NOAA science diver cert

[muddiver]

I understand that these issues might not be covered in basic open water courses but my disappointment is that these skills do not appear to be taught at any point in any of their diving classes. Are these skills not of value for scientific divers? It seems that the intent of scientific diving would be to not disturb the sites when performing any scientific study whether it be reefs, breeding grounds or historically sensitive sites.

I agree. And I have seen many canidates that are lacking in these skills.

GUE, UTD, NSS-CDS, NACD, how come AAUS isn't in this? It appears that the University of Miami is teaching these skills as their diving safety officer is a GUE instructor.

You just named a bunch of small certification agencies that are not mainstream and usually considered Tech oriented. Diver trained by those agencies will be few and probably drift toward cave diving and wreck diving, rather than science.

Yes we discussed these concerns and my son will not be in their diving program. He is already a PADI MSD and NSS-CDS Cavern Diver and will enroll in their Marine Ecology curriculum part time as he will be working at the Naval Research Laboratory on Fleming Key full time. He would have complemented his studies with scientific diving courses but it is doubtful that he will use now use his electives on these courses as his goal is to eventually transfer to another Florida public university for his bachelor’s degree in ocean engineering.

Excellant! That was my minor.

Overall we very much like the balance of real world work experience and university study that he will experience with this arrangement. We like that the school offers a 11:1 student-to-faculty numbers and the campus and facilities are beautiful. My questions are not to denounce this or other schools but to try an understand why such skills and equipment for perfecting trim and buoyancy, streamlining and alternative propulsion techniques are not of seeming interest in scientific diving.

I lot depends on situational awareness. Most young people that want to count fish just don't think about things like where their feet are when they are diving. It is really too bad that such a large program does not take such skills into consideration, but as I stated before, most programs are built on the PADI or NAUI scuba training standards that do not seem to include such fundamental watermanship skills. Everyone has a lot to learn from everyone else.

 

[smellzlikefish]

Hi Team-

I've been through both NOAA and AAUS courses. The AAUS course I went through was very comprehensive and informative. It lasted the whole semester with two classroom sessions and one in-water session per week. It was designed to take the Fresh-Out-Of-OW diver to become a true asset underwater and team leader.

The NOAA course is more designed to make sure you don't die underwater. As mentioned previously, NOAA diving is only for people employed by the government. It is kind of assumed if you pick up a job with NOAA as a diver that you can probably handle yourself underwater. They hand you a BIG book with a few death-by-powerpoint sessions, a physical, a few pushups (laughable), some specialized training for your particular task, a check out dive and voila, you are a NOAA diver in a few weeks. The book covers pretty much everything you would ever want to know about diving. It had a whole freaking page about choosing a snorkel. I could go on if you want.

Basically, both training programs are for those already employed by or associated with a particular organization. NOAA does some underwater archaeology, in fact, because of the remoteness of our survey areas we were supposed to mark shipwrecks by GPS for later analysis. Years prior to my employment, my program found a whaler sunk in the early 1800's.

That's probably more than you needed, but cheers!

 

[M_Bipartitus]

I know that the relatively poor quality of many OW recreational divers is a major concern for those in the scientific diving community. As smellzlikefish, indicates most AAUS programs are intended to be very comprehensive and produce divers that are an asset to underwater projects. AAUS has relatively intensive recommended policies that typically equate to a semesters-worth of dive classes, It's my understanding that it is highly recommended that the organizational members meet or exceed the AAUS policies, with some discretion allowed to individual DSOs or diving oversight boards.

The view in the scientific diving community is that there is a risk of loosing the exemption from OSHA diving rules that scientific diving enjoys. Accidents by poorly trained divers could jeopardize the exemption, so there has been a move to more training.

That said, I don't see any reason that jacket BC, standard hoses, and other non-HOG/DIR equipment is a problem. Trim can be important, but equipment doesn't make a good diver, skills do. I would actually argue that the best divers should be able to dive well in any set of gear presented to them, but that's a different topic.

...
With this said, I don't understand why they are teaching with jacket BCs, standard regulators/octos, split fins, snorkels, etc. The divers I saw had incorrect hose sizes, poor fitting jacket BCs, their octos floating about, all flutter kicks, etc. Why aren't these divers being taught the importance of non silting kicks, trim and buoyancy, and streamlining? Wouldn't these attributes and skills improve the quality of scientific divers in not disturbing sites?

We liked the programs offered but are dismayed by the lack of diving skills being emphasized or seemingly, even appreciated.

 

[ScubaGypsy]

You just named a bunch of small certification agencies that are not mainstream and usually considered Tech oriented. Diver trained by those agencies will be few and probably drift toward cave diving and wreck diving, rather than science.

I lot depends on situational awareness. Most young people that want to count fish just don't think about things like where their feet are when they are diving. It is really too bad that such a large program does not take such skills into consideration, but as I stated before, most programs are built on the PADI or NAUI scuba training standards that do not seem to include such fundamental watermanship skills. Everyone has a lot to learn from everyone else.

I guess that is the point of my questions, why doesn't AAUS instruct these skills as a follow up to the introduction recreational diving courses? I certainly can understand why PADI or NAUI courses are used for teaching how to dive but my discomfort is that these fundamental watermanship skills are of an absolute need in scientific diving.

I've been through both NOAA and AAUS courses. The AAUS course I went through was very comprehensive and informative. It lasted the whole semester with two classroom sessions and one in-water session per week. It was designed to take the Fresh-Out-Of-OW diver to become a true asset underwater and team leader.

Did this comprehensive training include buoyancy/trim, streamlining and alternative propulsion techniques so as not to disturb scientific sites?

That said, I don't see any reason that jacket BC, standard hoses, and other non-HOG/DIR equipment is a problem. Trim can be important, but equipment doesn't make a good diver, skills do. I would actually argue that the best divers should be able to dive well in any set of gear presented to them, but that's a different topic.

I argue that the instruction and use of recreational equipment introduces diver limitations not to disturb sensitive scientific sites. The equipment that I noted for student use did not have clip offs for streamlining, standard size hoses do not fit everyone the same and thus are looped up and about, oversize jacket BCs will limit if not eliminate proper buoyancy and trim (and at the very least make it difficult to learn) and split fins do not permit non flutter kick propulsion which means disturbing the bottom. No the equipment doesn't make the diver but the proper equipment will permit easier mastering and implementation of skills.

 

[smellzlikefish]

Just to interject, the standard gear that NOAA divers are issued and required to use includes a jacket style BCD and regulator with standard hoses.

"Did this comprehensive training include buoyancy/trim, streamlining and alternative propulsion techniques so as not to disturb scientific sites?"

Yes. The first in-water class involves a proper weighting/buoyancy component. Streamlining is adjusted with advice from the instructor. Students were required to experiment with alternative propulsion. Split fins were allowed with the AAUS training, but not the NOAA diver training. Neither taught DIR. My understanding of DIR is that it is a movement to attempt to standardizes everyone's gear, but please remember that not everyone subscribes to DIR.

 

[ScubaGypsy]

The first in-water class involves a proper weighting/buoyancy component. Streamlining is adjusted with advice from the instructor. Students were required to experiment with alternative propulsion. Split fins were allowed with the AAUS training, but not the NOAA diver training. Neither taught DIR. My understanding of DIR is that it is a movement to attempt to standardizes everyone's gear, but please remember that not everyone subscribes to DIR.

One in-water class involving proper weighting/buoyancy is not instructing and training students the mastering of buoyancy and trim.

I never mentioned or asked if the AAUS program subscribes to DIR, I was hopeful that it subscribes to training divers to not disturb scientific sites. DIR has many attributes of which standardization of equipment is but a minor one. My frustration here is not whether AAUS is following DIR principles but that the AAUS training does not appear to train its students in the most crucial criteria of scientific diving - don't disturb the site!

 

[smellzlikefish]

...and I didn't say that the first class was the only one devoted to proper buoyancy and trim either. In fact, it is a point that is driven home throughout the course. Your general statements about certain equipment are somewhat misguided. Your harness rig can be too large just the same as a jacket style BC. Flutter kicks are a perfectly acceptable way to move forward in some circumstances. I know some people who prefer split fins but use regular jet fins when they need them.

Not disturbing the site is an idea that is touched on in AAUS diving courses, but each project requires a different kind of non-disturbance and some even require disturbance (collecting samples, introducing stimuli, etc.). Some require different kinds of non-disturbance. For example, you can wave water over a coral and the colony will be okay, but if you wave water over a lost bomb as can be found on Kaho Olawe, Midway, and even on Ordinance Beach here on Oahu, you might just blow up. At any rate, your simple presence in the environment disturbs the site. You cannot observe something without affecting it.