Davey Diverson once bubbled...
Then perhaps you should clarify:
This guy said his bc skills suxed, which is typical of new divers. He said it took him over 40 dives just to get comfortable.
So, did you mean something else?
I think you're missing the pint....
What mike and others are saying is that before they will take
their students to open water, they have to display good Bouyancy Control in the pool.
Not enough people teach classes in this manner....I about crapped my pants when I was on the dock at an un-disclosed OW location and I heard "this is your BCD...you use this to control your bouyancy"....yep I turned, looked, and there were 6 students in the water, one guy who looked like a guide next to them...and this intstructor standing in fins and full gear on a wet wooden dock "teaching" them. (frankly I wanted to do one of my bull-headed maneuvers on land...but decided that since I was with a class that was a bad idea)
Long story short, there are good instructors and bad instructors....I would say the majority of divers come out of OW with poor bouyancy skills, then they make a buch of dives doing one of two things
1 - working on their skills and getting better or
2 - continue to muck up the place and wreck viz/coral/etc.
In an ideal world, this wouldn't be an issue, but not enough people out there believe that bouyancy control can be taught in BOW.