LG Diver
Guest
I've completed the following certs: OW, AOW, Rescue, Nitrox, Deep, DPV. I've already bought and scanned the course books for Nav and Wreck- all from PADI. After hanging out here for a while now, absorbing the collective wisdom of SB, and educating myself a bit on "rock bottom" and gas planning, I'm growing alarmed that nowhere in any of the above-mentioned courses does PADI teach gas planning. The closest they get is a half-hearted attempt at calculating depth consumption rate in the Deep specialty.
In preparing for my Deep specialty dives (one of which was planned for 130') I did some calculations of rock bottom, and came up with a figure of 2100 PSI for an Al 80 with padding for surf exit on air. The day of the dives comes. We're all gearing up and the instructor goes over rough surf entry/exit procedures, objectives, etc... no mention of a gas plan. I ask "what's the gas plan?" Huh? "At what pressure should we start our ascent?" Huh? Oh, uh.... 1500 PSI. "what? Excuse me, but my rock bottom calculations say we should be starting to ascend at ~2100PSI." And the reply was....
"if we started our ascent at 2100 PSI, we wouldn't have a chance to see anything down there!"
OK, fair enough, but I'm not particularly keen on trading sufficient emergency reserve for additional bottom time. Perhaps an Al 80 isn't adequate for this dive. Oh no, I'm reassured, it's done all the time. We ended up not doing the dive due to increasingly bad surface conditions, and in thinking about this afterwards I was quite relieved that we didn't do the dive because I was very uncomfortable with this discussion.
Now, mind you, this is not just a PADI instructor, but a PADI Tech instructor. So, this has me wondering. Does PADI not teach gas planning anywhere- not even on the tech side, or is this instructor just choosing to ignore gas planning when dealing with recreational students? In either case, I'm not comfortable with the notion of continuing to dive with people that won't carry enough gas to get me to the surface in the event I have an equipment failure, and I'm sure not keen on getting into overhead situations with an instructor/curriculum that doesn't address gas planning at all. I know I could buy a pony but I don't want to compensate for lack of training with gear.
I realize that this has been more of a rant than a question up to this point, but I'm torn. I really like the instructor and am VERY excited about doing some wreck diving but I'm not willing to do it in an unsafe/untrained manner. Should I a) address the issue with the instructor and ask that he add this to the curriculum of the wreck course, or b) go seek out some better training from another agency that covers this topic. If I address it with the instructor, does he have access to PADI content (perhaps from the tech side) that would cover this topic?
In preparing for my Deep specialty dives (one of which was planned for 130') I did some calculations of rock bottom, and came up with a figure of 2100 PSI for an Al 80 with padding for surf exit on air. The day of the dives comes. We're all gearing up and the instructor goes over rough surf entry/exit procedures, objectives, etc... no mention of a gas plan. I ask "what's the gas plan?" Huh? "At what pressure should we start our ascent?" Huh? Oh, uh.... 1500 PSI. "what? Excuse me, but my rock bottom calculations say we should be starting to ascend at ~2100PSI." And the reply was....
"if we started our ascent at 2100 PSI, we wouldn't have a chance to see anything down there!"
OK, fair enough, but I'm not particularly keen on trading sufficient emergency reserve for additional bottom time. Perhaps an Al 80 isn't adequate for this dive. Oh no, I'm reassured, it's done all the time. We ended up not doing the dive due to increasingly bad surface conditions, and in thinking about this afterwards I was quite relieved that we didn't do the dive because I was very uncomfortable with this discussion.
Now, mind you, this is not just a PADI instructor, but a PADI Tech instructor. So, this has me wondering. Does PADI not teach gas planning anywhere- not even on the tech side, or is this instructor just choosing to ignore gas planning when dealing with recreational students? In either case, I'm not comfortable with the notion of continuing to dive with people that won't carry enough gas to get me to the surface in the event I have an equipment failure, and I'm sure not keen on getting into overhead situations with an instructor/curriculum that doesn't address gas planning at all. I know I could buy a pony but I don't want to compensate for lack of training with gear.
I realize that this has been more of a rant than a question up to this point, but I'm torn. I really like the instructor and am VERY excited about doing some wreck diving but I'm not willing to do it in an unsafe/untrained manner. Should I a) address the issue with the instructor and ask that he add this to the curriculum of the wreck course, or b) go seek out some better training from another agency that covers this topic. If I address it with the instructor, does he have access to PADI content (perhaps from the tech side) that would cover this topic?