Bubbletrubble
Contributor
@DB: Thanks for sharing the report of your drysuit class. It sounds like you got your money's worth! I took a drysuit class at the same shop you did, but I only had one class in the pool. We were still able to do all of the skills you did in that one session. I have a couple of questions for you:.................... Ocean Dives .........................
1st Ocean Dive ... 2 people + Instructor .. to Wreck Alley 15 minutes off coast
First dive was on the 366ft Destroyer Yukon, laying on port side, Depth 98ft , Viz 25ft
We geared up and went in, practiced gear removal and donning on surface, then descended line, stopping at 20ft to recheck buddies, gear, then descended and gathered at forward turret, went down to sand to practice fin pivots (as planned) I was horizontal whole time on decent, hovered just above instructor as he signaled fin pivot to us, I floated down in front of him and did them for 1 minute .. we then swam around with instructor making depth changes (10ft changes .. 85 to 75ft) that we were to follow, at one point dipping head down off edge of deck and watching us closely to see .. what what we did (to see if we had respect for head down) how we did it and watching for any problems ..we went up at the line at about 24 min when we ran out of NDL time .. slow ascent, stopped at 40ft, 30ft, safety stop at 20ft .. debriefed on surface interval
(1) For his drysuit class, does your instructor generally do more than one pool session? I commend him for doing the extra sessions as it sounds like they were necessary to make you feel comfortable...and it took some time to sort out the proper footwear and the technique for feet-first ascent recovery.
(2) Is it standard practice for the instructor to take newbie drysuit divers to the Yukon for Ocean Dive #1? The reason I'm asking is that La Jolla Shores is an excellent training dive site with a sandy bottom that gets gradually deeper. It's very accessible and free to dive. There's a little wall at 60 fsw not too far out from shore. Navigation is super easy -- head east towards shore at end of dive. It seems to me that a rather deep boat dive would not be a great first choice for Ocean Dive #1. The Yukon is a more advanced dive...and people have been known to get into trouble on it. I guess I'm just surprised that your instructor decided to take you on a dive in the 100 fsw range...where narcosis could be an issue. Ultimately, I guess it should depend on your level of experience (boat dives, deep dives, wreck dives) and your comfort level with diving the Yukon. It just seems plain weird to me, though, that you would go there for Ocean Dive #1 in your drysuit when a much more suitable site was available.
FWIW, I've heard of instructors taking AOW students to the Yukon for Dive #1 with no prior pool sessions. So, not only were the instructors doing the "deep dive" as the first dive of the class, but they really had no idea how comfortable the divers were in the water. Consider that some AOW students have never dived in cold water before, and others may have come straight through basic open water class to AOW without gaining any experience in-between classes. This puts a great deal of pressure on DMs who may be asked to watch over students on these dives. To me, this seems like the instructor is taking on a great deal of unnecessary risk. Or perhaps I'm just cautious by nature. I'm interested in hearing what you and others think.