I'd be interested in any thoughts on the idea of using say, a six foot tether on a 14 yo for the first few OW dives? I'm thinking a 6 foot piece of webbing with a snap swivel on each end.
And I know hand signals are important, but everyone's getting a "Magna Doodle" for Christmas this year. Seemed a lot easier than all learning Sign language.
On the "buddy" front, I'm sure my 14 yo will be a better buddy than some I've had (or he won't be diving). Prior to my wife's certification, I dove with a fair assortment of people and some were downright scary. Most improved after a brief discussion on the surface, but I'm amazed at the number who would swim quite hard for a minute or more, with limited viz (15 to 20 feet), without ever looking beside or behind.
The biggest challenge IMHO, is panic and no one really knows until they're under stress, how well they'll cope. Training is just that, it's still a controlled environment and so the "problems" faced are somewhat anticipated. I've had a couple of issues to deal with in my first 52 dives. The first, around dive 15 was a buddies reg free flowing at 50 feet (about 39F) early into the dive. While I took my octo in hand, he made a rather rapid ascent, leaving me behind. I have no plans to dive with him again, ever! The other was my wife, who had a (mild?) panic attack in about 30 feet, when we ran into a stirred up area and there was suddenly no point of reference (no bottom or other structure), fortunately we were only an arms length apart, so she was able to grab my BC, she swung me around to face her and one look at her eyes and there was no doubt what was happening. I placed on hand on her BC, gave a thumbs up to ascend and we did a nice slow free ascent to the surface and snorkeled back to shore. While she did indeed, panic, she did not bolt and we've been working on dealing with low viz since.
I know from sailing with her and one night both of us getting up at 3am, because winds have shifted and increased to about 30 to 35 knots (contrary to the forecast) bringing 3 foot plus waves, our anchor is slowly dragging and we'll shortly be tossed on the rocky shore of an unihabited island, unless we deal with it quickly and properly, that when the need arises we will both "rise" to the occasion. On that occasion, we tied a float on the anchor line, started the outboard. While I made sure we didn't foul the line with our prop, she drove us out of there and into a more sheltered location, while I rigged and set our spare anchor. While this was happening, our 14yo, then 12, woke his younger brother, got both of them into their foulies and PFD's and grabbed the ditch bag (flares and handheld VHF), in case we had to abandon. From this, I quite expect that both will adequately handle that which may arise. ( to finish the tale, it had blown itself out by dawn and we were able to have breakfast, recover our anchor and continue our trip. (for any interested, some sailing pics at
http://www.globallaser.on.ca/kent/Unica.htm )
Kent
