PADI?

[Graeme Fraser]

What other agency teaches DSMB diver specialty class? Shouldn't that be included already in basic dive training? Why should you need to take an extra class, and pay more money, to lean what you should have learned the first time?

I kinda get where you're coming from, but the truth is many divers way past freshly minted OW stage still really struggle with launching a DSMB in mid water, to the point some will flat out avoid it. Let's face it, we've all seen, and experienced, some CF's with a sausage.

Do they need to take a DSMB specialty to learn how to use one? probably not, but if it gives them confidence and skill to do it safely, why not. Personally I just advise new divers to become very familiar with the procedure in a pool or benign environment before using it for real.

DSMB use is covered as a dive flexible skill in OW, but I would call it more of an introduction, as follows:

Inflatable Signal Tube Use — Deploy an inflatable signal tube at the surface, or deploy a delayed surface marker buoy (DSMB) from underwater.

 

[Jcp2]

We deployed the SMB at the surface for OW and I asked specifically to see it at depth. The instructor wasn’t very good at it himself, so that was that. A different instructor at a later time demonstrated it and taught it much better, but that was in the context of very specific instruction, and not for any certification, but for me to learn it, along with other things that I was interested in getting better at.

 

[boulderjohn]

I do not condone instructors putting in less than a full effort in classes, including specialty classes, but I thought you might like to read something that may explain it. Note that what I am going to describe has nothing to do with agencies--it would be true of any agency. I am simply describing shop policies and the role of the instructor.

I joined a shop a number of years ago, and like many, many other shops, this one paid instructors by the number of students served. For example, for the pool session for OW classes, they paid the instructor $25 per student, so an instructor teaching a weekend class with 8 students would get $400. Not bad. But think about this--those students paid more than $300 for that weekend (can;t remember exactly how much), so the shop got more than $2,000. Of course much of that goes to overhead, including especially pool costs.

When I joined the shop, I was a tech instructor already, so they told me they were going to have me focus on advanced classes--mostly specialties in addition to the tech. For most specialties, they paid $15 per student. It did not take me long to see the problem there. The most students I ever had in a specialty class was 2, and counting the travel to the local dive site and the academic work, a specialty would take most of a day, for which I would receive maybe $30. I did teach some classes with a single student, so that day came to about $2.00 per hour. Note that for specialties, there was almost no overhead costs to the shop.

The tech classes were initially paid at a rate of $15 per student per dive. Under standards, the maximum student load is 3, but I never had that many students in a class at one time. The only suitable dive site was 6.5 hours away, so there was a lot of travel time involved. They paid the motel, but teaching a tech class would still take me a full 3-day weekend, with 13 hours of that just driving. It might pay me $60-$120 at most. That's about $20-$40 per day, and you can divide it by as many hours as you think make sense to determine the hourly rate.

BTW, I am now an independent.

 

[drbill]

I had been diving for decades both without certification (the early years before PADI existed) and later with Los Angeles County certification. My one major gripe with PADI was that when I started traveling, most PADI instructors had no clue what an LAC c-card meant and required me to do a check out dive first. I asked them where did they think the founders of PADI came from? PADI instructors should know more about dive certification history and what c-cards from other agencies mean IMHO

Then in Australia, one seasoned PADI instructor not only knew what my c-card meant, he called it a museum piece. He certified me AOW for the cost of materials just so I'd have a PADI card to show future instructors and DMs. I also got a PADI rescue card later on although my original LAC card had included rescue skills (as well as AOW skills). I felt I needed a refresher.

My only other issue is the watering down of courses. My LAC program was three weeks and pretty intense. However even back then it was costly. Today a similar course would preclude many from diving due to expense.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

I had been diving for decades both without certification (the early years before PADI existed) and later with Los Angeles County certification. My one major gripe with PADI was that when I started traveling, most PADI instructors had no clue what an LAC c-card meant and required me to do a check out dive first. I asked them where did they think the founders of PADI came from? PADI instructors should know more about dive certification history and what c-cards from other agencies mean IMHO

Then in Australia, one seasoned PADI instructor not only knew what my c-card meant, he called it a museum piece. He certified me AOW for the cost of materials just so I'd have a PADI card to show future instructors and DMs. I also got a PADI rescue card later on although my original LAC card had included rescue skills (as well as AOW skills). I felt I needed a refresher.

My only other issue is the watering down of courses. My LAC program was three weeks and pretty intense. However even back then it was costly. Today a similar course would preclude many from diving due to expense.

Unfortunately this watering down of standards is pretty much universal with the potential exception of GUE and perhaps UTD. PADI may have started it but they all jumped on the bandwagon. I always find it disingenuous when instructors from other agencies bash PADI when they do the exact same things. That is what I find humorous about the PADI-bashing by instructors from SSI, SDI, NAUI, etc, etc. Pot calling the kettle black.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

The DSMB specialty course could be a valuable skills, as I wrote a manual for it while I was still at PADI, and it turned out to be quite a document. I had input from a lot of people.

However, it is pure BS that it isn't required at the OW level. And this is a criticism not just of PADI, but ALL mainstream agencies where SMB inflation at the surface is allowed. "Hey, blow this thing up fast before you get hit by that boat!"

As alluded to earlier, far too many instructors cannot deploy a DSMB while neutrally buoyant. And not just PADI, just to be clear.

Oh, and here's my contribution to the Fish ID specialty. I'm sure all the marine scientists here will be amazed and integrate this into their course.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Oh, and here's my contribution to the Fish ID specialty. I'm sure all the marine scientists here will be amazed and integrate this into their course.

View attachment 604136

I took that Fish ID course as part of my advanced open water (had exactly 15 minutes to go through the book before the dive).

"That's a fish, that's a fish, that's a fish *pointing at turtle* That isn't a fish."

 

[Angelo Farina]

My only other issue is the watering down of courses. My LAC program was three weeks and pretty intense. However even back then it was costly. Today a similar course would preclude many from diving due to expense.

Back in 1975, my first diving course was 6 months long...
And it was very cheap, more or less the price of my first 5mm wetsuit.
There were no commercial agencies or dive shops, at the time, nor PADI or the like.
Instructors were not paid, and the course was organized by the local diving club, which is a no profit organization. They were also providing for free part of the equipment: CC rebreathers, air tanks, regulators.

 

[boulderjohn]

I always find it disingenuous when instructors from other agencies bash PADI when they do the exact same things. That is what I find humorous about the PADI-bashing by instructors from SSI, SDI, NAUI, etc, etc. Pot calling the kettle black.

I was diving in San Carlos, Mexico, and it was a long boat ride out to our island destination. I was the only one on the boat who was not part of a group from an IDEA shop, consisting of a Course Director, an instructor, and two divers, including a student who was getting whatever their equivalent of AOW was. On the trip out, I had an extended conversation with the Course Director, who told me (in a nicer tone than this sounds) how far superior IDEA was to PADI because of its higher standards.

We did the first dive as one big group, and I did not pay a lot of attention to them, other than to stay near them. Before long, the CD asked me on a slate to stay with the AOW student because the rest of them had to go up. I wondered what the emergency was. I stayed with her until she was appropriately low on air. She had trouble holding the safety stop, and I held her at depth. When we surfaced, I learned that the rest of them had surfaced because they were low on air. I had 1700 PSI left in my AL 80.

We did the second dive together again, but this time I paid a little more attention to them. At one point I saw the instructor standing upright on the rocky bottom. As I watched, he lost his balance and fell over on his back. Once again, the dive ended with me and the AOW student. She was getting buoyant, and I saw that her BCD had no air at all. I was wearing a back inflate BCD with trim pockets (SP Nighthawk), and I was intentionally overweighted so that my trim would be good. I gave her one of my weight pockets (4 pounds), and she was able to finish the dive without help. When we got on the boat, I told her to add 4 pounds to her weighting. I asked her if she had done a weight check, and she asked me what a weight check was. I explained what it was and how to do it.

For the third dive, the CD was feeling sick, and the other two did not feel like diving, so it was just me and the AOW student. We talked through a dive plan and had a nice dive.

 

[BVickery]

I will say this. As a new diver I do think the agencies are lacking in making sure core skills are taught. I got excellent instruction in the science and safety of it all. But when it came to weighting, trim and buoyancy, it was severely lacking. I got more out of a 1 hr private session than I did in the entire course. I do give my instructor credit for telling me I should take a private lesson or two and focus on buoyancy. The thing is, if this is so important, it should be a foundational skill and NOT an add-on class for more $$$.

Remembering back to my training and things I wished we spent bit more time on:

Proper weighting, which then leads into trim and buoyancy. My class we never went over DSMB deployment or saw it. Think this would be great too.