Instructor tactics (split from accident thread)

The recommended depth limit for the PADI AOW is 100 feet, and 130 feet for the PADI Deep Specialty. Remember, these are only RECOMMENDED limits, not actual enforced limits. The main differences I remember between the two courses were an extra 3 Deep dives and breathing off a hang tank during the Deep specialty. Every diver should make their own informed decisions. Hopefully the instructors followed their guidelines. I guess we don't know what depth those students were told to go to in their briefing.

I've done the Tiller and it is deep and cold, but you can easily stay above 100' and see everything. I've had up to 50 feet visibility, which is really good for around here. 42 F is pretty cold, especially in a wetsuit, and especially for those divers not used to it. I've had 40 F there. Even drysuit divers not wearing enough exposure protection will get cold at that temp. According to PADI, you're supposed to add 10 feet to the actual planned depth when planning your very cold water dives. So 90 feet at 42 F should be planned as if it is 100 feet. Hopefully they accounted for the cold as well.

Hi Ayisha:

Getting slightly off topic probably, but from memory, the Adventure Deep dive for AOW RECOMMENDED is 60-80ft, with a MAX (per standard) of 100ft.

The problem I find with allowing VT's method of doing the AOW (Diving to a planned depth, but the hard bottom is below 100ft) is that the level of competency of a majority of AOW students is not sufficient enough to safely go ahead with a dive like that, simply because they'll blow it too easily without any help at all.

A recent AOW student that I did, we planned for a max depth of 70ft, four times I told him, and he confirmed.

Of course my intention was to lure him deeper. I hardly had to try at all, as was expected. (And that is OK, that's what the training is for) The hard bottom was still shallower than standards permit. The point of the exercise was a little more than "slide down the line, tie a knot, write your name, and climb the line back up". That teaches the diver jack squat. I won't even touch the allowable diver to instructor ratio permitted by standards. Rediculous.

The way I choose to do it allows for some serious post-dive discussion with appropriate lessons learned, IMO. Of course this is within the standard as well.

Again, this post is in no way making any correlations between it and this thread, and as mentioned, is slightly off topic.

Regards

Scuba Steve,

If my instructor used your method it would TRULY lead to some serious post-dive discussion. Your method has some serious flaws. IMHO

Try this scenerio...

You are my instructor:
We are doing a "planned" deep dive to a maximum depth of 80 feet.
I reach the planned depth of 80 feet and you continue down.
I THINK... is my depth guage wrong
I THINK... is his depth guage wrong?
I THINK... is he in trouble?
I THINK... do I go help/stop him?
I THINK... do I let him go?

You have just demonstrated how to truly confuse a student, how to force an abandonment of a buddy (or risk being yelled at by your buddy for trying to help him in a possible time of need) and how to truly PI$$ me off if you did it to me. You probably also just got fired as my instructor.

Instruction should be just that, instruction. IMO this is not the time to show how "clever" you are by "tricking your student into making a bad (IYO) decision. For me, this would probably be the last class you instructed me in.

How about this scenerio instead...

Plan the dive for 80 feet maximum. Then, let the STUDENT lead the dive to depth. See if he/she follows the plan to stop at 80 feet. See how well they can hold the depth without the line to hold to. Let them "fail" on their own. Don't destroy the level of trust needed between student-instructor.

Just MHO...

Thanks for the post Carl.

I suspect if you were my student on that dive, (Experiencing first hand and more indepth, what I only briefly mentioned here) you might not think they way you do about it.

Starting with, why do you think I was leading the dive? and what makes you think I was deeper than the student? Would this be an ideal or safe position for the student relative the Instructor? And possibly, who was this students buddy and why was this person chosen by myself?

I'm just guessing here, but maybe that's why I am the instructor and this person is the student?

If you care to discuss it further, please start another thread so we do not detract from this one, or PM me as required.


Regards

Scuba_Steve:

Starting with, why do you think I was leading the dive? and what makes you think I was deeper than the student? Would this be an ideal or safe position for the student relative the Instructor? And maybe, who was this students buddy and why was this person chosen by myself?

Click to expand...

It's your use of the word Lure. It implies that your were leading and tempting the student to go deeper, and were thus deeper than the student.

Perhaps it was simply the wrong choice of word, but I read your instructor/student post the same way Carl did.

Well, somebody was luring him

Oddly, it's the use of the word "Advanced" (AOW) that scares me more.

Almost as much as giving somebody a card to dive to 130ft when they have no idea what they're doing at 30ft possibly being lured by other equally unskilled divers.

Get the skills down if you're going to do the diving. And do it safely.

carldarl:

I THINK...
I THINK...
I THINK...
I THINK...
I THINK...

Click to expand...

Yep, that's what we're getting folks to do.

Glad I could clarify a tad more for ya's.

moving on......

As newly certified, I trust that my instructor would not play tricks on me especially at that depth. I agree with Carl. I would second guess myself for (a) not fully comprehending the instructions; or (b) question the integrity of the instructor or think of him as totally demented. No newbie student should be subjected to doubts when all along we entrust our life in your supposed-capable hands.

Waterfly:

As newly certified, I trust that my instructor would not play tricks on me especially at that depth. I agree with Carl. I would second guess myself for (a) not fully comprehending the instructions; or (b) question the integrity of the instructor or think of him as totally demented. No newbie student should be subjected to doubts when all along we entrust our life in your supposed-capable hands.

Click to expand...

While I don't agree with the tactic, allow me to point out that one of the flaws in much SCUBA instruction right now is that students perceive the situation as entrusting their lives in the capable hands of their instructor, when in fact, they should be learning from the instructor how to entrust their lives in their own capable hands. I am no solo diver, but I think self-reliance is something sorely lacking in much SCUBA training, partly at the fault of instructors and agencies not stressing the point enough, and partly because of students having atourist-type attitude about the whole thing.

I've asked the powers that be to split this thread to a more appropriate spot, so this post will go with the lot of them........

Bingo gangrel441

If somebody wants the privelage of being AOW certified and all that that entails, I want to be sure they don't do what most are currently doing, which is for lack of a better phrase, blind trust-me dives. I don't blame the student(s), you just aren't aware of how they're babying you vs. teaching real required skills.

Who the heck am I that you should trust without using your own brain?

Are you not already supposed to be certified to plan and conduct your own dives?

Did someone give you a free "get out of poop" card for your diving, or do you want to learn something here?

Or are what we saying is, you want to do 5 hand-held trust the Instructor dives, get a card to "go deeper", but you're not willing to learn to obtain the skill required to perform such dives safely.

Every last diver has to learn that you don't blindly trust anyone, and so I choose under controlled circumstances, to evaluate this ability to spot and respond appropriately to things in the dive plan that are going awry.

Of course you'll "fail", that's what learning is all about. Your not really failing as learning anyway, and what you learn might save your @$$ one day, Better learn it sooner, than later. As one fellow around our parts says, "Experience is something you get right after you needed it."

It's often true, but it's not the preferred method.

As gangel also says, that responsibility falls squarely on the Instructors shoulders.

I'll tell ya flat out I'll never make money doing it the way I prefer, simply because I don't prescribe to 4-8 divers in the water all at once trying to do some lame set of objectives to "qualify". So I'm stuck making little or in this case actually losing, to get some decent training done. We were 2 on one, as in, one student......now that's an instructor ratio that works.

For me the choice is obvious. Safely providing real skills wins over monetary gain every time. Case closed. You gents may have no idea just how really dangerous your own dives to this point may have been vs. the dive we're speaking of was, which wasn't at all.

YMMV and usually does.

Regards

Split from the thread in the Incidents and Accidents forum ... carry on ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)