My AN/DP/Helitrox course

[Marie13]

I dont want to detract from what your doing cos i know by reading your posts you put you heart and soul into your diving - but every instructor i know gets frustrated by the poor standard of expertise that they encounter from divers who have certifications form various courses and agencies that have been trained in a (lets say) consumer friendly way that are completely out of their depth when the conditions arent perfect or when theyre are under the slightest pressure. Decompression diving is a whole new and unforgiving arena, being well trained and prepared is non negotiable

Duh. Really? I’m not some one trip a year tropical vacation diver bouncing off the coral deciding to suddenly tech dive, who is an airhead worried about her hair getting tangled while wet and if she’s going to find waterproof makeup. Great Lakes wreck divers are not bimbos. Cold water doesn’t attract them. Drysuits hide their assets.

Jesus freakin’ Christ.

 

[NothingClever]

The key is that the definition of confined water needs to be met: pool like conditions in terms of depth, clarity, and calmness. Note that temperature is not there (a good thing).

All above makes perfect sense.

Where I started was over my head but I had been fitness swimming in the open ocean and diving down to check out the SCUBA divers so I guess the instructors figured I was a safe enough candidate to skip the pool sessions (given suitable seas).

 

[NothingClever]

The OP is going to be diving in fresh water, so salt water not important. Also, because it’s winter in the Midwest with ice and snow and wind and waves, the CW sessions cannot be accomplished in “real water” until later in the year.

My post was intended for tbone in regards to his statement “If you don't do any pool work in those courses I seriously question your judgement as an instructor......” to Kensuf and his use of the springs of north Florida.

I got all that about Marie’s class (weather limitations) and was not implying that she needed to be in salt water for her tec classes. I was merely highlighting that I skipped chlorinated water and went straight to salt water because the conditions allowed it.

Hopefully that provides useful context.

 

[NothingClever]

The biggest benefit of a pool IME (not CW, an actual pool) is it speeds up skills acquisition. Students have a fixed amount of mental bandwidth. My objective as an instructor is to maximise that bandwidth toward learning the new skills.

in a “real water” scenario a certain amount of bandwidth will go toward distractions. Fish, rocks, reaper signs etc etc etc. I do all my training in the pool, like I do all my flight training in a simulator. The real thing is there to demonstrate that you have acquired the skills and can utilise them in the real world.

of course there are one or two skills that can’t realistically be done in a pool but it’s fewer than one would think.

Even in OW, all the hard stuff happens shallow. If you can do everything needed to achieve a gas swap and deco hang shallower than 20’ with a reasonable level of snafu thrown in, the bottom portion of the dive doesn’t hold a lot of challenges. Of course travel gases and stages change things up a bit but that’s outside the scope of a helitrox course.

Acknowledge and concur with all above.

I had dived my area over 100 times when I started my technical course so the distractions were minimal. Plus I had dived a ton with my instructor in a wide variety of conditions so we knew each other pretty well. If a guitar fish came along, we were both going to stop for a second to gawk at it and then resume my post drills. Turtles, rays and fishies not so much. We did all our drills at 10msw. Maybe that was a bad technique but it didn’t feel bad, felt about right.

 

[NothingClever]

On a typical year, she’d have to add an ice diving class if she wanted true open water practice lol.

I think Marie is right on track with pool sessions.

My post was intended for tbone in regards to his statement towards an instructor who has access to real waters with pool-like conditions.

 

[NothingClever]

“Real water” is freshwater here...

Yep, I totally get it and I perceive fresh water technical dives are just as legitimate as salt water technical dives.

 

[KenGordon]

To be clear the pool work does NOT replace any open water time at all, so unless your course has the first dive at 40m then I’m not sure we are on the same page here.
If pools are expensive then by all means use the optimal resource. Here, most of the dive ops are colocated with hotels so I have access to huge pools for free so it makes sense.

Well, the diver in question has a plastic card that says 40m already

It is not so much a course as more gas than a single. That is how it generally works here. You get someone’s to show you how it works in a quarry maybe, get a bit used to it and then go diving with it.

If the time in the pool does not reduce open water time is it really helpful? I suppose if the options are pool or sea then a pool is a help. In the UAE the temperature difference isn’t significant like it is for us.

 

[RainPilot]

If the time in the pool does not reduce open water time is it really helpful?

My aim is not usually to reduce the ocean time with pool work, it is to get a better foundation for the student to go into the ocean with the necessary skills already dialled in. The pool time is in addition to the usual OW time.

That being said, it does usually work out a bit quicker if they really have the hang of things in the pool before we go out, the OW dives are much more relaxed and effective IME.

Another factor that I think about, is student safety. If I am on an OW dive with a student and something happens to me (stroke, heart attack, whatever), do they have the skills and ability to reasonably be able to get back safely? If they have all of it together before we go in the ocean, that answer leans much farther in the direction I prefer. Its also why I always try to have a qualified diver with as a "dummy" student though that isn't always possible.

 

[KenGordon]

My aim is not usually to reduce the ocean time with pool work, it is to get a better foundation for the student to go into the ocean with the necessary skills already dialled in. The pool time is in addition to the usual OW time.

That being said, it does usually work out a bit quicker if they really have the hang of things in the pool before we go out, the OW dives are much more relaxed and effective IME.

Another factor that I think about, is student safety. If I am on an OW dive with a student and something happens to me (stroke, heart attack, whatever), do they have the skills and ability to reasonably be able to get back safely? If they have all of it together before we go in the ocean, that answer leans much farther in the direction I prefer. Its also why I always try to have a qualified diver with as a "dummy" student though that isn't always possible.

Here you are talking about first level dive course for complete novices though? If it was at AN/DP level surely they can survive a separation and ought to be able to at least recover your body should the need arise.

Is Rescue a prerequisite for AN/DP? In the U.K. this becomes a problem for commercial instructors as they need, by law, a person capable of rescuing them.

 

[Scuba Cobra]

If by “witty” you mean eager, condescending, forceful, gushing, dismissive, ill-informed, or some various combination thereof, I would agre...

Fundies doesn’t do deco or helitrox. How is it relevant? Did you even take fundies?

Previously, suggesting fundies might have been relevant to the skills or course she was discussing (even if suggested as a joke).

in this case, I don’t see how it is actually relevant to the topic at hand. @Scuba Cobra doesn’t even appear to be GUE trained.

Gee. Tough crowd this morning.