Why don't you have her on open circuit scuba? Isn't it safer? Is sounds like she is not doing decompression diving, so why use a rebreather?
My questions may sound critical, but they aren't. I'm just curious to know why you had her follow this route?
I want to make one thing clear about my daughters route, she has chosen it. We, the parents, support it.
She wants to go CCR but at her age, she is not able to go full CCR. She had thought about going SM instead after she won a sidemount rig at DEMA a year ago. We felt it was better to go SCR, get used to the thought processes, terms, checklists, packing, procedures etc and then go CCR in a couple of years. We entered the training phase after we found out that a shop we knew was really interested in youth divers and training them in the SCRs (Thanks Stuart Scuba). I will probably give her my Prism and go to something else in the future. For now, we are able to extend her time and learn the processes and get her into the mindset. She sets up and packs (sorb) all of her SCR gear. I am absolutely not allowed to help her. She will get mad if I even touch it while she is checking it out. Setup night is fun at our house.
I have no problem limiting technical level training to adults only. There is a huge gap in the requirements and risks associated with it when compared to recreational diving, especially if rules, procedures or planning are inadequate or ignored. But this is beyond the scope of this thread.
While she is new on the SCR, she is able to remain within NDL while I will go into deco on my CCR. The unit is overall lighter then OC for the BT she can get. We figured 1 or 2 years on SCR at most and then she would switch to a CCR.
The neat part is that a youth diver at just over 16 can learn, use and control the SCR. For some of her dives, she is 'flying' it manually. She is the one letting us know what is going on and limiting her depth due to MOD, etc.
Safety really is tough. We can look at the limits of OC and know that we can greatly exceed them. She has almost 2 hrs of gas at 100' with SCR even being new. Partly because of the rig, she carries bailout gear and is trained in using it. This adds a lot of benefits. The Explorer has a CO2 monitor, temp stick and is SCR so Otox, CO2 and Hypoxia are low(er) risks. Her end goal is wreck penetration so eventually, she will need to go CCR to get deep and long BT. When I do wreck diving with an OC divesr, they have 1 - 1.5 hrs to figure out their life. I have 4 - 8 hrs to do the same. As long as our gear is working, we have choices. Some aspects of CCR(SCR) are more risky or serious but others are greatly improved. A sadistic comment she has to me is that if I die on mine, she will pull the unit off, leave the body and start CCR diving
. Great kid!
Some of the seriousness of this thread is that parents and youth divers all need to be very open in discussion with regard to risks and the rewards of diving. The fact that a person can die diving is important to be understood by everyone. If it is not understood, that individual has no reason to be in the water. When I started my technical path, I made it very clear to my family that there were risks. When I started my CCR diving, I made it doubly clear. When my daughter wanted to go SCR, my wife and I talked for a long time about the risks. We felt that they would be offset by us being there rather then her on her own deciding what to do.
I guess that my main point is that as long as the youth diver is mature enough, limits set by age are a poor measure of capability. With the proper support, a youth diver can extend far beyond what a parent and others often think. In the end, my 16 year old daughter is driving around in her car, going to school, college (yes she is in college also) and friends houses. I have had no friend's children die diving. I have had friends lose their child to a car accident. Where do we draw the line. I am not in the front seat of her car with her any more but I am with her while she is diving, and have been since she was 11 and should be for another 2 years at least. Childhood is a short progression from full dependence to full independence. I was often independent by age 12 with both of my parents out of the country for weeks at a time and no one watching me. I was driving all over the state of Florida to go diving by the time I turned 16. I personally have no issue letting my child extend as far as she is willing to for her progression to full independence. I have never aged her and always have both included her on decision making and also let her make her own choices.
