Newbie's - Are we Prepared?

[shark_tamer]

I wanted to learn scuba diving for as long as I remember, and got OW certified one year ago.

75% of my diving is done while on vacation in the Caribbean and on my first dive vacation I only did the beginner's dives ( - 20 meters )

When I got back from that trip, got AOW cert. and went back on Caribbean trip last September, and every day I was doing both beginner's and advance dives. All I wanted to do that week was dive, dive and more dives !!!

Up here in Montréal, either you go ice diving or you don't dive during the winter. So at the end of December, I got my Nitrox cert., and last week of January, getting Emergency First Response cert.. In a near future, I want to get MSD cert ...

I'm not saying that all that knowledge makes me a more experience diver, but hopefully I'll be a better diver.

 

[nagel]

Thanks for all the comments. Everybody seems to share a constant theme - to dive within your comfort level. But, I wonder if people really understand that. Receiving certification and then going immediately to a boat ocean dive in my opinion is somewhat reckless. (I don't mean to judge anybody here, just my opinion) I don't know what the answer is, but being a safety professional I have that natural concern that people are jumping into something that could get them hurt and the industry seems to be okay with it. I'm not saying that the certification courses need to be changed, because mine was perfect for what I wanted to do. But, people need to understand that they may need more experience before tackling more challenging dives. When my brother-in-law received his open water, they asked him if he wanted to come back the following weekend for his Advanced Open Water. This is crazy. I would like to see (as several posters indicated) maybe a requirements that you have so many dives before you can be eligible for Advanced. But, on the other hand going through the Advanced gives you more experience under a controlled environment. (Hell, now I'm confused) Again, I don't know what the answer is, but I can't imagine like the kid who went to Australia, doing 4 dives in open water that were very controlled with three instructors watching every minute one weekend and the next weekend being in the ocean in Australia maybe with somebody who only dives once a year.

Thanks for your thoughts,

S. Nagel

 

[wreckchick]

In truth, we actually certify plenty of people in the ocean from boats so it's not as if the quarry start means that ocean diving is infinitely more difficult. My issue is that it feels like plenty of people are being trained to go be babysat on vacation, not be divers.

R

 

[Wolfie2012]

I'm not sure all boat/ocean dives are more difficult than quarry dives (course there are many threads for and against this argument). It all depends on the conditions. My wife did her OW in a local quarry. I took her on 2 beach dives to about 20ft and then we did a 65' boat dive the next day. In all truth, the quarry and beach dives were infinitely more difficult than that first boat dive because of the conditions that were present at the time.

As for AOW right after OW, I don't necessarily disagree with people who do that, though in my opinion it shouldn't be called advanced open water because it gives the impression that a student may be more qualified than he/she actually is. Heck, I think a lot of the Rescue course should be taught in OW.

Anyway, agreeing on your comfort level, knowing your limits, and the willingness to thumb a dive if you end up over your head is something that should be in the minds of all new divers. (well, all divers for that matter).

 

[nagel]

Point well taken. I didn't mean to give the impression that all ocean dives are far advanced over quarry diving. In fact, the ocean dive I took was way more for comfortable than most quarry dives I've had. The only point I was trying to make is that if you jump off of a boat, descend down to 100 feet, in a current I think may be a little advanced for somebody that has just did 4 dives in a controlled environment. Absolutely, many people get certified in the ocean. But, again this is controlled typically from a shore and not to 100 feet. (I only say 100 feet and fully understand that open water is typically only to I believe 70 feet if that, because I hear so many people dropping to 100 feet and not realizing it in the ocean).

S. Nagel

 

[MikeFerrara]

The whole point of any OW course to for you to "start learning" how to be a well rounded diver.
Whether you take more classes on trips or your LDS or read the books and dive with more experienced divers is up to you.

I know several VERY experienced 1000+ logged dive divers that hve yet to learn everything there is to know about diving. IE what do you do when in a down welling?

True, the OW course is only the begining but it's purpose as stated by at least some agencies is to prepare divers to dive independantly in conditions similar to those in which they were trained.

Unfortunately many entry level courses and even con-ed courses, leave divers in need of supervision. Many have not accomplished much in the way of depth and position control and have not learned anything about gas management and have not learned how to stay with abuddy during a dive (especially ascents and descents).

Whether or not this is the case depends on the agency, the instructor and of course the student.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The depth order came up the other night in our nitrox class and our instructor said that it really did not matter. It was a convention written in some old manuals and nobody knows what but the convention persists. I have read the same elsewhere.

Not true.

A few years ago the reverse profile symposium (or whatever it was called) issued an opinion on this. However, what you say that your instructor said, does not accurately reflect that opinion. Though, many read the findings and somehow interpreted it that way. Bruce Wienkie (sp) who was a part of that symposium has posted on this board several times to straighten out this mis-interpretation.

I'll see if I can find one of those posts and provide a link to it if you don't find it yourself first.

From memory they opined that on no-stop recreational dives where the difference in dive depths or levels did not excede 40 ft, that there was no evidence that reverse profiles were a problem. In this case, I think the dive series being questioned did violate those parameters.[/QUOTE]

Do not confusse this with making the deep part of your dive first to allow for offgassing in the shallows before surfacing.[/QUOTE] since we're talking about no-stop dives where you can in theory directly ascend at any time, I don't think there is much difference between a dive with a reverse profile and a serise or reverse profile dives.

If it really mattered tables would somehow reflect the relationship.

It depends on which tables you are talking about. First of all, most of our tables only address disolved gas and totally ignore free phase gas (bubbles).

Tables like the DSAT weel are specifically designed for multilevel dives but it's clearly stated that the levels must progress from deep to shallow. Reverse profiles will calculate differently even in a disolved gas model.

Other tables, designed for calculating square profiles will certainly penalize you for reverse profiles...do the dives backwards and you'll end up with less allowable no-stop bottom time.

I'm off to look for BRW's posts on the subject.

 

[drbill]

The depth order came up the other night in our nitrox class and our instructor said that it really did not matter. It was a convention written in some old manuals and nobody knows what but the convention persists. I have read the same elsewhere...

Pete

Coming from the location where some of the pioneering work in reverse profiles was done, and often doing reverse profiles myself, it is my position that reverse profiles CAN be very safe. However, they do involve trade-offs that most new divers are often totally unaware of. Much of it has to do with the non-deco bottom time on the same dives depending on the order in which they are done. There is also the issue of the possibility of bubbles being reabsorbed by body tissues when you return to deeper depths.

Given the state of instruction given to many (but by no means all) newbie divers, I earlier reversed my position that newly certified OW students should wait a while and gain some experience before taking on their AOW certification. Now I see the sense in having the two done fairly close together time-wise.

In pre-history, when I got certified, our "OW" course was three weeks long and took us through many of the things AOW and Rescue Diver now cover. Of course we had far less equipment to worry about and learn back then... no BCD's, SPG's, octo's, etc.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Bruce Wienke (one of the guys who wrote the book) on the subject of reverse profiles. the poor guy has almost made a second career correcting people who miread or misquote the Smithsonian publication...including some of the dive rags of the time who screwed it up, if I remember right.

From http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?p=298020#post298020

2) SI Wkshp ONLY suggested RPs were OK for
recreational air diving with deltas less than 30 fsw,
and depths less than 130 fsw. This is always misquoted.

From http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?p=443235#post443235

Folks,

Contary to what you might read/hear about RPs in general,
DATA suggests that RPs with decrements larger than 40 fsw are
not a good thing. Especially as you go deeper on both dives.
And SIs are within a few hrs. And profile times are in the
same ballpark. This came out of the Smithsonian RP Wkshp.

From http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?p=147261#post147261

Just a comment or two on models and RPs (reverse profiles).

Risk on DCS for RPs goes up fast with increments greater
than 40 fsw, and at depths beyond 130 fsw on any mix --
see Smithsonian Institute Porceeding On RPs. So it's NOT
true that RPs are OK. And additional time for repets on
forward profiles is a hangover from haldane dissolved gas
models and tables ONLY. And RPs for deco diving are an
absolute no-no -- insanity with plenty of hits (see same
Smithsonian publication).

From http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?p=122522#post122522

At the Smithsonian Reverse Profiles Wkshp (2000)
we all agreed from data (and models) that RPs
were pretty much OK for depth increments of
30 fsw or less on successive dives, and for
depths not exceeding 130 fsw. This is obviously
recreational diving -- a SMALL subset of REAL
diving. The Wkshp recognized this, and we all
gave our blessings to ONLY that -- limited range
and statement of 130 fsw max, and deltas less
than 30 fsw for RPs What came out in news and
trade magazines did not reflect this -- as usual.

 

[ianw2]

You did a shallow dive and then on the 2nd went to 90 feet and then on the 3rd dive went to 120 feet?? I wonder why? That could lead to DCS right?

Sorry for the confusion. I should have written that the deeper dive was the next day – first dive. To be honest, it wasn’t that spectacular. There was a heck of a lot more to see at 30-60FSW.


Now, I have a question for you. You posted:

for me I feel as though getting your OW cert. is enough learning to make you dangerous... They teach just enough to dive and feel somewhat comfortable but for those that are cocky or risk takers, can be very dangerous.

Then, you went on to post:

I still feel though that the AOW class should not be given until a diver has at least 20-25 dives under their belt.

So, are you advocating that these dangerous new divers go out and throw themselves in the water for 15 to 20 times before they take AOW? How are they going to get the dives safely if they don’t have a group of experienced dive buddies? What do you suggest for those people?


You seem to have set up a Catch-22 here. Students can’t move on to get more education and dive safer until they get more experience diving unsafely. Of course, as one of my surveying mentors used to point out to me, it is an unfortunate fact that good judgment usually comes from a stream of poor judgment (fortunately, boundary surveying poor judgment rarely results in fatalities).


I do see where people can get erroneous ideas from the terminology used. Perhaps we should lobby to have the two courses called OW 1 and OW 2?