Discovery dives and diving

[TMHeimer]

Sorry you were uncomfortable doing one but not sure what your point is?

My point is that people with far less, even no real "water" experience just jump right in and do DSD, whereas I, who was very comfortable in water, was leery of the short lesson time beforehand.

The link ScubaWithTurk provided is lengthy and basically says DSD is just as safe as ceritifed divers diving. I agree with what he says about that comparison. Also note he says he will only take two students at a time as he has only two arms. Yet unless they recently changed it, the (PADI) allowable ratio
for instructors to students was 4:1. How do you deal with a panicked DSD diver while still maintaining arms length contact with the other three? I would seriously doubt you could do that with only two students if one started bolting to the surface.

 

[Saboteur]

Well, I BELIEVE what I read was that it was a PADI stat, and I THINK it talked more like serious/fatal accidents in the water. I do know from personal encounters that the ratios are ignored in some places, but that is of course true for any course.
As I said, I had the opportunity to do one of those in 1999 but passed when told of the minimum time of instruction. And i have been a life-long "water" person. But, maybe that's just me. To my knowledge I don't think there is a swim requirement to do a DSD-- correct me if I am wrong.

I had a friend do a DSD in the Caribbean on a popular island. No swim test needed.
It went sideways from there. It was one on one instructor to student with me (certified) as a tag a long. I was “instructed” not to touch the diver or offer any assistance, e.g BCD … fair enough I would not presume to do so. Instructor for basically the whole dive swam 10 feet in front and 4-5 feet below us. It was me beside the student, not the instructor. As we got deeper it was obvious the students buoyancy was not ideal, I had to scoot ahead to get instructors attention to come back and correct it. Then again the instructor continued to swim ahead of the student. Later, a meandering slow ascent up the reef and buoyancy changing, again I had to get instructors attention to correct it. At the end of the dive on the surface the instructor gave some instructions (I was a ways back, couldn’t hear) prior boarding the boat (not at the ladder yet), the student had doffed his fins, reg out, no snorkel in, MOF and was kicking to reach the ladder. Instructor had headed to the anchor line to give assistance to the other DM and his group. I had to swim over quickly to lend assistance to help him grab the tag line, get reg and mask back on and get ready to go up the ladder.
Same OP, different day, DSD diver who could NOT swim. One DM took the certified divers down, one took the DSD diver down, held on to him by the BCD the whole time. DSD divers wife stood watch on the boat as there were no other staff. absolutely no certifications for it. They told her how it works and gave a few instructions.

 

[TMHeimer]

Saboteur,
Yeah, standards violations. Reminds me of when I was talking to a friend's wife as she told me how her certified husband showed her how to dive. The instructions were "here, breathe through this thing".

 

[mac66]

My point is that people with far less, even no real "water" experience just jump right in and do DSD, whereas I, who was very comfortable in water, was leery of the short lesson time beforehand.

The link ScubaWithTurk provided is lengthy and basically says DSD is just as safe as ceritifed divers diving. I agree with what he says about that comparison. Also note he says he will only take two students at a time as he has only two arms. Yet unless they recently changed it, the (PADI) allowable ratio
for instructors to students was 4:1. How do you deal with a panicked DSD diver while still maintaining arms length contact with the other three? I would seriously doubt you could do that with only two students if one started bolting to the surface.

Again, sorry you couldn't do a DSD.

My experience with 4 DSDs has been positive.

My own in Grand Cayman was awesome. Me, the instructor and a diver doing a refresher. It's what sold me on diving.

Second one was my first OW cert dive in Curacao. We booked a cruise with the adult kids and combined my first OW checkoff with their Discovery dive. One instructor 4 of us. I went through the Discovery dive with the kids and then we all went out on my checkoff dive. Both were done at Tugboat beach. I learned as much in the DSD as I did in the confined water part of the dive class. Second dive we all did together. Again, it was awesome. That was in early 2019.

Third DSD was in Dec of 2020. Another cruise with the adult kids, this time to Cozumel, Costa Maya and Roatan. This was pretty much the first cruise after covid. The kids had so much fun the first DSD we booked a discovery dive in Roatan and another dive for me. Since it had been about 18 months since my last dive I did the DSD as a refresher with the kids. The kids picked it back up real fast as did I. We added a second dive which was fun.

So we were just on a cruise in Feb of this year, back to Coz, Costa Maya and Roatan this time with my brothers. We set up DSD for them (see the first post) while I dived and another dive we did together. I got to see them doing some of the skills stuff in shallow water before going out on my first dive. Then we all went out on the boat together for the second dive. Brother's thought it was awesome.

You can have a bad experience going to the grocery store. That doesn't mean everybody else should stop going.

 

[TMHeimer]

Again, sorry you couldn't do a DSD.

My experience with 4 DSDs has been positive.

My own in Grand Cayman was awesome. Me, the instructor and a diver doing a refresher. It's what sold me on diving.

Second one was my first OW cert dive in Curacao. We booked a cruise with the adult kids and combined my first OW checkoff with their Discovery dive. One instructor 4 of us. I went through the Discovery dive with the kids and then we all went out on my checkoff dive. Both were done at Tugboat beach. I learned as much in the DSD as I did in the confined water part of the dive class. Second dive we all did together. Again, it was awesome. That was in early 2019.

Third DSD was in Dec of 2020. Another cruise with the adult kids, this time to Cozumel, Costa Maya and Roatan. This was pretty much the first cruise after covid. The kids had so much fun the first DSD we booked a discovery dive in Roatan and another dive for me. Since it had been about 18 months since my last dive I did the DSD as a refresher with the kids. The kids picked it back up real fast as did I. We added a second dive which was fun.

So we were just on a cruise in Feb of this year, back to Coz, Costa Maya and Roatan this time with my brothers. We set up DSD for them (see the first post) while I dived and another dive we did together. I got to see them doing some of the skills stuff in shallow water before going out on my first dive. Then we all went out on the boat together for the second dive. Brother's thought it was awesome.

You can have a bad experience going to the grocery store. That doesn't mean everybody else should stop going.

I never had a bad experience, just elected to pass on DSD for the reasons I have mentioned (well, I couldn't list them back then, 6 years before I did OW).
I'm glad you and the kids had a great experience. I know that is usually the case and DSD has successfully introduced so many into diving who were unsure if they wanted to do it. I look at it in an unsual way-- I think if you are comfortable in water (can swim properly, have dived down to the deep end bottom of a pool, etc.) you probably should go right to the OW course and get the full training. But that's just me. I came across quite a few OW students in my time assisting courses that really shouldn't have been there before getting some decent water experience first. One guy couldn't finish the 200 metre swim and actually pretty much collapsed from exhaustion. I have read that there is no swim test for some of these DSDs. I would imagine some of these same folks could be DSD students with even less training (as Turk pointed out). For someone with decent water experience, like yourself I presume, DSD should be a breeze as I'm sure it would have been for me.

 

[CyPlainsDrifter]

Go for it!

Diving is something I always wanted to do but life got in the way. I sometimes wish I'd started earlier but then I think what a wonderful time I'm having now diving. I don't think I would have had the patience to appreciate it when I was younger. I would have been chasing certifications and trying to be the best and have the best. I'm older and wiser now and have nothing to prove. Being retired I can enjoy the peacefulness under water without worrying about what I have to go back to on land when I'm done.

I'm glad I started later in life and can enjoy it. I'm sure you will to.

Just finished up my cert with SDI this past weekend and it went great. Now off to Hawaii in May and Bonaire in July to get some experience.

 

[mac66]

Now this thread has me wondering. In my OW certification last year, all the students had done Discover; once in Maui for me and multiple times for the others. The instructor, who I think was thorough, seemed to be relieved that we'd all been exposed to diving. It was a 4-1 ratio class which I have recently learned is not ideal. Do shops/instructors fudge up class sizes to non-optimal ratios based on Discover experience?

My certification class was about 8:1. At least the confined water part was. I did my OW on referral in two different places, two different dive ops. Both were 4:1 if you consider one had discovery divers (my 3 kids) in it. So I got to go through a refresher (it had been 3 months since my confined water class) all the basic requirments again with them and then was checked off on them. That was very helpful.