Student Pulled from Elliott Bay in Seattle

[jbuck88]

I don't know that area, but I was certified in February in Edmonds. We did the pool section with a 1 intructor to 4 student ratio. When it came to the open water section they had extra intructor's to help so we had a 1 instructor for every 2 students. It was fairly limited vis and lots of divers so maintaining Our groups was hard.

 

[GotHopsCrownHill]

I won't post the name here, but this story has the info you are asking

Diver critical after being pulled from water in West Seattle

Thank you. Confirmed my suspicion.

 

[USdiver1]

I always equate dive training to flight training, not bunny slope 1st day ski demo.

Agreed. And as with flight training you should first be certified as visual before acquiring your instrument (low viz) rating. The potential for "silt outs" should not even be a possibility on an O/W check-out series of dives. Find another non-confined water area in which to conduct your O/W check-out dives. If memory serves, the Seattle area is surrounded by lakes as well as having access to the sea. Loss of a diver is always a tragic event, it is even more so when it is a young person with so much potential. RIP

 

[fmerkel]

The lakes are worse, much worse actually, than the Sound if anything. Unfortunately the Sound is kind of a big sloshing bathtub with a bunch of rivers with attendant silt flowing into it. It never really flushes out, much, just goes up and down with the narrow spots getting current. The low current spots have lots of silt. There are spots without much silt but they are generally that way due to high current.
Difficult area to certify in. The standards set by all of the agencies are simply not really appropriate for conditions here. If you can dive well in the NW well, you can dive about anywhere.

 

[cerich]

The lakes are worse, much worse actually, than the Sound if anything. Unfortunately the Sound is kind of a big sloshing bathtub with a bunch of rivers with attendant silt flowing into it. The low current spots have lots of silt. There are spots without much silt but they are generally that way due to high current.
Difficult area to certify in. The degraded standards set by all of the agencies are simply not really appropriate for conditions here. If you can dive in the NW well, you can dive about anywhere.

I have dove and even taught a class in the sound (tech class but a class it was)
IMHO provided a class is well taught in CW and you reduce ratios to say 4:1 with a certified assistant, be aware of the weather and conditions it is a good training locale that can produce good divers and interesting dives. However, doing abbreviated barely comfortable with the skills one 4 hours session CW and the going to OW in the sound would be a unmitigated disaster

 

[fmerkel]

Agree, but a tech class would (should!) already have a lot of basic buoyancy and trim skills. Silting out, task overloads, and buddy awareness would already be reasonably established.
I don't know how much you taught around here but you can have 5 feet of viz one day and 20 feet a couple days or a week later. A lot of the classes are spring>fall during our plankton bloom time.

 

[cerich]

Agree, but a tech class would (should!) already have a lot of basic buoyancy and trim skills. Silting out, task overloads, and buddy awareness would already be reasonably established.
I don't know how much you taught around here but you can have 5 feet of viz one day and 20 feet a couple days or a week later. A lot of the classes are spring>fall during our plankton bloom time.

Just that one class. But the variable viz is not unique to the sound.
I am confused as to why the stuff you listed as basic buoyancy and trim skills you consider that a diver should have because they are going into tech. I think the word is basic and should be learned before going from cw to ow on the ow course. Unless it is a intro to tech class where those basic skills are polished up to above average, students on tech classes should have superior not basic buoyancy and trim

 

[fmerkel]

Basic is a term I threw out just to mean that (hopefully) those skills were established enough to not have to deal with buoyancy and trim. OTOH I've seen instructors with awful skills in both areas.
I personally think OW1 students should have functional skill sets there. In reality they seldom do. Almost always over weighted with no effort towards trim is generally the way it works. There is way too much to do in too short a time with lackluster equipment to do any kind of fine tuning or skills like buoyancy and trim.

 

[cerich]

Basic is a term I threw out just to mean that (hopefully) those skills were established enough to not have to deal deal with buoyancy and trim. OTOH I've seen instructors with awful skills in both areas.
I personally thing OW1 students should have functional skill sets there. In reality they seldom do. Almost always over weighted with no effort towards trim is generally the way it works.

I agree with you, too many instructors lack basic buoyancy and trim, anti silting technique themselves so how can they teach what they don't know? A big part of the problem is the overweighting that is taught and used by most instructors.

 

[fmerkel]

The people that I have helped get trim and buoyancy, with a 1 on 1 and a whole dived dedicated to it, you get 'close'. You don't get spot on because the 'student' still had a lot to learn about being calm, not over finning and waving the hands around, and easier breathing. To do that with every student would be time consuming, therefor end up being expensive.
Unfortunately too much of the model in these parts is to almost give away the class, not an outright loss leader in some cases, and make money on the materials and equipment.

Instructors must want to teach. I don't see they can possibly make money, and I consider their exposure to risk to be not trivial. Kudos to them, I wouldn't do it. It's plenty to host dives for the club.