Greetings! I'm a newly certified PADI OW diver, and I'm a bit confused about what seems to be a vast divergence of styles, procedures, levels of risk tolerance, etc., which seem to be advocated for with a lot of passion by individual divers. I'm looking for advice on how to calibrate myself in this environment, and find my own style expeditiously without putting myself at undue risk, or ticking off too many people in the process.
My training so far has been an exercise in contrasts: I took my classroom and pool lessons with an ex US Navy diver and avid techie, who is certified as a trimix instructor. The classes were no-nonsense, we had to remember at all times, for instance, when our cylinder was last hydrostatically tested, and went through lots of drills assembling an disassembling the rig for time, etc. The classroom training exceeded the guidelines, for instance, we learned how to use nitrox tables, or about virtual (decompression) ceilings.
Then I did my checkout dives in Costa Rica, with am easygoing young instructor on a dive boat that seemed to run on Pura Vide. The instruction appeared to be sloppy, certainly compared to what I was used to. The PADI standards seemed to be treated more as guidelines than requirements; I'm pretty sure we skipped at least one mandatory drill. Only the instructor had a dive computer or timing device of any kind, and we went a little deeper than the 60ft. limit on one of the dives. But still logged it at 60. Had it been logged correctly, and had we used instead of relying on the instructor's computer the dive tables with the prescribed rounding up of times and depths, we would have actually been just barely over the no-deco limits for the day. For training purposes, that made me a bit uncomfortable, although I understand that given the particular profile, the warm water and generally easy conditions, it was still within what's likely safe.
Now I have signed up for a nitrox course. I know professionally a bit about physiology, and it just makes a lot of sense to me to use nitrox in many situations. And reading through the PADI manual, it basically tells me to just rely on my computer. Now that really starts to make me nervous - somehow I prefer to have at least a good understanding of what the limits are, so that in the unlikely event that my computer tells me nonsense, I can check for plausibility and, if warranted, substitute my own more conservative judgement. Am I just too skittish as a new diver might well be, or are there corners cut?
I have looked around online a bit, and the GUE philosophy resonates with me a bit, although it seems to overdo it on the other side by being too dogmatic. Aren't there situations where one might indeed be just fine with cutting a few corners, like on a shallow reef dive with an experienced divemaster? And taking a GUE course seems out of the question at this point for me, though, as I don't think I can get anywhere near their exacting standards, no matter how hard I try.
Anyway, I'm a little bit confuse as to what the best way for me to find my own style between these extremes, and become a competent diver who others want to go diving with quickly. Any non-dogmatic suggestions, and perhaps examples of how you have found your way in this environment would be much appreciated.
Thank you!
Chris
