What do you wish you could teach a recreational diver?

[Six Feet Under]

You get out of diving, what you put into diving. This applies both to money spent, and time/effort put in towards becoming skilled and confident.

I wish I had known that when I got certified, I probably would have gone through a different shop... but hey, the class was on sale!!

 

[karstdvr]

Hi


My question to the technical divers of the sport is what do you wish you where taught from the beginning.

Another question you what to ask is ,what are you taught in the beginning that gives you a good foundation.

Not to beat a horse to death Ting Tong,but a comment that several people are inferring is that if you only got a little over an hour of pool time then you may have been short changed in your course. I have seen people who have taken the discover scuba diving resort course,which allows them to dive with a divemaster,but not a certification,get more pool time. These people are only getting the rudimentary survival skills for shallow water diving. Also, I have had people take a scuba class for certification with private instruction where they are one on one with the instructor get 6+ hours of pool time. I find that people are asking questions about technical diving then they have an interest in pursuing it in the future,so the question is,"what are you taught in the beginning", a very good foundation in entry level open water training leading to a c-card. If I might suggest,find another instructor at another shop and ask them to do refresher training,they could help you where you may have gotten weak instruction,this would be a good first step to pursuing other endeavors.

 

[Bobby]

There are two fundamental things I wish were taught in all diving. One is self reliance while always being ready to assist another diver in trouble. This is completely different than the "buddy system". Even in technical diving divers are reliant on their buddy. Far too often divers comment that they did "X" solo dive and were conservative because they did not have a buddy. I believe this stems from false reliance on a buddy. If a diver is not comfortable doing any type of dive on their own why would they do it with another person that the buddy may have a problem and need assistance. Plan every dive as if executing is solo then add conservatism to be able to be prepared to offer assistance to any diver, either in or not in their team, that has a problem.

The second is to teach divers what they don't know. This sounds like an oxymoron however it can be done at every level. If skills are tested and task loading applied during class a student will learn why & where their limitations are. Then they are able to form an understanding of where their limitations are and why they should not go past them without more training and experience. They will know what they don't know.

 

[Itsacon]

As another diver with a still-wet OW cert (SSI, not PADI):

We had one pool session, somewhere around 3 hours, I think. After that, we had a total of 8 outdoor dives, most of them one-on-one with an instructor each, and the rest two one-on-two (one instructor for the both of us).

Things I found very valuable:
- Pool session included buoyancy exercises.
- Outdoor sessions included some basic compass exercises (useful in murky Dutch waters)
- Students were motivated to use a minimum amount of weight (This pissed me off at first, as it made stuff more difficult, but even with just 10 dives under my belt, I can now already see the value of this).

For our last dive, we were told to plan a dive and dive it (route, time, depth, etc). Instructor followed behind, but didn't interfere. (she tapped my fin once when I was too low and hitting the ground, but other than that we were never aware of her presence). We were very proud that we managed to surface 2 meters from the jetty

So some schools still train divers to be completely self-sufficient after their OW (to the limits of there certs, obviously).

 

[Ting Tong]

For our last dive, we were told to plan a dive and dive it (route, time, depth, etc). Instructor followed behind, but didn't interfere. (she tapped my fin once when I was too low and hitting the ground, but other than that we were never aware of her presence). We were very proud that we managed to surface 2 meters from the jetty

So some schools still train divers to be completely self-sufficient after their OW (to the limits of there certs, obviously).

Well done!

Just curious, did you calculate your minimum gas requirements while you were planning your dive?

Cheers

Dave

 

[dreamdive]

Not to listen to all the wannabe's! Get your facts from the source, i.e. do the research yourself or talk to a true expert in the field. Chances are that your dive buddy, dive master, instructor, your shop's scuba god, are not experts. They simply recite all the mantra they have been incorrectly taught or heard. There is a load of MYTH circulating in diving. Training agencies are not your best source. Your best bet: Keep an open mind while listening, question absolutes, see if there is at least some science behind it.

 

[100days-a-year]

That 5% of the divers would be doing 90% of the diving.
That 5% of the divers posting on the net have anything like the ability they claim
That 5% of dive gear is worth having,the rest is mostly marketing
That 5% of the time devoted to diving is U/W the rest is travel,prep or cleanup
That 5% of what people say about diving is fact the rest opinion or theory

 

[Superlyte27]

PROPER HORIZONTAL TRIM

I was not introduced to this until I was training on my second rebreather and even then it was not stressed very hard.

Dude, you don't have proper trim, you dive a rEvo.

 

[kafkaland]

As an example: You are on a charter boat in Hawaii, and they tell you they're going to do a drift dive off Red Hill. It's the second dive, so they tell you to watch your computer carefully so you don't go into deco. You jump in the water and follow the divemaster. The current starts to push the group apart, and you're anxious, because you don't really know where the guide is going. You don't know how long the dive is expected to last. You're watching your gas and your no-deco time to see if either is getting low.

The same dive, done differently: It's a drift dive off Red Hill. You ask the DM how deep he expects to go, and he says 60 feet. You plug in 60 feet in your dive computer's planning mode, and find out you have 45 minutes at that depth, given your previous dive. You check your tank, which is full, and you calculate your gas consumption at 3 ATA for 45 minutes and discover that, with a novice diver's gas consumption, you are woefully short of gas for that dive. You talk to the DM and ask him how long he expects the dive to run, and whether you will be at 60 feet the whole time, or if you will have an option to move shallower. You match his answers to your gas supply and figure out what you can do. You look along the reef and check your compass, so you know roughly what direction the dive will go; that way, if you get separated from the guide, you and your buddy can continue in the same direction.

See the difference? Thought given to the dive before you get in the water prevents problems. Discussing the dive with your buddy and clarifying a plan and signals and contingency procedures prevents misunderstanding and stress. The more you can do ahead of time, the smoother and more relaxed your dive will be.

I have been on dive boats in the Caribbean and off Hawaii where DMs seemed rather disinclined to have that kind of planning conversation. When I asked a bit more about the dive after the usual "follow me, don't run out of air, and don't go into deco", along the lines of how long we'll be staying at what depth, or how the fact that some of us are on Nitrox and others are on air will affect how we dive as a group, I have gotten good responses, but also rather annoyed repetitions of "follow me, don't run out of air, and don't go into deco". In some way I understand that they're trying to get through this with the least potential for confusion, and perhaps the least amount of work for them, but when it happens it still leaves me a bit concerned that the DM him or herself doesn't fully understand dive planning and just follows blindly the standard protocol for that particular dive.

 

[flots am]

"follow me, don't run out of air, and don't go into deco".

I always liked that line because it sounds so simple, but there's no possible procedure for performing it that doesn't involve flipping off the DM at your turn pressure and ascending with your buddy.

flots