Yesterday I feel I got lucky.

[Iruka]

Bear in mind, however, that barring actually checking a student's air supply against what the student says his air supply is, it is quite possible for students to make it through the typical AOW course without ever actually reading their SPG. They can "go through the motions" and appear to be doing it, but that's no assurance they actually are! I check what's actually on the gauge against what the student says is there... as an instructor you'd be surprised at how often they don't match.
Rick

You've got that right....I've seen divers read both their compass and depth gauge when telling me their air pressure. (I joked with one of them (who was using a metric "bar" gauge where 200 is full) that she was okay as long as she was heading south, because it read "180"....but don't go north because then it would be "0.") I had another very big diver....10 minutes into a deep dive I checked everyone's air, most of whom were still at 3/4 full....and he signalled to me "2-5-0." Well, if he had a metric gauge, he either gained 50 bar during the dive or he was wrong; if he had a PSI gauge and meant to say "2-5-0-0" he was doing better on air than I would have expected. Neither of which gave me any confidence in what he was signalling had any basis in reality...so I took a look at his gauge, and it was 60 bar (about 900 psi)....so I was able to get him back safely on the boat, total dive time 16 minutes.

 

[yhike]

I just want to do follow up. My wife and I went to Cozumel and went scuba diving. This time we hired a dive master just to teach us and its was well work the money. I learned so much from the dive master and now I can see how much of a difference in instructions we had the first time around.

 

[caseybird]

I just want to do follow up. My wife and I went to Cozumel and went scuba diving. This time we hired a dive master just to teach us and its was well work the money. I learned so much from the dive master and now I can see how much of a difference in instructions we had the first time around.

Congrats on your Coz dives. Would you mind giving some details of your Coz dives? Did you do skills with the DM? Was the DM an instructor? How many dives did you do, to what depth? Did you do shore dives, did you get out onto a boat?
Who was the operator?
How did you like Cozumel? I've been there about 8 trips, I'd like to hear from a new viewpoint.
Thanks.

 

[yhike]

We did boat dives and yes they were all skill dives. Our deepest dive was 105 ft but was just there for a min coming over the reef. The instructor was great it was like night and day in the type of instruction we had before. The instructor knew where we at all times, he help me control my breathing and taught us lot about bouyancy. We used Blue Angle and I am thinking about making another trip very soon.

 

[EastTNDiver]

That's great to read, yhike. Now you can see why so many say it's not the agency, but the instructor.

Not to hijack the thread, but it's also good to hear good things about Blue Angel, as we were thinking about staying at the resort and using them on a trip next year. Did you stay at the resort itself, or just use the dive op? My son and I are divers, but my wife is not. We're hoping it's a good place for both divers and non-divers to stay.