Dive Planning

[LiteHedded]

A couple questions to toss out to the general public ...

In what class were you taught the "how to" of dive planning?

What did it involve, and how does that apply to the diving you do today?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

i wasn't taught that at all until my technical training

 

[gcbryan]

A couple questions to toss out to the general public ...

In what class were you taught the "how to" of dive planning?

What did it involve, and how does that apply to the diving you do today?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Good question Bob but in a strange way I almost wonder if too many classes isn't almost part of the problem.

It's an odd way of looking at it I know since I would agree that if the initial training were longer and covered more of these kinds of things it would be beneficial but...

Given the way there is a class for everything now I think it might have caused some people to forget that you can learn things once you leave school. Most of us haven't had any training after drivers ed in high school and yet most of us have learned quite a bit about driving since that time.

Do you really "need" as opposed to it couldn't hurt or would be nice to have training on how to take charge of your own dive?

 

[giles45shop]

A couple questions to toss out to the general public ...

In what class were you taught the "how to" of dive planning?

What did it involve, and how does that apply to the diving you do today?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Although I learned a few basics in OW class, the real planning was not until technical training (Adv Nitrox/Deco, Cave). We learned the ODIGTML method, and my instructor said, "you won't approach any dive in the same way after this". He was right! In my first OW dive after 20+ cave dives, I felt very strange not doing a bunch of math and writing plans and bail-out plans on my slate. It's no longer jump in and rtrun w/ 500 psi.

John

 

[it_mike]

Wow, did I open a can of worms! See what happens when you stay away from SB for a few hours...

The same could be true of motoring, aviation.... or any other pursuit that has benefited from the advancement of technology and industrialized manufacturing processes.

True, I was trying to address the OP original question, not state that it only occurs in scuba or Harleys

Do you believe there are more or less constraints in the sport now than there were 10, 20, 30 or 50 years ago?

I believe there are much fewer constraints on entry to scuba than there were thirty years ago. Some of it due to equipment improvement, but much of it due to the mass marketing of the sport. Note: I didn't state it was all bad, just pointing out the differences. In the 70's, you had to be dedicated, and be good in the water, not just barely able to move yourself through it. While I won't directly dispute rockjock3's statement regarding PADI's swimming requirement, I will say that I've never seen it. I may bounce between agencies, but I have interfaced and assisted with multiple PADI shops without every observing a 'swim test'. My assumption is that the instructors used their own judgment based upon observation of individuals in the water.

Are you suggesting it is somehow wrong to be inspired to achieve something?

Again, I was focusing on the OP original question, not providing direct personal opinion on each tenet. There's nothing wrong with being inspired to achieve, but it can have ramifications if it takes no effort to achieve something with inherent risks, e.g. scuba.

Gotta go, but I'll try to catch up later.

 

[LiteHedded]

Wow, did I open a can of worms! See what happens when you stay away from SB for a few hours...


True, I was trying to address the OP original question, not state that it only occurs in scuba or Harleys

I believe there are much fewer constraints on entry to scuba than there were thirty years ago. Some of it due to equipment improvement, but much of it due to the mass marketing of the sport. Note: I didn't state it was all bad, just pointing out the differences. In the 70's, you had to be dedicated, and be good in the water, not just barely able to move yourself through it. While I won't directly dispute rockjock3's statement regarding PADI's swimming requirement, I will say that I've never seen it. I may bounce between agencies, but I have interfaced and assisted with multiple PADI shops without every observing a 'swim test'. My assumption is that the instructors used their own judgment based upon observation of individuals in the water.


Again, I was focusing on the OP original question, not providing direct personal opinion on each tenet. There's nothing wrong with being inspired to achieve, but it can have ramifications if it takes no effort to achieve something with inherent risks, e.g. scuba.

Gotta go, but I'll try to catch up later.

i did a swim test in my padi open water class

 

[DevonDiver]

A couple questions to toss out to the general public ...

In what class were you taught the "how to" of dive planning?

What did it involve, and how does that apply to the diving you do today?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I did OW and AOW back-to-back during a cold English winter. The lessons were once a week, over the space of 10 weeks. I learnt how to plan dives on PADI tables and that I should check my air, time and depth regularly to stay within my plan. I learnt to ascend slowly from every dive, do a safety stop, and end each dive with a 50 bar reserve remaining in my tank.

The weekend after my AOW course ended, me and my buddy (who had completed both courses with me) headed back to the same icy fresh-water quarry to do some fun diving. From dive 10 onwards, our only involvement with a 'dive pro' was to rent the gear and tanks we needed.

We sat down with our PADI RDPs before every dive, did our buddy checks and monitored our gauges and timing devices during the dive.Underwater, we stayed in close proximity and helped each other with the little buoyancy hiccups and other tribulations that present themselves to novices.

Over the years, as I've learnt more and more about diving, I realize that there is plenty of other stuff that we could or should have been doing. But, in hindsight, we were safe, had fun and were at a competant level for the nature of dives that we were doing.

How does that apply to me today? As an instructor, it provides me with two things; (a) a clear benchmark for the level my OW students should attain and (b) it provides an understanding of the need to balance the limitations of your diving against the level of your training, to ensure safety and enjoyment.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Good question Bob but in a strange way I almost wonder if too many classes isn't almost part of the problem.

It's an odd way of looking at it I know since I would agree that if the initial training were longer and covered more of these kinds of things it would be beneficial but...

Given the way there is a class for everything now I think it might have caused some people to forget that you can learn things once you leave school. Most of us haven't had any training after drivers ed in high school and yet most of us have learned quite a bit about driving since that time.

Do you really "need" as opposed to it couldn't hurt or would be nice to have training on how to take charge of your own dive?

The problem is that people are given rules of thumb ... in the form of slogans like "Plan your dive and dive your plan" ... but never really taught how to do it.

If people don't know how to do something, they won't do it. If they get by without doing it long enough, they'll stop thinking it even matters.

The way "con ed" gets marketed today, people get rushed from class to class (all in the interest of keeping the local dive shop viable) without really learning much that isn't in the textbook. The world's full of divemasters who just got OW certified less than a year ago and haven't done a whole lot of diving outside of the classroom except perhaps a vacation trip or two where they allowed some dive guide to lead them around so they didn't have to think about anything except the pretty fish.

Computers have also impacted people's incentive to learn dive planning skills tremendously. I mean, why go to all that hassle when your computer is going to tell you how deep to go, how long to stay there, and how fast to ascend? Never mind that the vast majority haven't a clue what those numbers really mean (or the fact that they don't really apply to an individual diver) ... they figure as long as they do what they computer says to do, they're "safe".

You are absolutely correct that you can (and should) learn things once you leave the classroom ... some of the most valuable things I've learned about diving came from mentors, most of whom were not even dive instructors. But how many divers have the motivation to get out there and research topics like I know you do. How many even think it's important?

An example ... when I started offering free gas management seminars, very few people would show up (only two the first time I offered it). Over time, the classes started filling up. The last few I gave were either completely full or overflowed out of the room. Nowadays there's two other local instructors who are also offering similar seminars, and they are generally well attended. What changed? I think it was that over time, people's attitude started changing in terms of why they would want to learn it.

I'd be willing to bet that if we started offering informal seminars in dive planning, the same pattern would emerge.

Giving people the tools is only half the battle ... making them understand why it matters is the hard part.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

Gray, as usual, a good question to start a thread with!

I think a lot of it boils down to how much work someone is willing to do. I belong to a dive club, and the biggest problem the president faces is . . . getting people to dive! If you join a dive club, wouldn't you think it would be because you wanted to go diving? But a lot of people just don't get out there. It takes effort, and a commitment of time, just to dive the local mudholes.

And for me, I was a member last year of a group with the announced purpose of doing "exploration" dives -- looking at charts and trying to find sites that looked promising, and go see what was there. It foundered, because members just weren't doing those dives. And I understand that, because I never got around to doing mine (although I had committed to a date and a site, but the group got disbanded before that day). Getting those dives done involved research, often a boat, and a full day of time, and you have to have enough motivation to pull it off, when it's so much easier to throw on a tank and go cruise Cove 2 again.

In many ways, I think Puget Sounders are spoiled, because most of us have some relatively pleasant diving (maybe not the BEST diving, but worth doing) that's close and easy. The better sites are current-sensitive, and thus not accessible a lot of the time, and/or long drives from the metropolitan area. It comes down to motivation.

With respect to learning how to execute independent dives, it takes some willingness to get spanked, I think. One of Peter's and my first independent dives, we spent 45 minutes swimming over featureless sand, because we messed up the navigation. I've gotten in the water at home and aborted instantly because of current (error in dive planning) and still had a LONG struggle back to my entry point. Diving unusual or little-known sites means planning for those contingencies, and may require resources that many people don't have (scooter, boat). And it requires a bit of courage -- I know I avoid current-sensitive sites except on very small exchanges, even though I understand the concept that diving at slack will permit those sites to be done at other times. I do it because I'm a little afraid of current, even now.

You have the great population of divers, and many of them only dive warm water on vacation, and follow a guide because a) they don't know the site and b) the guide knows where the fun stuff is, and c) the dive operator requires it. The number of people who dive at home is a small one. The number of people with challenging and different sites available to them at home is even smaller. And the number of people with the time and the motivation to seek out sites other than the convenient is even smaller. I don't think that's particularly surprising.

 

[Peter Guy]

Giving people the tools is only half the battle ... making them understand why it matters is the hard part.

And perhaps even more so for the instructor corps.

It seems to me the really hard part here is to convince the instructor corps that "dive planning" is something that needs to be taught and that it is allowed to be taught, even at the OW level. In addition, that "dive planning" is more than using the RDP to calculate NDLs.

For example, the other night I was asked to discuss "Dive Planning" to an OW class which was just beginning to learn about using the RDP. So what was discussed?

a. RDP/NDLs (hey, it is a PADI OW class) -- (which was probably where the discussion would have stopped had I not been asked to guide it)

b. The notion of "how much air might you need" for the dive -- NOT "gas management" but just the notion that a dive might be air limited instead of NDL limited (IF you breathe the tank empty in 45 minutes at the surface, how long would it last at 60 feet? type of discussion)

c. The notion of getting information about local dive sites -- that books are available and that there are local online sources of info

d. Lastly, that "dive planning" starts at home when you decide to do a dive and talk to your buddy -- what gear do you need, what tank(s) do you need, when to do the dive (tides and currents), etc.

This whole discussion lasted about 15 minutes and did NOT attempt to "teach dive planning" but, I hope, it opened some eyes to what is needed to contemplate when "planning a dive" in preparation for "diving your plan."

But without the buy-in to the concept by the vast majority of instructors, this won't be repeated in the next OW class.

So how to get instructors to buy-in to the idea? Other than guerilla marketing, I don't know. Me, I convinced my LDS owner to let me start a series of Con-Ed classes for all the instructional staff and we had our 3rd one last night. Does everyone come? No, and not surprisingly perhaps the ones I think might most benefit have been noticeable in their absence.

 

[mongodives]

Bob,
I was taught in my OW course (YMCA) in '95 to use a site map to plan my route, planned depth and max depth, and turn time(table based) and pressure (AL80 1750psi)and go with which ever came first. SAC rates were discussed but the emphasis was to log depth,time, start and end tank pressures to help plan the next dive.

IMHO I think planning and gas management are issues with some new divers because they don't read every page of every book that is provided, all the books I have from the classes I've taken over the years all cover dive planning in one form or another. If students actually read the material it makes it easier for them to understand the reasons/reasoning behind dive planning and the "rules of thumb" when their instructor covers dive planning.