diving with children is same as solo

[jtivat]

I don't see how solo diving can be compared to diving with a child. First of all the child has gone through the same training as an adult does to get certified and should have demonstrated that they can act as a buddy prior to being certified. QUOTE]



What is taught in OW class to help a buddy besides air sharing?

 

[Diver0001]

What is taught in OW class to help a buddy besides air sharing?

Depends on how your instructor approached it. From the sounds of your previous posts your instructor didn't teach you much (if anything) about the buddy system, which is highly unfortunate because now you're trying to invent the wheel while at the same time supervising a 12 year old who you don't appear trust very much.

R..

Edit: Maybe I should elaborate on this a bit.

What I would expect coming out of an OW course as a minimum in terms of buddy skills are the following:

- Buddy contact. Staying beside and at the same depth as your buddy. Not behind, not in front, not above or below. This also applies to ascents and descents and it helps you and your buddy because you know where your buddy is and you know that your buddy knows where you are.

- Communication. Not just the standard hand signs but also how to communicate to stop/wait, slow/calm, proceed, turn left, right, go up, go down etc etc. This helps you and your buddy by avoiding separations and we know from accident stats that most divers are ill equipped to handle emergencies alone. These signs are important in situations such as, for example, getting caught in a net. In stead of hacking a net to pieces and creating 10 little nets from one big one a competent buddy, even one straight out of OW, will be able to give and respond to the WAIT sign and then calmly wait while their buddy releases them from a net.

- BRAWF. most common problems are best avoided rather than dealt with.

- Searching. Most instructors say "search one minute and then abort to the surface". A good one will tell you *how* to search to maximize your chances of finding your buddy again. This helps you and your buddy by keeping separations as short as possible.

- Air sharing, including ascents and the importance of establishing and maintaining contact during air sharing ascents.

- Pressure signs and a habit of checking pressure. The air sharing drills should never be needed but the pressure signs are needed multiple times on every dive. If your buddy is good at this then it obviously helps both of you.

- Guiding and ascending with a buddy who has lost or cannot clear their mask. this is done in module 4 of every OW course and has a direct application for this specific situation.

- Learning as OW diver not to just look at the object in front of you but to look into the eyes. This helps your buddy see if you are stressed. It's your early-warning system for problems that haven't started getting hairy yet. In combination with signs like slow/calm, breathe and OK and some well placed physical contact like a hand on the shoulder or arm and your buddy can help you work through a lot of run-of-the-mill stressers that might otherwise have gotten out of control.

All of the above are things that an attentive instructor will actively train during an OW course. Together they form the basic skills you need as a buddy, even at the OW level.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I don't see how solo diving can be compared to diving with a child. First of all the child has gone through the same training as an adult does to get certified and should have demonstrated that they can act as a buddy prior to being certified. QUOTE]



What is taught in OW class to help a buddy besides air sharing?

Robs answer was good but I'll just toss the same question back at you. In theory, an OW certification qualifies a diver to independantly plan and conduct OW dives with a buddy. If that isn't what's really going on out there then I have to plead not guilty and point out that it isn't my fault that dive training is so F'ed up.

But...rather than excepting what we percieve as a problem and trying to fix it by doing more things wrong lets have a look at the very basics of buddy diving. First, if either diver isn't prepared and able to hold up their end of the dive you don't have a match between the team and the dive. Treating it as a solo dive doesn't address the problem...it ignores the problem. Don't buddy dive with a poor buddy even if it's family. If your child was issued a certification but you don't trust them to hold up their end of a dive in what should be appropriate conditions, I'd stop there until that's fixed.

Let me ask you another question. I don't know what your training level is but what have you been taught in your training about supervising incompetant divers? This, IMO, is one problems with certifying divers that are too young. Decide for yourself what too young is but these kids go out diving with mom and dad but who says they're any good?

I've posted about it before so I won't go into detail but I saw a Mom have trouble. Dad tried to help her. BTW, her problem was just that she felt uncomfortable and paniced. First they sunk into the silt and dropped vis to zero. Then they finally started up and managed a rapid ascent and abandoned Jr in the process. Poor Jr. He should treat a dive with Mom and Dad as a solo dive. Of course my first suggestion for him would be to just not dive with lousy buddies but at his age he doesn't have a choice.

 

[dgrolem]

As an instructor, when I am in the water with 3-4 students, I am definitely SOLO. I teach in No. Cal. and the viz is low, the water cold, waves are large, and the students are stressed far beyond what they would experience in warm water. I am definitely SOLO under those conditions. The only way you can make dives like this non-SOLO is to provide a professional per diver -- never going to happen. If students are going to dive in these conditions, they must experience them. And during that time, the professionals are diving SOLO. In fact, if the viz is poor enough, the students may be "solo" for a time.

 

[Nemrod]

"As an instructor, when I am in the water with 3-4 students, I am definitely SOLO."

I don't see that as solo, you have students in the water who have completed a course, other potential safety divers, you have their equipment to fall back upon, people on the boat and all that. While I certainly understand the stress levels diving with new divers in such conditions brings upon you or anyone else in such conditions it is not solo. By the poll taken in this very forum solo means just you in the water alone and no one else. It was not my poll but I think that is what I mean by solo when I use that word as an adjective to diving. If I am interacting with other divers I see nio way that is like solo diving, it may have some of the aspects of self reliance etc of course but solo?, I dont see it. N

 

[jtivat]

First I have been to places like Gilboa and seen first hand how well most divers are taught. Half of them don't even no what that little hose over there left shoulder with two buttons on it does. My daughter is 12 and has 25 dives, she can for the most part stay off the bottom but once and I while will stir it up with her fins. She does not need a line to ascend or descend, she can remove her mask and feel her way around a platform comfortable and also remove and replace her BC on her own (although this is not an easy task for her yet). She is now working on the mask removal in mid water while maintaining buoyancy but still needs a lot of practice; I also want her to be able to do the same with her BC. I will also work with her on being able to ascend, descend and maintain buoyancy with no fins. I know for a fact she is already a better diver than over half the certified divers out there. Now I say all of that to say she is not ready to dive with just any diver out there and she won't be for some time. I have seen countless people get buddied up with new buddy and just jump in the water with no more than a hi my name is so and so and then off they go. No plan no signals no checking out the others weights or dumps or octo's, is this buddy diving? If students are not taught proper buoyancy what makes you think they are taught how to be a proper buddy? Do I believe that a good solo diver is safer than your average diver with his or hers child yup I sure do.

 

[Diver0001]

First I have been to places like Gilboa and seen first hand how well most divers are taught. Half of them don't even no what that little hose over there left shoulder with two buttons on it does. My daughter is 12 and has 25 dives, she can for the most part stay off the bottom but once and I while will stir it up with her fins. She does not need a line to ascend or descend, she can remove her mask and feel her way around a platform comfortable and also remove and replace her BC on her own (although this is not an easy task for her yet). She is now working on the mask removal in mid water while maintaining buoyancy but still needs a lot of practice; I also want her to be able to do the same with her BC. I will also work with her on being able to ascend, descend and maintain buoyancy with no fins. I know for a fact she is already a better diver than over half the certified divers out there. Now I say all of that to say she is not ready to dive with just any diver out there and she won't be for some time. I have seen countless people get buddied up with new buddy and just jump in the water with no more than a hi my name is so and so and then off they go. No plan no signals no checking out the others weights or dumps or octo's, is this buddy diving? If students are not taught proper buoyancy what makes you think they are taught how to be a proper buddy? Do I believe that a good solo diver is safer than your average diver with his or hers child yup I sure do.

Well, The quality of training in your area sounds nightmarish.

I can't really judge over the internet if you're in a position to compensate for that. I assume you were also trained in your local area which, given the story you just told, gives me some reason for concern about your "solution" to the problem. Sometimes the illness is serious but the remedy is deadly.

I don't want to insult you, and I hope you don't take it personally but I feel the need to at least give you that food for thought. The last thing anyone here would want to hear is that your daughter had an accident while you were supervising what is essentially remedial training, having neither the training nor the experience to do so.

You sound absolutely convinced that you're doing the right thing but to me (and it's a given that a message board isn't the most accurate medium for making this judgement, so take it at face value) it's just coming across as unwise, overconfident and headstrong. I mean, just to pick one example, you couldn't think of a single thing (to teach her) about the buddy system except air sharing. I'm seeing a big disconnect here and I hope for your sake and for your daughter's sake that you're willing to take a serious look at that.

R..

 

[dpthdiver]

I think people look down on kids way too much nowadays.....

The only potential danger with a child is a short attention span, .....
Z...

With out elaborating on all the points you made, I have to agree that people do look down on kids too much. I my experiance teaching OW classes to kids and adults, I find kids take in and retain more information and they seem to be more of a stickler for the dive "rules". Most kids are really easy to teach and when taught correctly, make pretty good dive partners in relative easy conditions. When conducting OW classes here in the PNW, I worry more about the adults than the kids. There are exceptions to every rule. i.e. Spoiled brats

 

[MikeFerrara]

First I have been to places like Gilboa and seen first hand how well most divers are taught. Half of them don't even no what that little hose over there left shoulder with two buttons on it does. My daughter is 12 and has 25 dives, she can for the most part stay off the bottom but once and I while will stir it up with her fins. She does not need a line to ascend or descend, she can remove her mask and feel her way around a platform comfortable and also remove and replace her BC on her own (although this is not an easy task for her yet). She is now working on the mask removal in mid water while maintaining buoyancy but still needs a lot of practice; I also want her to be able to do the same with her BC. I will also work with her on being able to ascend, descend and maintain buoyancy with no fins. I know for a fact she is already a better diver than over half the certified divers out there. Now I say all of that to say she is not ready to dive with just any diver out there and she won't be for some time. I have seen countless people get buddied up with new buddy and just jump in the water with no more than a hi my name is so and so and then off they go. No plan no signals no checking out the others weights or dumps or octo's, is this buddy diving? If students are not taught proper buoyancy what makes you think they are taught how to be a proper buddy? Do I believe that a good solo diver is safer than your average diver with his or hers child yup I sure do.

You make some good points. In much of the training that's going on, divers aren't even taught the basic skills let alone how to buddy dive. Buddy diving is given the same lip service that buoyancy control is...they talk about it then do everything while kneeling followed by a 5 minute tour where they may or may not ever actally get midwater. I see AOW students kneeling in the mud to tie knots. LOL