It is important to interview instructors prior to taking a class. Most do an inadequate job.
#$%#$%@# Dive Training!
- Thread starter Genesis
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Unfortunately, the instructor who taught ME no longer lives here, and the one that I have personal experience with from my AOW (very good) doesn't do OW classes any more - she has "seniority" at the shop where she teaches, and thus this isn't one of her bailwicks any longer - unfortunately.
As a consequence you are left with choosing based on scanty information - as are all new divers!
What are you going to do? These folks won't get on MY boat to do a "fun dive", and even if they did, that they can dive well doesn't mean they can teach well.
I can dive, but I don't pretend to be able (or willing!) to teach
They talk a good line, as do the shops, but what they actually PERFORM is another matter.
Anyway, we'll solve this, but there are at least five more (who were in her class) that likely will not get it for a long time, if ever, unless they start diving with people that can manage this themselves.
I have often wondered how the heck the cattle boats end up with people that are such a mess in the water when I see them.
Now I know.
I set myself a high standard when I learned to dive. Unfortunately, it appears that the standard has to come from within, not from the agency or the instructor - you'll get your card with or without. Grrrr....
I watching a PADI instructor in Provo actually "fail" an OW student. She told the charter owner (who happened to be on the boat every day) that their was no way that her instructor number would appear on this guy's card and Dave backed her up. This guy didn't get a card from them.
Our LDS owner is still holding off on AOW for a few divers that had problems on their dives (from a few months ago as these people can't seem to find the time to dive with instructors to finish the course). He harps on buoyancy control and he wasn't about to give OW certs, much less advanced certs to people with poor buoyancy control.
So, not all instructors are out to just sell c-cards. This is to say that about 98 percent of the students do pass with no problem. But, the instructors are required to teach the course, not just sign off on C-Cards.
Our LDS owner is still holding off on AOW for a few divers that had problems on their dives (from a few months ago as these people can't seem to find the time to dive with instructors to finish the course). He harps on buoyancy control and he wasn't about to give OW certs, much less advanced certs to people with poor buoyancy control.
So, not all instructors are out to just sell c-cards. This is to say that about 98 percent of the students do pass with no problem. But, the instructors are required to teach the course, not just sign off on C-Cards.
I have to agree with SueMermaid. In my OW class, my instructor did her best to remind us how important bouyancy control is. But remember, there's a huge world of difference in being neutral at 9 feet and 50 feet. I'm at 25 dives and every dive I'm still working on getting my bouyancy perfect.
David
David
I won't speak for any other instructor, but I'll say this for my own class... first, I require my students to be able to perform skills in the pool without touching the bottom before they move to open water. In open water I require six dives (not the minimum four) and I tell my students before the first open water dive that I will not certify them until I've seen them complete two consecutive dives without touching the bottom and on the last "fun" dive they have to demonstrate reasonable buoyancy control through the entire dive.
It all starts in the classroom though. You have to teach them first what the results of poor buoyancy are. They have to understand how much damage it does both to the environment, their equipment and even themselves so that they care. Then you teach it in the pool just like every other "basic" skill and, finally, evaluate it in the open water just as you do the other skills.
Look at the SSI instructor slates... pool 1 and 2 specifically teach proper weighting (pool 1 is snorkel, pool 2 is SCUBA) and then buoyancy control (both power and oral) are required skills in every remaining pool session. Open water 1 evaluates proper weighting on snorkel (off the bottom) and then buoyancy control is a required point of evaluation in every remaining open water dive. So (at least for SSI) if an instructor is not teaching and evaluating buoyancy control throughout the course then the instructor is actually failing to meet the minimum standards. (and that's a whole different thread)
Buoyancy *IS* a basic skill. It absolutely should be a minimum open water requirement.
It all starts in the classroom though. You have to teach them first what the results of poor buoyancy are. They have to understand how much damage it does both to the environment, their equipment and even themselves so that they care. Then you teach it in the pool just like every other "basic" skill and, finally, evaluate it in the open water just as you do the other skills.
Look at the SSI instructor slates... pool 1 and 2 specifically teach proper weighting (pool 1 is snorkel, pool 2 is SCUBA) and then buoyancy control (both power and oral) are required skills in every remaining pool session. Open water 1 evaluates proper weighting on snorkel (off the bottom) and then buoyancy control is a required point of evaluation in every remaining open water dive. So (at least for SSI) if an instructor is not teaching and evaluating buoyancy control throughout the course then the instructor is actually failing to meet the minimum standards. (and that's a whole different thread)
Buoyancy *IS* a basic skill. It absolutely should be a minimum open water requirement.
The scary part is that if she would have lost the anchor line on that dive, she would have been completely screwed.
Without reasonable buoyancy control you CANNOT make a free ascent and remain in control. It is flatly impossible. Yet it is absolutely necessary that you be able to do so.
Now, you come down on the line, you hit the bottom, silt up the site, and suddenly you cannot see. If there is no current (there wasn't yesterday!) on the bottom then the site may stay silted and visibility essentially zero for 10, 20, 30 minutes or even longer.
Now how are you going to find the line to ascend? You're not.
So now you must make an open water ascent. But without buoyancy control, as soon as you begin upward you are out of control.
This is how people get hurt BADLY.
I have dived with people who have years of diving experience and still have poor bouyance skills.
I met a guy in Puerta Vallarta with a couple hundred dives who just couldn't keep off the bottom. He flopped around, waved his hands wildly to maneuver, always had a hand on his inflator and sucked air like a mad man.
However, he also looked like the reg was about to fall out of his mouth 'cause he was aways smiling so much. He absolutly LOVED to dive. His eyes were wide with excitement on every dive. On the boat, he was friendly, humble, helpful and his natural excitement for diving was contagious. He was very safety minded, paid attention to dive briefs others ignored, double checked his gear and his buddies, went over signals and kept a good eye on others underwater.
On the second day of diving, I saw the DM approach this guy and politly try to suggest better bouyance skills. He smiled real big, waved her away and said, "Yeah, I just never seemed to get that bouyance thing goin' too good. Now, can I help ya move them there tanks?"
So, should this guy be denied his C card? He seemed to be a safe diver who had a true love of the sport, and for OW, isn't that good enough? I understand that in some emergencies his lack of good bouyance skills could be dangerous. But I'll take that over someone who would panic - and THAT person can't be predicted.
I learned to enjoy diving with this person because he really shared a true love of diving.
I also learned never to get BEHIND him!
I met a guy in Puerta Vallarta with a couple hundred dives who just couldn't keep off the bottom. He flopped around, waved his hands wildly to maneuver, always had a hand on his inflator and sucked air like a mad man.
However, he also looked like the reg was about to fall out of his mouth 'cause he was aways smiling so much. He absolutly LOVED to dive. His eyes were wide with excitement on every dive. On the boat, he was friendly, humble, helpful and his natural excitement for diving was contagious. He was very safety minded, paid attention to dive briefs others ignored, double checked his gear and his buddies, went over signals and kept a good eye on others underwater.
On the second day of diving, I saw the DM approach this guy and politly try to suggest better bouyance skills. He smiled real big, waved her away and said, "Yeah, I just never seemed to get that bouyance thing goin' too good. Now, can I help ya move them there tanks?"
So, should this guy be denied his C card? He seemed to be a safe diver who had a true love of the sport, and for OW, isn't that good enough? I understand that in some emergencies his lack of good bouyance skills could be dangerous. But I'll take that over someone who would panic - and THAT person can't be predicted.
I learned to enjoy diving with this person because he really shared a true love of diving.
I also learned never to get BEHIND him
!Consider the scenario I posited which could have happened yesterday.
You drop down to the bottom. You have horrid buoyancy skills and crash into the bottom The boat driver (me, in this case) has skillfully anchored about 10' off the reef, in a bottom comprised of MUD.
You hit the mud and instantly create a huge mushroom cloud of silt. There is no bottom current. The silt cloud slowly expands, obsuring the anchor line. You are now in zero visability.
You can probably swim out of this to get to the reef, and see it. Since the reef is hard bottom, while you will damage it by kicking it incessantly, that's ok - its just a reef, right?
Ok, so now we're at turn pressure and about to go back to the line and ascend. Except for one problem - we can't see the line. Its SOMEWHERE in that huge silt cloud, but you can't see it. Where is it?
Hmmmm.....
Let's see which of the bad choices we'd like here:
1. Fumble around trying to find the line by TOUCH, creating even MORE silt, and reducing the odds you'll find it, until we run out of air and drown or are forced to do a CESA, perhaps getting an iron pony ride.
2. Make a free ascent. Not a problem if you have decent buoyancy skills, but oops - you don't, which is why the silt cloud exists in the first place. So now you attempt the ascent, and it gets out of control. You rocket to the surface, completely unable to do your 15' stop, and subsequently wind up possibly getting that iron pony ride again.
The possibility of a free ascent must always be something you can accomplish. While you shouldn't NEED to make one most of the time, you always may be in a situation where you NEED to make one. And don't even start with "just shoot a bag" - do you think someone who can't hold position in the water column could manage to shoot a bag without really serious trouble? I don't!
IMHO the OW class requirement for buoyancy control is simply addressed. In open water, the diver must be able to, beginning from a dead-stop (not moving!) while neutral, make a free ascent to the surface, not exceeding the safe ascent rate (30ft/min) and, in a controlled manner, stopping and holding position between 10-20' for the required three minutes.
If you can manage that, you have "passable" buoyancy control for open water diving. If you cannot, you do not. Period.
(You can "cheat" on such a skill using some fin motion, but you'll never manage it if you can't get darn close to being neutral.)
Here's the thing... how hard is it, really, to learn to control your buoyancy? Esp. for someone with as much experience as this person seems to have and the level of comfort in the water he presumably has! The problem here is not that he hasn't been able to learn buouyancy control, it's that he's never learned why it was important to learn. It's not that he isn't capable of learning them, he just couldn't be bothered to try and in spite of how helpful he may be, that's indicative of a problem imho.
And not to be a hardass, but regardless of how much charisma he may have... if he's out there tearing up living reefs and such then I would not be comfortable with him diving regardless of how much he loves it. Being a good ole boy is not a minimum requirement for certification... it just makes you more fun to be with once you've learned the proper skills. Sorry, that's just how I feel about it.
- Messages
- 3,669
- Reaction score
- 3
Yes he should. I'm sorry if this isn't pleasant to hear but this is one of my pet peeves. You will never convince me that someone who cannot dive without damaging reefs should be allowed to continue.
James
Similar threads
