Should There Be a "Cold Water" Course (not Ice Diving)?

[diverrobs]

As relatively new diver who did thier open water dives and advanced open water dives in Jamaica and then started diving here in Canada, I think that the certification agencies need a "COLD WATER DIVER" course. This is different than Drysuit and Ice diving course. Here is my reasoning:

1)Free Flows. Most warm water divers will never have this issue but in the total of 12 cold water dives I have done to date, I have seen 3 free flows (25% of the dives) on different divers regs. In the open water course we just gloss over this issue and do a very small amount of practice on breating from a free flowing reg.

2)Redundant air supplies, I know my buddy is my primary back up for air but after the number of free flows I have seen and stories of both divers free flowing (there is a much greater risk of free flow when two divers are breathing off one regulator), it is clear to me that doubles and appropriately sized pony bottles should be part of cold water diving and that training is needed to use doubles correctly or to properly sling/mount ponies.

3)Equipment, alot of new divers do not realize that regulators need environmental kits for cold water and that not all regulators are equal in cold water (i.e. a great breathing warm water reg is not necessarily the choice for cold water).

4)Dealing With The Cold: I takes time to get used to cold water. I know that the first few minutes I am down, it feels like my second stage is not being held tighly in my lips as they start to go numb, after the lips numb the reg feels fine. Discussing what is normal discomfort and what to do to minimize discomfort is imporatnt.

5)Diving wet verse Diving Dry: Lots of cold water divers prefer to dive wet because they find the dry suit to cumbersome and more to deal with. Pros and cons of both.

6)Mask off training in cold water. Taking your mask off in 40F water is a shock to say the least. Training in cold water for mask clearing, mask removal and replacement is important. The shock of the cold water on the face is much different than that in warm tropical water.

7) Emphasis on "NOT OVERBREATHING YOUR REG". Free flows are often caused by excessive breating on the reg. Hard finning, anxiety etc. can lead to free flows. This needs to be re-enforced in a course. I can breath as hard as my reg will allow in warm water and never have a problem with free flow. If I do the same in cold water, I am asking for trouble. I really did not know this until after I had done a couple of cold water dives.

8) How to deal with a Free Flow. Breathing off the free flowing reg or Sharing air/redundate air and cycling the free flowing reg (turing air off for a minute and then turning it back on). Ascending on the line vs. free ascent etc. Trying to share air and do a free ascent with two people in drysuits takes practice, lines are much safer.

9) Gas Management: Making sure that you have enought air for you and your buddy to do a safety stop if one of you has an out of air emergency or free flow.

Any comments? I know that all that we are supposed to familiarize ourselves with local dive conditions through training but I think for cold water diving we need to go beyond. How do I let PADI etc. know I think this important and that it could save lives and make cold water diving more enjoyable and safe. Has anyone tried to do something like this?

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Very nice write-up, for a newer diver you seem to have a good grasp of the challenges of cold water diving.

Instructors are able to develop their own courses in most agencies when they see either a need or are doing something unique that could contain enough material to make it a specialty course. I would not be surprised if you called PADI to check the full specialty course listings and find "Cold water diver" has been developed.

Good post!
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[nwhitney2003]

Great post! I was fortunate enough to do my ow cert. dives in cold water. My instructor felt that learning to dive in the pacific Northwest makes for better new divers, I know some will disagree. His reasoning is that proper buoyancy control is more difficult in cold water, extra weights, thicker wet suits. I think everyone should dive in cold water (50 degree water) at least once. My 2 cents.

 

[fppf]

Narcosis is much worse in cold water.
Having a hood and gloves on, lower vis (much lower in some cases) and the cold will lead to getting narced in a spooky panic way. I have seen many warm water divers not even make the bottom.

 

[fisherdvm]

I agree. This course is much more important than those other "fluffy" specialty courses: boat diver, naturalist, and fish ID.

One of the big issue of cold water diving is trim. Pack 14 mm of wetsuit, and counterbalance it with 30 lbs of weight on the opposite end of the lever... and you've got a diver so out of trim, he might as well be a torpedo rocketing for the center of the earth.

 

[Web Monkey]

7) Emphasis on "NOT OVERBREATHING YOUR REG". Free flows are often caused by excessive breating on the reg. Hard finning, anxiety etc. can lead to free flows. This needs to be re-enforced in a course. I can breath as hard as my reg will allow in warm water and never have a problem with free flow. If I do the same in cold water, I am asking for trouble. I really did not know this until after I had done a couple of cold water dives.

This is a hardware issue, not a training issue. If you can "over-breathe" your regulator, you need a better regulator.

Telling a diver "don't breathe so much" is just begging for hypercapnia and probably panic.

Aside from anything else, when the poop hits the fan, your regulator has to handle not only you, but your buddy, and unless you've both done a ton of training, neither of you will be any where near your resting SAC rate.

Terry

 

[diverrobs]

Adding to my list.
10) Bouyancy/Trim/Weight: Added difficulty with bouyancy control due to thick wet suits, dry suits and 30lbs of weight. I have practiced alot in 15' of water to control bouyancy, you go up 3' and you are suddenly heading for the surface fast, go down 3' and you are heading for the bottom fast (bouyancy is much more difficult).

11) Narcosis: Tend toward more panic if the water is cold. It is pretty spooky in 95ft of water at 40F looking at a shipwreck 25 guys died on when it sank. Easy to panic without proper training.

I put the hardware issue higher on the list, I know that 2 of the free flows I have seen were due to poor gear choices, don't know why the third free flow occured.

 

[Ann Marie]

I agree. This course is much more important than those other "fluffy" specialty courses: boat diver, naturalist, and fish ID.

Have you take the naturalist or fish ID course? I teach both of those and they are some of my favorite specialties. Not only is there workshops for the naturalist we go to the tide pools and then dive. For the fish ID course, we have the workshop, do to one of the great local aquariums and then dive. I feel that divers that take either of these two courses from me actually learn quite a bit about the underwater environment, the living organisms, in that environment and how we can reduce our impact on it. Why dive to look at the 'stuff' underwater and not know what it is?

Now, I don't teach the boat diver specialty only because during OW I take my students and do some dives off the beach (teaches surf entries here) and boat dives (covers what someone needs to know about boats). For some divers that are trained in an area that doesn't have access to a boat, the boat diver could be a good specialty to take and it also gives the diver an opportunity to learn about kelp diving off a boat (at least out here).

Now to answer the OPs question, waters off Southern California (where I am) are considered temperate though the temps can get down into the 50s. If someone learns to dive in an environment and then goes to dive in another environment a good way to go might be a "Discover Local Diving". PADI has this program already, it's for divers that need an orientation to a new environment.

Any opportunity to learn is a good thing, and if a diver would like to be recognized as having taken a specialized course then I think that's great. In my opinion for a new diver Rob, you have shown a lot of wisdom. I can tell that you've given this a lot of thought and have probably analyzed you dives quite a bit. Nice.

 

[ucfdiver]

Why not teach the basic skills needed to analyze the environment and adjust to it in BOW or AOW? Stacking class after class just waters down the content of each of them.

 

[diverrobs]

I am just not sure all of this applies to people who are only going to dive in the tropics. So adding it to BOW or AOW won't work. It's hard to practice in cold water if there is no cold water for 2000 miles.