What do you wish you could teach a recreational diver?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Ting Tong

Contributor
Messages
82
Reaction score
32
Location
Perth Australia
# of dives
100 - 199
Hi

Apologies if this is in the wrong section. (Mods please move)

I am not a technical diver, far from it. I don't dive with a BP/W. I am an inexperienced diver, currently with 34 dives to my name.

I have watched videos on the internet, (with a certain amount of awe!), technical divers fin backwards! This totally blows my mind as I am am still at the hand sculling stage!

However we all started at the same place, ie we all had our first dive!

I have just recently researched Minimum Gas calculations and was a little dismayed that I was not taught this in my OW. Ok maybe ascending when the first diver is at 50 barg is an acceptable practice, or maybe it over simplifies the situation.

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

I understand buoyancy and finning technique possibly will be the first few answers, but I practice (and get better every dive I do). What else?
 
buoyancy and kicks are the two that really matter. We don't allow our students to use their hands at all and since it is a university, if they use their hands, they have to get out of the pool, walk over to the big pool with the water aerobics class and sing "I'm a Little Teapot" with full hand motions to the 40+ college aged girls in the pool, same for masks on foreheads, there are few repeat offenders. These are little things that are the instructors fault for providing junk instruction since they rely on churning out as many divers and charging for as many classes as possible. It is the nature of the industry.

minimum gas calculations should be taught as far as how to calculate your SAC rate, and if you can calculate your SAC, then it becomes, here is my max depth, I know how long my gas is going to last, I need to come up with x amount of air, how many minutes do I have and does this violate NDL's. That's basic dive planning. If you plan it right, you should know "ok, my ascent rate is 10m/minute, so assuming 30m dive, with a sac of 0.7cf/minute, it will take me 2.1cf of gas for ascent in worst case scenario, and I have to be at the boat with 700psi or 50bar. 700psi is almost 20cf on an al80 so by saying come back with that much gas, that is taking rock bottom sort of into consideration, just not fully explaining the how or why.


also, not all of us started at the same place. Those trained by some of the good universities have about 30 hours of bottom time in the pool prior to going to OW and are trained by technical instructors, same goes for those trained by GUE from the beginning, yes we did all have our "first dive" but that first dive was very very different for some of us.
 
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.
 
buoyancy and kicks are the two that really matter. We don't allow our students to use their hands at all and since it is a university, if they use their hands, they have to get out of the pool, walk over to the big pool with the water aerobics class and sing "I'm a Little Teapot" with full hand motions to the 40+ college aged girls in the pool,

Nice! I can do that! Did I mention I was 40+ (joke)

These are little things that are the instructors fault for providing junk instruction since they rely on churning out as many divers and charging for as many classes as possible. It is the nature of the industry.

Unfortunately!

minimum gas calculations should be taught as far as how to calculate your SAC rate, and if you can calculate your SAC, then it becomes, here is my max depth, I know how long my gas is going to last, I need to come up with x amount of air, how many minutes do I have and does this violate NDL's. That's basic dive planning.

Unfortunately I do not know how to calculate on paper my SAC rate. My dive computer shows me ( I have an air intergrated computer). In the first few dives I noticed that my first few dives my SAC rate went up on decent, significantly higher than the rest of the dive, I assume because of the (unknown) stress of doing something that my mind is telling me not to do. I have worked on that and it has improved. Is there a resource on the internet that you could point me in the direction of, so that I can calculate it on paper?

If you plan it right, you should know "ok, my ascent rate is 10m/minute, so assuming 30m dive, with a sac of 0.7cf/minute, it will take me 2.1cf of gas for ascent in worst case scenario, and I have to be at the boat with 700psi or 50bar. 700psi is almost 20cf on an al80 so by saying come back with that much gas, that is taking rock bottom sort of into consideration, just not fully explaining the how or why.


My limited understanding of "minimum gas" is that worst case scenario I will be ascending with my buddy on my octopus and would be double the gas that I would consume , plus stress.

also, not all of us started at the same place. Those trained by some of the good universities have about 30 hours of bottom time in the pool prior to going to OW and are trained by technical instructors, same goes for those trained by GUE from the beginning, yes we did all have our "first dive" but that first dive was very very different for some of us.

Absolutely! My open water pool session was completed in 1hour and 5 mins with one other student. I always remember my "instructor" bragging about when we got back to the shop, about how "good" we were.

Do I think I am a bad diver? Not necessarily. I understand I have a lot to learn. Hence my question.Thanks for a great first reply. It puts things into context for me.

---------- Post added September 29th, 2014 at 12:58 AM ----------

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.

Good point, I only recently viewed video of myself (not in horizontal trim) and I was a little embarrassed. I thought I was better than that, but obviously not.

My BCD, an Axion i3, has trim pockets next to the tank. I use 4.8 kg of weight. I put 2 weights (800gm each, total 1.6 kg) into my trim pockets and 4 (3.2kg) weights into my integral weight pockets. Possibly I could put 4 weights into my trim pockets, but my concern would be that I have enough ditch able weight! Easy enough to test I guess. Good thought. Thanks.
 
Last edited:
As long as Basic buoyancy, trim and propulsiontechniques are mentioned... I won't say those.

Coming from a place where a lot of diving is either done in bad vis og bad lighting conditions, I'd put a hand up for communicationskills and the use of a light!
 
Ditchable weight is overrated. Many of us don't dive with any. It's called diving a balanced rig and carrying only what you need. In addition to a lift bag or DSMB that can double as a back up buoyancy device.

An hour and 15 minute pool session? There is no possible way to compete all the required skills in that time. That instructor needs to be reported and his card yanked.

Calculating your SAC rate is quite simple actually and takes only a few minutes. You don't even need to be in the water to do it. You can get a baseline resting SAC rate sitting your couch with a mask on and breathing from a regulator attached to tank. You simply breathe it for a set period of time, record the starting and ending pressures, and do the math. You can find the formulas in many places and I have a chapter in my book that covers it. Along with gas planning and dive planning in general.

That's another thing many divers don't learn. How to properly plan a dive. PADI has a new requirement that OW divers must plan and lead their last checkout dive. Some of us with PADI other agencies have been doing this for years. But when this came out the hue and cry that went up from the OWSI ranks was loud and long. So many whined and cried that they could not trust their students to do this. How would it be possible? The answer was it was there all along. It was just never put that way in the standards. For years the RSTC guideline that said a new OW diver should be able to plan, execute, and return from a dive with a buddy of equal training and skill right out of the OW class was ignored and thrown away. Training divers to do that took time. And time is money. Cheaper and faster to say just follow the DM or guide and you'll be fine. It went on so long that you have instructors who don't know how to properly plan a dive. And some of them become instructor trainers and course directors.
 
Ditchable weight is overrated. Many of us don't dive with any. It's called diving a balanced rig and carrying only what you need. In addition to a lift bag or DSMB that can double as a back up buoyancy device.

Hi Jim,

Could you expand on why ditchable weight is overrated? When doing a buddy check with a diver recently, I realised that he didn't have ditchable weight, I questioned it but did not get a suitable reply. I do dive with SMB and never clicked that it could be used as a backup bouyancy device. Thankyou.

An hour and 15 minute pool session? There is no possible way to compete all the required skills in that time. That instructor needs to be reported and his card yanked.

1 hour 5 minutes! 2 students!

Calculating your SAC rate is quite simple actually and takes only a few minutes. You don't even need to be in the water to do it. You can get a baseline resting SAC rate sitting your couch with a mask on and breathing from a regulator attached to tank. You simply breathe it for a set period of time, record the starting and ending pressures, and do the math. You can find the formulas in many places and I have a chapter in my book that covers it. Along with gas planning and dive planning in general.

It appears that I may need your book!

That's another thing many divers don't learn. How to properly plan a dive. PADI has a new requirement that OW divers must plan and lead their last checkout dive. Some of us with PADI other agencies have been doing this for years. But when this came out the hue and cry that went up from the OWSI ranks was loud and long. So many whined and cried that they could not trust their students to do this. How would it be possible? The answer was it was there all along. It was just never put that way in the standards. For years the RSTC guideline that said a new OW diver should be able to plan, execute, and return from a dive with a buddy of equal training and skill right out of the OW class was ignored and thrown away. Training divers to do that took time. And time is money. Cheaper and faster to say just follow the DM or guide and you'll be fine. It went on so long that you have instructors who don't know how to properly plan a dive. And some of them become instructor trainers and course directors.

Judging from the responses, I believe I could not plan a dive correctly. I understand that I could, possibly dive using rules of thumb, ie ascend when at 50 barg, but this is not correctly planning the dive. The mathematics needed to correctly plan a dive is what I am interested in. It appears that it's not my frog kick that I need to be worried about.

Thankyou for all the responses, I really appreciate it. It gives me and possibly a lot of other novice divers somewhere to focus our attention.
 
What a brilliant and well thought out thread on all counts.

It's good to see a new diver wanting to learn more basics rather than dive immediately to 40m. Approaching recreational dives with a technical mindset.

I'd suggest that's one of the best "skills", and you already seem to possess it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
My question to the technical divers of the sport is what do you wish you where taught from the beginning.

I understand buoyancy and finning technique possibly will be the first few answers, but I practice (and get better every dive I do). What else?

OW divers need to know:


  1. All the OW skills.
  2. How to not run out of air.
  3. How to get to the surface safely and stay there in case they screwed up #2
  4. How to have a good idea if it might be prudent to stay on the boat.

Everything else is in the "nice, but optional" category.
 
Last edited:
http://cavediveflorida.com/Rum_House.htm

Back
Top Bottom