I was holding on to someone that began an ascent and because I had no point of reference I was unaware until it was too late to control it.

My buoyancy control, although it needs some fine tuning in my opinion, was commented on my several people from my dive shop this past weekend as being quite good.

I don't disagree that OW students can and should be taught good buoyancy and trim at that level, but it's the work and dedication that a diver puts in afterwards that can either continue on that solid foundation or correct any deficiencies.

Rachel

 

[MikeFerrara]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...
There is a time and place to stress neutral buoyancy, and practice, and practice, and practice.

the time for this is in the pool before going to OW. Seems obvious to me.

Come on what have you got to loose. Anybody can get a student removing a mask or breathing a free flow while planted on the bottom. It doesn't take a highly skilled pro for that. I dare you.

 

[MikeFerrara]

biscuit7 once bubbled...
I want to make one thing clear about what happened to me on my AOW dive at Gilboa. I did not rocket to the surface because I was light at depth, I went up because unbeknownst to me I was holding on to someone that began an ascent and because I had no point of reference I was unaware until it was too late to control it.

My buoyancy control, although it needs some fine tuning in my opinion, was commented on my several people from my dive shop this past weekend as being quite good.

I don't disagree that OW students can and should be taught good buoyancy and trim at that level, but it's the work and dedication that a diver puts in afterwards that can either continue on that solid foundation or correct any deficiencies.

Rachel

Rachel,

If I remember right you stated 3 feet per secong off your computer. That's 180 ft/minute. To me that's rocketing. My post wasn't meant to fault you but the situation was not under control, IMO. Also, IMO it needn't have happened.

Divers are not being prepared for situations like that and I believe they should be. Hell, I don't even believe many instructors are prepared for it.

 

[DiverBuoy]

My comments were not intended to start an argument and yes Mr. Ferrara we have had this discussion before. There is much benefit in performing appropriate skills while neutral, I always make sure during practice time (end of every PADI CW module) students are performing skills in mid-water. I also train and stress how to accomplish these things as a natural progression of the skills they are building on. As pointed out in our previous discussions, you take uber time with your students, and you are to be commended for taking that time. One might even argue that you have crammed the equivalent hours of an "advanced" course and a open water course into one when compared with most other shops. That certianly lends itself to the success of your students in performing such feats!

As we have clearly agreed before, it is a standards violation to perform some skills in midwater. The discussion can go no further, unless you are willing to submit a course for approval to the RSTC. However, there is ample reason for students in an open water course to be proficient in performing any skill they most likely will encounter during a dive in the middle of open water column - including OOA drills and mask R&R of course.

We can both agree in an open water environment we certainly don't want our students on the bottom. Which is also why the demonstration of a scuba unit R&R (surface only) and Free Flow is not required under water during the Open Water portion of the training ... only Confined Water training. Now if only PADI wouldn't require fin pivot (or pivot on other part of the body) ... we'd be all set. In Dive 4 they even hint at that by saying 'by now students should have mastered establishing buoyancy and the ability to arrest their descent', they simply need to move that to dive 3 and get rid of the fin pivot. All other skills are easily managed mid-water.

 

[wreckchick]

My *maximum* ascent rate was 3 ft/min. The ascent didn't hit critical mass until we were probably 40-50 ft above where the ascent started. It was controlled for the first 20' and when I released the person ascending I had become so positive that the ascent started to accelerate at that point. There was some recovery before I hit the surface, but that rate still stands for some number of feet in the middle of the ascent.

R

 

[DiverBuoy]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
Hell, I don't even believe many instructors are prepared for it.

All instructors are well-preparred for it, in an emergency situation, it is human failing when our auto-pilot may fail to deliver. All of us only hope that we can in fact "think" our way through and act appropriately in such situations. Instinct can be overwhelming.

 

[MikeFerrara]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...


All instructors are well-preparred for it, in an emergency situation, it is human failing when our auto-pilot may fail to deliver. All of us only hope that we can in fact "think" our way through and act appropriately in such situations. Instinct can be overwhelming.

The essance of learning to deal with UW problems is unlearning instincts. As a land dwelling air breathing mamal we aren't born with any instincts that are any good to us UW. We have to replace them with learned and practiced behaviors. Yes one can suffer a relapse but that's why overlearned skills are so important.

I disagree that all instructors are prepared for a problem UW. A freind was in a IE where a instructor candidate messed up demonstrating a skill and bolted for the surface. He passed and is now an instructor. I guess he would have left his students down there without him if it was real.

I saw an instructor in Vortex spring have his students R & R masks the very first thing on OW dive 1. I saw the students eyes getting big and his movements jerky from 30 ft away while I was teaching my own class. The instructor never saw it comming and the student bolted and the instructor never had the chance to do anything. He wasn't prepared and neither were his students.

BTW when they descended they came down right on top of us. I had to move my class out of the way. I had the DM stay with them while I halted rapid uncontrolled descent of a couple of his students while he sat there either unknowing or uncaring of the situation. The jerk never so much as flashed an ok after I nearly had my head split by his first student down.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The fin pivot, while a little silly, isn't a real road block.

 

[DiverBuoy]

I sure wish I could see some of this, but Haigh Quarry just isn't on my vacation list.

 

[MikeFerrara]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...
I sure wish I could see some of this, but Haigh Quarry just isn't on my vacation list.

That last account was at Vortex springs in Florida, not Haigh quarry in Ill. I have many more.