Is it worth it?

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Happy to explain.

>10 years is really open ended and non specific. Think of how ridiculous their graph would have to be if they had a diver at 11 years, 2 at 15, then 1 who had been certified for 30years. What are they going to do? Have 20 "0"s? Silly from a presentation standpoint, so they consolidated.

Lets take a look at your 3rd point for a moment. 35% under two years. 2. Thats it. The next group (under 10, more than 1) is 5 times that. So a bit less than double the % roughly (35% to 60%), but five times the number of years we're looking at. Its not apples to apples.

Back to the 2nd point, if there are more divers certified in the 'mid range' as defined as greater than 2yrs but less than 10yrs, why is that segment so under represented? If all groups were equally likely to experience a fatal accident, we'd see a higher % than 40%. Heck, looking at the divers with <1 and 1 is nearly that value alone, and its a WAY smaller time period.

Its a little late, so I could be off a little here, but I think its fairly clear cut that year for year, the newer a diver is the more likely they are to experience a fatal accident. There's probably some sort of upward trend eventually (complacency factor), but our sample size is just too small to show it. We don't have the data to draw a meaningful conclusion about that.

I hope what I wrote makes sense, and I'll be happy to clarify anything if need be.

A little bit more precise language would help in this discussion. As far as I can understand, the question is how the risk of death changes depending on the level of experience. Suppose we pick a diver completely at random. The probability space is the set of divers. The probabilistic events of interest are as follows.

A = diver had 0-2 years of experience
B = diver had 2-10 years
C = diver had >10 years
D = diver died in a scuba-diving accident

What we know from data that Omission has posted:

P(A) = 0.35
P(B) = 0.25
P(C) = 0.4

What we know from page 64 of the DAN 2009 report:

P(A|D) = 0.3
P(B|D) = 0.3
P(C|D) = 0.4

What we want to know is the ratios between P(D|A), P(D|B), P(D|C):

P(D|A) = P(A|D)*P(D)/P(A) = 0.86 * P(D)
P(D|B) = P(B|D)*P(D)/P(B) = 1.2 * P(D)
P(D|C) = P(C|D)*P(D)/P(C) = 1.0 * P(D)

Conclusions:

Divers with 0-2 years of experience are at a lower risk compared to other groups, divers with >10 are at a slightly higher risk, but divers with 2-10 years are at the highest risk overall. The risk is similar between all groups, to within ~20% of each other.
 
We never rolled in open water (nothing to roll from) so other than mentioning it was a possible entry not much was taught about it.

Why would you (and how, actually) from a dock?

---------- Post added April 14th, 2014 at 04:47 PM ----------



i didn't think of doing it, but apparently not focusing on NOT doing it caused me to straighten it at some point and I slammed into the boat hard with my leg.

In my PADI OW class I was taught three deep water entries. Giant Stride, Controlled Seated, and Backward Roll that can be done off of a boat, dock, or pool deck. For the dock or pool deck you simply squat down with your heels just over the edge. It is good to have a buddy to steay you if necessary. Then you tuck a bit and simply fall back. Straightening your legs is a common reaction to this unless the student is shown how and told over and over do not straighten your legs or try to push off. What will happen is what happened to you.
That the instructor did not cover this is simply amazing to me. What else did he/she leave out?

As to why you might do this. If you did not know how deep the water was a giant stride may not be a good idea. With the backward roll or controlled seated you don't go deep at all and risk planting your feet in the bottom. This really was not explained to you? Incredible. What kind of course did you take?
 
We never rolled in open water (nothing to roll from) so other than mentioning it was a possible entry not much was taught about it.

Why would you (and how, actually) from a dock?

During the pool sessions when I learnt, they had a seat type thing set up next to the pool that we would try rolling off. Obviously this would only work if the shop owned the pool, which seems to be happening less these days.
 
Get OW, AOW, Rescue and Nitrox. Go diving-the courses should be enough to get you through the next 20-30 years of diving. A course in statistics is not necessary to enjoy a safe diive
 
In my PADI OW class I was taught three deep water entries. Giant Stride, Controlled Seated, and Backward Roll that can be done off of a boat, dock, or pool deck.

I also learned (not PADI) the forward roll where the diver gives some impulse, tucks in the head and rolls forward with the top of the tanks hitting the water first. That's always a fun one to do!
 
Peter and I have talked about the "boat diving" specialty a lot, as one which is easy to make fun of as being worthless. In fact, if you look at the specialty instructor's manual, there is a LOT of stuff you can teach in the boat diving specialty. You can teach about steering the boat, using the radio, tying knots, docking procedures and other things that might be useful for the student who is either thinking of buying his own boat, or dives off friends' boats. Peter teaches SMB deployment in his boat diving specialty, since the ability to send up a marker is awfully nice when you get blown off the wreck or reef. Different types of entries, and the arrangement of granny lines and deco stations and the like, can be part of boat diving.

The problem with the specialties is the same as the problem with the majority of dive training. They are taught TO THE MINIMUMS to keep cost and time down, and often taught by people who don't have a great deal of experience with the topic they are teaching.

I wanted to check the manual before I replied to this and I was quite surprised at the result ftp://207.215.212.62/stuff/PADI/SPECIALTY/Boat.pdf

The compulsory part was as I remembered just an overview to diving off boats which is frankly (IMOH) a self study guide before you depart on your first trip

The optional basic seamanship section seems to be very similar to the BSAC Boat handling course. Quite possibly the most fun and (for me and my diving) the most beneficial. It's a shame that PADI doesn't make this a separate course although I presume this could be for legal reasons. The BSAC one was affiliated to the UK Royal Yacht Club thus a recognised maritime qualification. Certainly if anyone had access to a dayboat or was going to buy their own I suspect this would be a good intro - especially the practicals of boat handling - low and high speed maneuvers, diver pick ups man over boards, dropping and anchor and shot lines as well as seaman ship and basic navigation theory.

My motivation for completing my Boat handling course was so rather than being a passenger each time, I could be a useful member of the club by running the boats - of course the next step was to use it as an excuse to buy myself a shiny new truck (raptor) so I could haul them too (and have a new toy :D)

While a two day course doesn't qualify you it does give you the basic from which to perfect those skills ( a few trips out with me handling to build my experience but with the peer pressure of very experienced instructors on board for the dive, but there to offer advice (and criticism) while you build up your hours.

I had to admit the bug gripped me so I've furthered the education by doing the Chart and Navigation course which end with planning and completing dive trips without the use of GPS - just like the old days :) My next step is to complete the Diver Coxswain assessment - This is a two day assessment of both theory as well as practical handling skills where apparently the assessors want better than just good.... No pressure there really then! On my work up to it now and expect it'll take most of the year before I'm ready to take the 2 day assessment
 
Get OW, AOW, Rescue and Nitrox. Go diving-the courses should be enough to get you through the next 20-30 years of diving.

Could not agree more. I did my OW cert in 91 and when I had completed the course I asked my instructor if I should go ahead and sign up for the AOW course and he said NO. Imagines that. An instructor telling a student not to take another class. He told me that he had taught me everything I needed to know to go out and safely dive on my own and if at this point I felt I needed another class he hadn't done his job. His advice was to go and dive as much as possible and come back to him in the future if I felt there was another class I wanted to take. So that's what I did. About a year later, maybe longer, I decided to take the AOW course because folks kept telling me I would need that to go on some dive charters to certain sites. By the time I did my AOW course, I already had several wreck dives, deep dives, drift dives, night dives, etc. I can't really say that I learned anything new but I did get to dive with my instructor again and that was nice. I finally took Nitrox before I did my first liveaboard.

I understand that dive shops need to make money to stay in business. But I cringe when I hear dive shop owners/managers/instructors push the new student to become a "Master Scuba Diver" and start signing folks up for all kinds of classes. I have also been present in more than one shop when an instructor tells a student that they will neeed to take the "deep speciality" before they can do a deeper dive or they will need to take the "wreck specialty" before they can do a wreck dive and the new student really doesn't know any difference.
 
I'd guess most people (like me) who sign up for OW know NOTHING about the scuba business. I didn't even know there were "agencies".
 
Some entities actually count on that ignorance to stay in business. I have talked to a number of people who have come to me about con ed classes. Where it gets interesting is when I tell them the skills and knowledge they need to have to start one of my classes and they don't have it. They may have bits and pieces but often require a remediation workshop for things that SEI requires of every OW student/diver before they can receive a c card. Some actually get pissed when I tell them they need xyz. Even more so when I tell them it's all included in my classes at the same price they paid or in some cases less. It's also why I keep.the standards for other agencies. More than a few times they did not even get what they should have under the other agency's guidelines or barely touched on it.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2
 
i took the AOW myself to get exposed to various things while still having access to the instructor as well as the fact that plenty of charters around here "require" it for liability. I felt from the beginning that it was supposed to just introduce me either to some "new" skills or help refine certain ones and expose me to different dives. After that it's up to me to expand on that. How much you get out of the course depends on who you choose for the instructor and how they teach it.
PADI on their website doesn't really market it as a truly "advanced" diving. direct quote "The Advanced Open Water Diver course helps you increase your confidence and build your scuba skills so you can become more comfortable in the water. This is a great way to get more dives under your belt while continuing to learn under the supervision of your PADI Instructor. This course builds on what you’ve learned and develops new capabilities by introducing you to new activities and new ways to have fun scuba diving."
That is part of their business model and they don't hide their model -- It's up to the consumer to do the research on what is going to suit them best. Google search is your friend at least in this case.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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