Aura
Contributor
I've been very unsure if I should make this thread or not, but I figure it might at least clarify a few things for me. I did my PADI Advanced OW course not so long ago, and it was significantly below the standard I'm used to when diving, and I don't think I really learned any of the things I was hoping to.
I got OW certified five years ago and have done around 20 dives in warm places on holiday. I wanted to get more into local diving and signed up for the Advanced course. Since it was around two years since my last dive, I also paid for a refresher dive. My only request was that I could try out diving in a drysuit for one of my adventure dives, and the dive shop told me I could do the whole course in drysuit, which was great. It turned out they only had three drysuits for renting though, and two of them would only fit men twice my size. The third one was still somewhat big on me, but the instructor assured me it wouldn't be an issue. He seemed very friendly and helpful while picking the gear for me to use in the following dives.
Come dive day, and the attitude was a lot different. The instructor in general seemed like he was running late for dinner, and annoying things started happening. The dive boots I got from the dive shop were too big to fit in the foot pockets of my fins, so the instructor told me it was fine to just use the neoprene socks of the drysuit. I didn't know how much weight I needed since most of my dives have been done in a shorty wetsuit, and didn't know that the 14kg weight belt the instructor handed me was way off until I sat securely on the bottom of the water with a fully inflated BCD (I'm a 60kg woman). I ended up going with 8kg, since the full BCD would be able to sorta keep me neutral at that weight. I noticed that a fair amount of water was getting into the drysuit already at the surface, but when I told the instructor, he asked if I was cold and I told him I guess not. He was visibly annoyed at the delays already and just wanted to get on with the dives, and I figured that he knew what he was doing. It turned out that that dive was both my refresher + my first Advanced course dive + my first ever dive in cold water + first dive in drysuit + first dive below 18m (we went to 30).
I'd told the instructor that I possibly had to do a slow descent since I've had trouble equalizing ear pressure in the past (I've since researched equalizing rather extensively and I think I have it all figured out now). He said that was no problem, but then proceeded to doing the exact thing I hoped he wouldn't. He did the fastest descent I've ever seen anyone do, and I tried keeping up as well as I could until my right ear was starting to hurt quite badly. I had no idea of the depth since I had no computer or even a depth gauge, the only instrument I had was air. We were descending along a slope though so I stopped for a while, totally alone because he didn't look at me once during the entire descent. I probably exceeded the one minute I should've waited before beginning the ascent on my own, but by the time he came back looking for me, my ear was sort of ok so we continued down to 30m.
By then I started to really feel the cold, and had to thumb the dive since my feet were numb and my whole body started shaking. We were swimming against the current on the way back, and my ankles were seriously hurting from using neoprene socks in open heel fins. I will never do that again. I doubted a couple of times if I'd even be able to make it back on my own, because I felt exhausted, ice cold and in pain. I did manage though, and could just barely stagger out of the water with the drysuit being totally flooded all the way up to the neck. We called it a day since I was simply way too cold to continue.
The day after, he brought another drysuit, and it leaked as well. Not quite as bad, only so that the legs were full of water. But again, I thumbed the dive from my feet going numb and the instructor shrugged and congratulated me on passing the course.
I feel like I did learn a lot of things, but they were for the wrong reasons and they were not the things I had hoped for. I got two dives in total. The things I'll be taking with me from this are:
1. Own my own equipment. Then I'm responsible for it, and I'll know how it works and that it works.
2. Be more picky with the dive shops and instructors I deal with.
3. Don't have unlimited trust in anyone. I'll admit that I've been naïve in regards to the abilities of instructors and their willingness to keep me safe.
4. Take more responsibility for myself when diving. I'm completely aware of my own inexperience, but if someone wants to do something I think is unsafe, I'm going to say no, regardless of their supposed expertise. If someone does a kamikaze descent when my ears hurt, I'm going to simply thumb the dive.
My primary question here is, where does his responsibility as an instructor end, and where does mine as an independent diver begin?
He knew I was fairly inexperienced, he knew I'd never tried diving in cold water or tried a drysuit on, never gone below 18m, and two years since my last dive. I feel like I was thrown into the deep end, but when should I have drawn the line here? Am I wrong in feeling very disappointed about this course?
I got OW certified five years ago and have done around 20 dives in warm places on holiday. I wanted to get more into local diving and signed up for the Advanced course. Since it was around two years since my last dive, I also paid for a refresher dive. My only request was that I could try out diving in a drysuit for one of my adventure dives, and the dive shop told me I could do the whole course in drysuit, which was great. It turned out they only had three drysuits for renting though, and two of them would only fit men twice my size. The third one was still somewhat big on me, but the instructor assured me it wouldn't be an issue. He seemed very friendly and helpful while picking the gear for me to use in the following dives.
Come dive day, and the attitude was a lot different. The instructor in general seemed like he was running late for dinner, and annoying things started happening. The dive boots I got from the dive shop were too big to fit in the foot pockets of my fins, so the instructor told me it was fine to just use the neoprene socks of the drysuit. I didn't know how much weight I needed since most of my dives have been done in a shorty wetsuit, and didn't know that the 14kg weight belt the instructor handed me was way off until I sat securely on the bottom of the water with a fully inflated BCD (I'm a 60kg woman). I ended up going with 8kg, since the full BCD would be able to sorta keep me neutral at that weight. I noticed that a fair amount of water was getting into the drysuit already at the surface, but when I told the instructor, he asked if I was cold and I told him I guess not. He was visibly annoyed at the delays already and just wanted to get on with the dives, and I figured that he knew what he was doing. It turned out that that dive was both my refresher + my first Advanced course dive + my first ever dive in cold water + first dive in drysuit + first dive below 18m (we went to 30).
I'd told the instructor that I possibly had to do a slow descent since I've had trouble equalizing ear pressure in the past (I've since researched equalizing rather extensively and I think I have it all figured out now). He said that was no problem, but then proceeded to doing the exact thing I hoped he wouldn't. He did the fastest descent I've ever seen anyone do, and I tried keeping up as well as I could until my right ear was starting to hurt quite badly. I had no idea of the depth since I had no computer or even a depth gauge, the only instrument I had was air. We were descending along a slope though so I stopped for a while, totally alone because he didn't look at me once during the entire descent. I probably exceeded the one minute I should've waited before beginning the ascent on my own, but by the time he came back looking for me, my ear was sort of ok so we continued down to 30m.
By then I started to really feel the cold, and had to thumb the dive since my feet were numb and my whole body started shaking. We were swimming against the current on the way back, and my ankles were seriously hurting from using neoprene socks in open heel fins. I will never do that again. I doubted a couple of times if I'd even be able to make it back on my own, because I felt exhausted, ice cold and in pain. I did manage though, and could just barely stagger out of the water with the drysuit being totally flooded all the way up to the neck. We called it a day since I was simply way too cold to continue.
The day after, he brought another drysuit, and it leaked as well. Not quite as bad, only so that the legs were full of water. But again, I thumbed the dive from my feet going numb and the instructor shrugged and congratulated me on passing the course.
I feel like I did learn a lot of things, but they were for the wrong reasons and they were not the things I had hoped for. I got two dives in total. The things I'll be taking with me from this are:
1. Own my own equipment. Then I'm responsible for it, and I'll know how it works and that it works.
2. Be more picky with the dive shops and instructors I deal with.
3. Don't have unlimited trust in anyone. I'll admit that I've been naïve in regards to the abilities of instructors and their willingness to keep me safe.
4. Take more responsibility for myself when diving. I'm completely aware of my own inexperience, but if someone wants to do something I think is unsafe, I'm going to say no, regardless of their supposed expertise. If someone does a kamikaze descent when my ears hurt, I'm going to simply thumb the dive.
My primary question here is, where does his responsibility as an instructor end, and where does mine as an independent diver begin?
He knew I was fairly inexperienced, he knew I'd never tried diving in cold water or tried a drysuit on, never gone below 18m, and two years since my last dive. I feel like I was thrown into the deep end, but when should I have drawn the line here? Am I wrong in feeling very disappointed about this course?
