PADI AOW vs SSI deep diver qualifications

[jlcnuke]

Were all these high risk things happening at once? Was he in low vis 20m from an exit while squeezing through doorways at 45 degrees banging his tank while an inch off the bottom?

Or did he do these things separately?

You see, I can imagine wrecks in Malta he might describe like that but which are not at all scary. I also know that Malta has the most regulated diving in Europe and that losing a student would be extremely bad for the instructor if they were being as reckless as this thread makes out. Diving is taken pretty seriously in Malta.

Quite frankly, I don't care if they were all happening simultaneously. An OW diver, on their deep/nitrox training dive, with no wreck penetration training or experience, has no business being in the situation in the first place. He has no business being inside a wreck with conditions so tight that he is repeatedly "banging his tank" and "bumped and cut my head several times" or "cutting his hand" and getting to realize that blood doesn't have the same color at that depth from the cloud,. He has no business being in a wreck with silt-ups. He has no business being in a wreck 29+m down and 20m away from an exit. He has no business being in a wreck with visibility so poor that he can't see his dive buddy.

I really don't care if the dive was done in Malta or a quarry in the mid-west or in Mexico, he had no business being on the dive and it was irresponsible, reckless, and dangerous for his instructor to take him on such a dive.

 

[KenGordon]

Quite frankly, I don't care if they were all happening simultaneously. An OW diver, on their deep/nitrox training dive, with no wreck penetration training or experience, has no business being in the situation in the first place. He has no business being inside a wreck with conditions so tight that he is repeatedly "banging his tank" and "bumped and cut my head several times" or "cutting his hand" and getting to realize that blood doesn't have the same color at that depth from the cloud,. He has no business being in a wreck with silt-ups. He has no business being in a wreck 29+m down and 20m away from an exit. He has no business being in a wreck with visibility so poor that he can't see his dive buddy.

I really don't care if the dive was done in Malta or a quarry in the mid-west or in Mexico, he had no business being on the dive and it was irresponsible, reckless, and dangerous for his instructor to take him on such a dive.

And if it wasn’t happening all at once? How about outside squeezing under stuff on a deck and getting cut? Going inside 20m reasonable vis? In what depth? And what silt up? He has 1m of vis at worst wasn’t he?

We don’t know much about what actually happened. There are many wrecks in Malta. Some are very easy. Things might not be what you assume.

But no, don’t assume anyone was in control, just scream “standards violations” while holding your fingers in your ears.

 

[jlcnuke]

And if it wasn’t happening all at once? How about outside squeezing under stuff on a deck and getting cut? Going inside 20m reasonable vis? In what depth? And what silt up? He has 1m of vis at worst wasn’t he?

We don’t know much about what actually happened. There are many wrecks in Malta. Some are very easy. Things might not be what you assume.

But no, don’t assume anyone was in control, just scream “standards violations” while holding your fingers in your ears.

What I know is what the OP has told us, and without significant reason to believe the OP is a liar, I'm going to assume it's accurate. You can choose not to, but I see no reason to make that choice.

What wreck 29+m down, with 20m to the closes exit while inside that wreck, do you think is acceptable on a class dive with an OW qualified student on a training deep dive?

What wreck, with 1m visibility, do you think is an acceptable wreck for an OW qualified student to be in in with zero wreck training, no guidelines in use, etc?

What wreck do you think an instructor should have a student in if that student is repeatedly banging into things, damaging/scratching up their equipment, and hurting themselves??

If a student is finishing a dive with injuries, the student either went off on their own or the instructor screwed up and the student shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, regardless of all the other things.

In case you were wondering, my answer to all of the questions in this post is "none". There is no wreck I think an OW diver should be in with any of those conditions.That plane wreck at 20m where the top of the fuselage is gone, sure, go swim through the cabin though...

You're welcome to disagree, after all everyone can have an opinion. I see approximately zero chance I'll change my opinion however barring the OPs descriptions changing massively.

 

[KenGordon]

Why do you;expect his impression and recollection of those here to be accurate in such terrible circumstances?

You should go and dive some wrecks in Malta. They might not be what you think they are. That is why I was asking which sites he was diving. That might reveal more about whether he was really at risk or not.

I am familiar with the easy insides of the Karwela. Other that the depth he’d have been ok in there, but by the accounts on this page that would be like taking him the length of a Scapa cruiser and popping out of the bit for launching the mines.

Your approach is like Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no.”

What I know is what the OP has told us, and without significant reason to believe the OP is a liar, I'm going to assume it's accurate. You can choose not to, but I see no reason to make that choice.

What wreck 29+m down, with 20m to the closes exit while inside that wreck, do you think is acceptable on a class dive with an OW qualified student on a training deep dive?

What wreck, with 1m visibility, do you think is an acceptable wreck for an OW qualified student to be in in with zero wreck training, no guidelines in use, etc?

What wreck do you think an instructor should have a student in if that student is repeatedly banging into things, damaging/scratching up their equipment, and hurting themselves??

If a student is finishing a dive with injuries, the student either went off on their own or the instructor screwed up and the student shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, regardless of all the other things.

In case you were wondering, my answer to all of the questions in this post is "none". There is no wreck I think an OW diver should be in with any of those conditions.That plane wreck at 20m where the top of the fuselage is gone, sure, go swim through the cabin though...

You're welcome to disagree, after all everyone can have an opinion. I see approximately zero chance I'll change my opinion however barring the OPs descriptions changing massively.

to be

 

[Efka76]

What I know is what the OP has told us, and without significant reason to believe the OP is a liar, I'm going to assume it's accurate. You can choose not to, but I see no reason to make that choice.

What wreck 29+m down, with 20m to the closes exit while inside that wreck, do you think is acceptable on a class dive with an OW qualified student on a training deep dive?

What wreck, with 1m visibility, do you think is an acceptable wreck for an OW qualified student to be in in with zero wreck training, no guidelines in use, etc?

What wreck do you think an instructor should have a student in if that student is repeatedly banging into things, damaging/scratching up their equipment, and hurting themselves??

If a student is finishing a dive with injuries, the student either went off on their own or the instructor screwed up and the student shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, regardless of all the other things.

In case you were wondering, my answer to all of the questions in this post is "none". There is no wreck I think an OW diver should be in with any of those conditions.That plane wreck at 20m where the top of the fuselage is gone, sure, go swim through the cabin though...

You're welcome to disagree, after all everyone can have an opinion. I see approximately zero chance I'll change my opinion however barring the OPs descriptions changing massively.

There is at least 1 very serious PADI standard violation. If you have AOW Wreck dive it does not include wreck penetration. When you are taking PADI Wreck specialty, wreck penetration is done at the 4th dive. Also, for training purposes wreck is usually chosen with pretty big hole. To squeeze through narrow hole in a limited visibility and combine it with Deep and Nitrox dive is definitely not for beginners. Also, to do it with 12 L tank and without appropriate protecting clothing (e.g. gloves or helmet) seems really irresponsible.

 

[jlcnuke]

Why do you;expect his impression and recollection of those here to be accurate in such terrible circumstances?

You should go and dive some wrecks in Malta. They might not be what you think they are. That is why I was asking which sites he was diving. That might reveal more about whether he was really at risk or not.

I am familiar with the easy insides of the Karwela. Other that the depth he’d have been ok in there, but by the accounts on this page that would be like taking him the length of a Scapa cruiser and popping out of the bit for launching the mines.

Your approach is like Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no.”




to be

I appreciate that you didn't even attempt to answer any of the questions and apparently still refuse to acknowledge there might have been anything done wrong here... lol

You weren't the instructor that everyone but you is criticizing were you?

 

[KenGordon]

There is at least 1 very serious PADI standard violation. If you have AOW Wreck dive it does not include wreck penetration. When you are taking PADI Wreck specialty, wreck penetration is done at the 4th dive. Also, for training purposes wreck is usually chosen with pretty big hole. To squeeze through narrow hole in a limited visibility and combine it with Deep and Nitrox dive is definitely not for beginners. Also, to do it with 12 L tank and without appropriate protecting clothing (e.g. gloves or helmet) seems really irresponsible.

He wasn’t on a PADI course. And if he were, are you sure, given Boulderjohn’s recent posting on what those mean wrt what constitutes a significant overhead, that it would have been contry to those standards?

 

[KenGordon]

I appreciate that you didn't even attempt to answer any of the questions and apparently still refuse to acknowledge there might have been anything done wrong here... lol

You weren't the instructor that everyone but you is criticizing were you?

They are useless apple pie and the American way sort of questions. When did you stop beating your wife?

And no, it wasn’t me. I’ve not been to Malta for a couple of years. I am quite cautious about where I get inside stuff as I don’t want to get stuck or trapped.

Of course what the OP did might have been dangerous. What is happening though, is you lot are too busy throwing rocks to consider whether it might not have been dangerous, actually under control and just rather exciting for the student at the time. The rock throwing is based on the report of a person with no previous experience of the situation, maybe ‘oh my god you are lucky to be alive’ is an over reaction.

 

[boulderjohn]

There is at least 1 very serious PADI standard violation. If you have AOW Wreck dive it does not include wreck penetration. When you are taking PADI Wreck specialty, wreck penetration is done at the 4th dive.

He wasn’t on a PADI course. And if he were, are you sure, given Boulderjohn’s recent posting on what those mean wrt what constitutes a significant overhead, that it would have been country to those standards?

Yes, this was a SSI course, not a PADI course. Yes, the PADI language was recently clarified in the last Undersea Journal. Yes, I wrote that new language. According to my discussions with PADI, nothing has changed; it is just that the previously language was not sufficiently clear.

The PADI language did not differentiate between what it calls a "penetration" and what most people call a "swim-through." A penetration demands laying line so that the diver can find his or her way back to the point of entry. In a swim-through, a diver enters in one place and exits in another, making laying line inappropriate. A swim through was not mentioned in the previous wreck language because PADI considers a simple swim-through to be open water, even though they don't say anything like that anywhere. In our conversation, they even pointed me to an old training bulletin that said it is permissible to do simple swim-throughs on OW training dives. Thus, a simple swim-through can not only be done on the AOW wreck dive and the wreck specialty on any dive, it can be done on other training dives as well.

What constitutes a "simple" swim-through? Again, they had no language for differentiating a "simple" swim-through from a more complicated one, so I provided that. I am not going to look up the exact language, but in essence it says that both exits are visible at all times, there is no potential for a silt out, there are no potential entanglements, there is natural light throughout, and the combination of depth and swim-through distance does not exceed the diver's certification level.

To differentiate between that and more complex swim-throughs, the new language emphasizes diver judgment. The diver needs to make a realistic assessment of the increasing complexity of the dive and his or her own training and experience to decide whether or not that entry will be safe.

 

[boulderjohn]

I want to make an important note about what I just wrote above--the new mention of the idea of using your personal judgment to assess conditions and your ability to handle them. Because of my former role in educational leadership, I recognized the problem. In assessment, people like to eliminate any possibility of someone using personal judgment rather than specific, objective language. The problem is that in many and perhaps most instances, the search for objective criteria leads to language that can become simply absurd. I used to lead workshops on this topic, showing participants how seemingly logical, objective criteria can lead to terrible performances being rated above superior performances. I had an entire writing assessment ended in our school district when I showed what was happening with the scoring. In one of my examples, a potentially publishable response from an outstanding Advanced Placement student was given a failing score, while a crude piece of writing by a special education student got a perfect rating.

I used to sum up that problem by saying, "When we don't know how to measure what is important, we make important what we know how to measure."

In my discussion with PADI, I pointed out that the PADI Trimix course ends with a nicely written section telling the student that this course is the end of the line for training for depth. While the course certifies divers to a certain depth, since there is no course after that, they need to use good judgment in exceeding the limits to which they were trained and certified. The same thing is really true for all diving, and that includes wreck diving. That discussion is what led to them including the idea of using your judgment in exceeding limits.