This is a timely topic. Tomorrow my GF and I are going diving for the weekend. In addition she is also taking instruction from me. An AOW do over for her. We have been diving before last year together in a shallow quarry and she also came along on some OW checkouts. However this is different as we have been talking about how the dynamic will work with me in the instructor as well as buddy role. She has asked me to challenge her and my course is designed to do that. There are though some differences in how those challenges will play out as she is not a new diver. She has nearly 200 dives. Most of them in the Caribbean off of a liveaboard with nearly unlimited vis. Last weekend in this lake with other students the good spots were 8-10 feet and at 50 it was friggin dark.
I am going to be very conscious of her limits and mine when it comes to how far to push the skills envelope. I won't go easy just because we are a couple. That would be an insult to her abilities which are very good by the way. Not just for a vacation diver but for any diver.
There is an area or two where she has little interest in becoming an expert. But the skills gained in them do carry over into every area of diving. UW Nav and Search and Recovery. It is unlikely that she will ever get involved in salvage or leading groups on multi legged course dives. But the basic ability to use a comapss and natural nav as well as a reel and line can benefit any diver in many situations and the buoyancy control needed to manage your own buoyancy as well as a lift bag is valuable knowledge and task loading.
How far I will push her is up to her. But I am fortunate in that she is not afraid to work hard in any area, is willing to take some risks and push the envelope, and is quite capable in many areas that require physical prowess. (She smokes me on a bicycle and makes it look easy) As well as being highly intelligent and quite capable of quick decision making and very organized and cool under pressure.
But I do know that when we are actually going through some of the more challenging parts of my course I will be on high alert. I'm that way with every student at those times but the fact that I do love her is going to heighten those senses even more.
I think that spouses, partners, parents, and children all feel a sense of added responsibility. and we should. It is part of being human in that sense. But we also do those loved ones no favor at all when we carry them. It's why I have kids that are training with parents go through the rescue scenarios with the parents. It benefits both when a 12 yr old shows that he or she is capable, as a new OW diver, of bringing their much bigger parent up from the bottom or getting control of them in a panic situation. This is not false confidence but a very real necessary part of diving as a family. I would want the diver to be able to say "at least I was able to do something" if an incident occurred instead of standing by helplessly and watching a tragedy unfold. That would go a long way towards the healing that would need to occur later.
It's a big reason that taking basic rescue skills out of the OW class in the name of expediency was, in my opinion, an incredibly stupid move by those who elected to do that. They should be ashamed. If I am diving with a loved one why would I think it is ok to not know how to help if a problem occurred?
