Taking an open water student below 60 ft?

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Yle

I have a guy in my dive group that gets a lot of razzing because he is so anal when it comes to demanding as an instructor ,, student mastering of skills. Most all will say they have never seen anyone like that. The comment alone speaks a lot about instructors in general. If I was to ask an new OW how to tow someone I would get the italian salute. Those items I would call the bare minimum rescue skills. The actual rescue course goes much further. As one said they never had to use the course skills for rescue. However they will say they use diver assist a lot. Diver assist is generally an unknown thing in OW training. Im not an instructor but when I work with new divers we do these things to (if I may say) make up for the short comings of the OW class whether agency or instructor related. I cant say how many people I have so called prepped for AOW and other courses, not as a coarse primer but a general skill developing event. There are a lot of experienced divers that can not use a compass, shoot a buoy, hold depth and a lot of other things the as an AOW should be able to.
 
I agree...however, it's interesting the people can do "try dives" and will go to 30-40 feet...without a certification and what I think is minimal skills prep. They do it at almost resorts, and dive shops. I'm not saying it's right...I'm saying they do it.

I did a "try diving" session in 1966 it was put on by the only LDS within 100 miles. It took place in the shallow end of the YMCA pool. Back then common sense was used instead of "marketing".
 
Hi Bob,

This is your money quote: "A reevaluation of their intrest in diving will probably not be good for the diving industry."

I think most of the agency fan-boys don't understand this dynamic. When people are fed bullsheet, and then realize that, as Shearwater has written in their manual: "You really are risking your life with this activity", they don't seek further training from the agency that lied to them, they dropout.

When I was trained, I took the buddy system as my ticket to fulfilling my need for redundancy on the ocean. After a few instabuddies, and a wife who is not an exemplary buddy, I concluded that my agency-of-record sold me on their marketing, and not the truth. Smoke and mirrors.

From that realizatoin on, I took responsibility for my own life. My agency-of-record is not part of my life saving protocols--I judge the techniques I use based on their own merit, and my ability to perform them well.

cheers,
m

And that sir is how we really learn to dive.
 
Hi Bob,

This is your money quote: "A reevaluation of their intrest in diving will probably not be good for the diving industry."

I think most of the agency fan-boys don't understand this dynamic. When people are fed bullsheet, and then realize that, as Shearwater has written in their manual: "You really are risking your life with this activity", they don't seek further training from the agency that lied to them, they dropout.

When I was trained, I took the buddy system as my ticket to fulfilling my need for redundancy on the ocean. After a few instabuddies, and a wife who is not an exemplary buddy, I concluded that my agency-of-record sold me on their marketing, and not the truth. Smoke and mirrors.

From that realizatoin on, I took responsibility for my own life. My agency-of-record is not part of my life saving protocols--I judge the techniques I use based on their own merit, and my ability to perform them well.

cheers,
m
^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^. The “buddy system” that’s taught is not of any utility when you have a crappy buddy. And “self sufficiency “ is not given the curriculum it really deserves. At the end of the dive you have to CYOA. You must have sufficient skills and clarity of mind to work through those difficulties. That takes time, training, repetition. They’ve tried to split the curriculum into smaller pieces AOW > 60 ft etc. But imagine being fresh OW and hitting the wall at Coz or really anywhere. One undertow away from 150 ft. Really should anyone be less than AOW trained and hit the ocean at anything other than a few select shallow spots?
 
If I recall correctly, when I got my NASDS scuba diver ow card 50 years ago the depth limit was 120 fsw. Of course, it took several weeks to get that card. When I lived in Jamaica in the 70s I helped out at a small beach scuba operation every now and then. There were loads of PADI Basic Scuba Diver certification cards coming through that small one man operation. I'm pretty sure the limit printed on those cards was also 120 feet.
 
If I recall correctly, when I got my NASDS scuba diver ow card 50 years ago the depth limit was 120 fsw. Of course, it took several weeks to get that card. When I lived in Jamaica in the 70s I helped out at a small beach scuba operation every now and then. There were loads of PADI Basic Scuba Diver certification cards coming through that small one man operation. I'm pretty sure the limit printed on those cards was also 120 feet.
Was that in Negril? Next to sundowner hotel. Trying to remember owners name right now was a long time ago
 
If I recall correctly, when I got my NASDS scuba diver ow card 50 years ago the depth limit was 120 fsw. Of course, it took several weeks to get that card. When I lived in Jamaica in the 70s I helped out at a small beach scuba operation every now and then. There were loads of PADI Basic Scuba Diver certification cards coming through that small one man operation. I'm pretty sure the limit printed on those cards was also 120 feet.
My OW was done in 1989. It was done over a three week period with cert dives on the weekends. Our first pool session was mask clearing, swimming 100 meters, basics of ear clearing, etc. I don’t think we even donned any SCUBA equipment until the second pool session. I thought our OW cert max was 130 but it may have been 120. It was 10 minutes at that depth to the deco limit, is how I remembered it. Our last certification dive was to 100 feet on a coral wall. My daughter went on vacation to Negril Bay Jamaica after graduating high school and got OW certed in two days. I just shook my head. She doesn’t have any interest in doing anymore SCUBA diving, but I was going to make sure to tune up her skill set if she had.
 
Was that in Negril? Next to sundowner hotel. Trying to remember owners name right now was a long time ago
Ed Barret was the manager of that small open air Polynesian themed operation. Rita Hojan owned the Sundowner, with her usually absent Swiss husband. Negril was a small sleepy village back then, incredibly beautiful.
 
Ed Barret was the manager of that small open air Polynesian themed operation. Rita Hojan owned the Sundowner, with her usually absent Swiss husband. Negril was a small sleepy village back then, incredibly beautiful.
YES, Ed Barret. Now I remember. I think Ed was originally from NJ . Remember a decent swim thru that started on top of reef and came out on face of wall. I took a group there around 1970 -1974 ? and one of my group chose to stay after we left. Thanks for the memory
 
Yle

I have a guy in my dive group that gets a lot of razzing because he is so anal when it comes to demanding as an instructor ,, student mastering of skills. Most all will say they have never seen anyone like that. The comment alone speaks a lot about instructors in general. If I was to ask an new OW how to tow someone I would get the italian salute. Those items I would call the bare minimum rescue skills. The actual rescue course goes much further. As one said they never had to use the course skills for rescue. However they will say they use diver assist a lot. Diver assist is generally an unknown thing in OW training. Im not an instructor but when I work with new divers we do these things to (if I may say) make up for the short comings of the OW class whether agency or instructor related. I cant say how many people I have so called prepped for AOW and other courses, not as a coarse primer but a general skill developing event. There are a lot of experienced divers that can not use a compass, shoot a buoy, hold depth and a lot of other things the as an AOW should be able to.

"Tired diver tow" is a required skill in PADI's OW course. I explain the utility of the skill, the various ways to tow a diver (and pros and cons of each), we practice it in the pool and the students repeat it in open water. I also emphasize to my students it is one skill that I frequently use as an instructor: we do a lot of beach diving, and towing a buddy (or student) through the surf zone (when they haven't yet put on fins, or have already taken fins off...) is pretty common.

Using a compass and maintaining proper depth are OW course skills. I'm not saying that all divers with OW cert cards can do these things... but they are required skills of the course. PADI also added SMB deployment as a required skill back in 2013. The students aren't required to deploy from depth, but they are required to deploy from either surface or depth and they are supposed to understand the importance of using a SMB.

There seems to be a big difference between what some instructors do in their OW courses, what some people remember (or just believe) to be part of the OW course, and what is actually required in the OW course. Unfortunately, too many people all too frequently confuse the first of these two for the last.
 

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