Negative buoyancy, learning to swim?

[Akimbo]

Well, then you don't QUITE agree with what I was trying to say. I would not rank being a good swimmer quite as high as "air sharing, how to do a CESA, buddy skills, how to plan a dive" on the scale of the likelihood of skills preventing or mitigating things going badly…

That is entirely dependent on what goes wrong first. I have seen new divers who could barely swim that were primed for panic before leaving the boat. Actually, they didn’t swim all that well with fins. Panic leads to doing stupid things and often cancels out what little training they have. Based on what I have seen in the last 10 years I would say that current Scuba training ranges from barely adequate to terrible.

Add a person who is uncomfortable in the water coupled with the lower end of training quality and you have a disaster waiting to happen. All it takes is a trigger. Fortunately, most panic does not embolize them so they make it to the surface alive. Of course that still doesn’t prevent drowning on the surface.

On the other hand, compare people who are comfortable in the water to how well they do in dive classes. You don’t have to be a competitive swimmer, but the common denominator is they all have endurance… or an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation.

In the grand scheme, it is very unusual for divers to run out of air on the bottom — especially ones who are really concerned about it. They run low quickly, but not out while underwater. Almost every dive involves a surface swim so a BC failure or failure to operate correctly, a bit of kelp, mildly sloppy seas, a lost fin, being over-weighted (like far too many are), or any number of stressors can cause a person to lose it.

 

[Bob DBF]

Considering the gear available, most importantly the BCD, the need to be able to swim has dropped to a rather low point. The only need for swimming is the fact that SCUBA diving takes place in the water and as a survival matter one should know enough to stay alive and get back to safety if they fall in, and perhaps enough to assist your buddy, should they not be geared up.

The YMCA was the first recreational scuba instruction in the US and I believe their history of water safety training had a large influence on the SCUBA training. Also, at the time, nothing or a horsecollar surface flotation device was used, as the BC and thermal protection as we know it now, were not available. In my training I used a small horsecollar for surface flotation that used a modified tire valve to orally inflate (which was pure h*ll if you were cold and breathing hard), no thermal protection, no SPG, and sometimes a J-valve. The last SCUBA emergency procedure was to ditch the gear and swim home, to this day I won't get in the water with any gear I am not willing to leave behind. Swimming was not a formality it is today, but quite possibly the last method available for your survival.

I'm not as good a swimmer as I used to be, but SCUBA diving now is a lot less like swimming underwater than it was when I started diving.



Bob
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That's my point, people, by and large, are not taught that diving can be deadly, they are taught how safe it is, and they are not equipped with the skills, taught and trained to the level required to be useful in an emergency.

 

[Lorenzoid]

That is entirely dependent on what goes wrong first. I have seen new divers who could barely swim that were primed for panic before leaving the boat. Actually, they didn’t swim all that well with fins. Panic leads to doing stupid things and often cancels out what little training they have. Based on what I have seen in the last 10 years I would say that current Scuba training ranges from barely adequate to terrible.

Add a person who is uncomfortable in the water coupled with the lower end of training quality and you have a disaster waiting to happen. All it takes is a trigger. Fortunately, most panic does not embolize them so they make it to the surface alive. Of course that still doesn’t prevent drowning on the surface.

On the other hand, compare people who are comfortable in the water to how well they do in dive classes. You don’t have to be a competitive swimmer, but the common denominator is they all have endurance… or an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation.

In the grand scheme, it is very unusual for divers to run out of air on the bottom — especially ones who are really concerned about it. They run low quickly, but not out while underwater. Almost every dive involves a surface swim so a BC failure or failure to operate correctly, a bit of kelp, mildly sloppy seas, a lost fin, being over-weighted (like far too many are), or any number of stressors can cause a person to lose it.

I get your point, but I have been interpreting the discussion as relating to divers who are fully comfortable and can swim more than "barely" but just never learned to swim the way that, well, swimmers are taught to swim. Nobody who is "barely" able to swim should be diving in the first place. If such people are out there with c-cards, well, that's a different problem than what I thought we were discussing.

As for surface swims without fins and/or BC, not long ago someone asked about the likelihood of total BC failure. From what I read, it sounded like it was on the VERY UNLIKELY end of the scale. One lost fin, sure, but two lost fins, and no buoyancy from the BC on the surface, and a need to swim a substantial distance ... I lack your experience, but it sure sounds like an improbable combination of events to me. I suppose the bottom line is that the more challenging the conditions one plans to dive in, the greater the utility of being a good swimmer.

 

[TMHeimer]

Bravo last THREE posts in covering the swimming/scuba relationship.

 

[Akimbo]

I get your point, but I have been interpreting the discussion as relating to divers who are fully comfortable and can swim more than "barely" but just never learned to swim the way that, well, swimmers are taught to swim. Nobody who is "barely" able to swim should be diving in the first place...

We are in total agreement here. Unfortunately I have met quite a number of divers who did their swim test in a pool, if they had one at all, with mask, fins, and snorkels. That’s doesn’t give a dive instructor much opportunity to evaluate how comfortable someone is in the water. I understand from speaking to instructors in this area that the current structure of diver training makes it very hard to flunk a student if they want to keep working, especially at the very beginning where the dive shop might be obligated to refund the fee.

“Most” instructors will donate the extra time to dive students who really need the help. However, the classes are so sort that they may not recognize the students that need the extra help unless something goes mildly wrong. I’m not suggesting that full-blow military-style harassment dives are necessary to identify them, but some level of induced stress can be very revealing. There just isn’t enough time and very few instructors have the training or skills to pull it off.

Just diving without an instructor guiding them after OW training is a stressor that may not show during class.

 

[TMHeimer]

In beating a dead horse, I'll bring up the first time I saw a bicycle kick several years ago. I had no idea what the student was doing. We have been discussing various degrees of proper swim strokes and swimming abilities. I would think that anyone who can't move their legs up & down while at least relatively straight shouldn't sign up for scuba until they get some swimming experience first. On my last class 3 or 4 of the 10 students didn't know what to do with their legs--that's hardly even related to being a strong swimmer. Some may say that's elitist-- so be it.

 

[dmaziuk]

Nice job on the rescue, but of course this is a swimming situation, not a scuba one. Still, I tend to agree in not wanting a non swimmer for a buddy (if you have a choice--for my first 75 dives or so my regular buddy basically couldn't swim. He was the only available buddy in my area at the time). When doing my one or two FL boat dives yearly I don't even think to ask an instabuddy if they can swim.

(Re the rescue: it wasn't one, not quite. She was at the point where she could've gone either way: swim to shore and climb out shaken and stirred, or get into full-blown panic and need rescuing.)

I think we can assume our buddies at least once floated for a while in the pool, swam a couple of hundred, and orally inflated their BCD. So hopefully they'll be less likely to try and climb on top of us to get their heads above water.

---------- Post added November 1st, 2015 at 03:06 PM ----------

I'm not as good a swimmer as I used to be, but SCUBA diving now is a lot less like swimming underwater than it was when I started diving.

I like the feel of BP&W. I'll probably end up in a lavacore suit with a "long hose rec" regs and wireless AI eventually: the less stuff the better as far as I'm concerned.