Terrible Advanced open water experience

[tstormdiver]

Although the deep dive portion of my AOW class was not the best. I feel I did the right thing by Pursuing further training in diving, since I didn't know anyone to dive with or, outside of the quarry I did my OW in,any other local dive spots. Everyone from my class was out of state, a distance away & had their own buddies. My reasoning behind going on to AOW out of OW was that I would be under the watchful eyes of the instructor & DM's, & I was, as that one DM saved my behind. The rest of the class went well and my confidence grew considerably as I realized that 1 really bad dive did not mean that I would always have bad dives. In fact I have taken the opportunity to dive every chance I've had (including several cold water deep dives) this summer. I recently just finished a rescue diver course & am knocking on the door of my 50th dive. I am planning on continuing my education & diving for sometime to come in diving and will see where it takes me.

 

[Tom Smedley]

How much neoprene were you wearing that you needed 31 pounds of lead to descend? Do some more dives and get some more experience in different conditions and then try your advanced course again.

 

[RonFrank]

Based on the first PM I got from splitter, he indicated he had no classroom, no instructor, no pool time... that lead me to believe he was not really in a class at all.

I received another PM from him, and he indicates that he went to the LDS, asked to signup for AOW. They collected his $$$, gave him his books, and told him to show up for the OW dives ready to go with some of the knowledge reviews completed.

Wow, that is bad, and completely irresponsible on the part of the LDS IMO.

LogSplitter, at this point I'd make a few suggestions.

First, please respond to this thread as there has been a lot of questions asked, and speculation is worthless (I'm an example ). You should talk for yourself rather than me discussing your PM's as those are private even if I'm not quoting them.

Second, I'd try and get your $$$ back from the LDS.

Third, RUN, do not walk, and find an LDS that does more than collect $$, and then buddy you up with DM's that are busy running a cattle boat of OW students through their defective training process.

I'm sorry to learn that there are LDS's out there that operate as described by LogSplitter. Unless he is a troll, or he somehow missed his AOW classes/pool time, then at this point I can only say that THIS LDS should have whatever association revoke their license, or whatever. :shakehead

 

[TheRedHead]

I received another PM from him, and he indicates that he went to the LDS, asked to signup for AOW. They collected his $$$, gave him his books, and told him to show up for the OW dives ready to go with some of the knowledge reviews completed.

My class was exactly the same style. I did mine in St. Croix and bought the books locally and did the knowledge reviews on the plane.

 

[Diver Dennis]

You know I have been talking to you by PM for quite a while now and tried to help out as much as I could but I was a bit disillusioned when I saw this post about your OW, which is very much like this one and even has the DM having you put the wrong depth in your log book.

01-11-2006, 12:18 AM #1
LOG-SPLITTER
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Need Advice Plz!!!
Well finally did it.My open water test.And let me tell you its was far from a fun experience

First off not the biggest boat I have ever been on and to top it off there was 25 plus ppl on the boat.far to many It was like get them on and them them off faster.$$$

All the instructors had attitudes didn'tgive a @#$% if you knew how to put your bcd together on your own.
When some where confused about how to assemble the bcd hosess etc; they just pushed them asidee and told them to hurry up! and the instructor put it together And told them to hurry up and get into the water. They then said we have 40 more ppl yet to go today!! and have to hurry up and get back.

Some women could NOT do the tired diver pull along with ALLOTof the other open water tests and refused to do it and the instructors just said don't worry about it.~quote jus get back in the boat we have to pick up the second bunch of students.

After this experience i really don'tknow what to think...I trained very hard for all my open water tests and only got to do 1/4 of them

Is this a common thing among different companies
Is PADI that much of a joke?
did i just pick a bad time to do my tests?

Last question when i was down on my deep dive i was following my dive computer and we where 27 feet.When the instructor filled it out he put 40 feet?I did not bother asking him why he put the wrong actual feet that we where down

I just wanted to get out of there as fast as i could. After going through this experience i`m totally turned off this once exciting hobby and don't think i have it in me any more to ever go again.And have mixed emotions about this padi?
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08-13-2006, 01:03 PM #1
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Terrible Advanced open water experience
I decided to try my advanced open water this weekend and oh boy what an experience.
To boot it was my first time in a wetsuit.

I went diving in my first lake and it was like tea. Not used to such dirty water.

1. Had a hard time to adjust my mask, inflator etc with the gloves on.

2. The rental regs wouldn’t fit the adapter on my bcd so had to borrow one from another student .The dive shop also forgot to send out gloves and the top part of the wetsuit.

3. I had a hard time to descend with the 31 lb belt they supplied. It was nothing like at the pool when I deflate. I would just descend nicely. I had to actually work hard to swim to the bottom. the instructor actually pushed me down. he grabbed the back of my tank and and pushed not telling me and not giving me a chance to pop my ears.

4. The wetsuit was so tight I found it very difficult to move.

5. My anxiety levels where nothing like I had ever experienced. everything was so rushed and with all this new equipment on I didn’t feel comfortable at all.

6. The instructor was in such a bad mood because he had so many students before hand and hadn’t had a break after 5 dives and was mad because he hadn’t had lunch etc.He ended up canceling my first dive and whole weekend trip withen 5 minutes in the water.??said I wasn’t ready.Then told me to right down in my log book that we went down to 40 feet when we actually only 20 feet max??

Keeping in mind it was the dive master who I was working with the instuctor was no where to be found.

Any words of advice for me I’m just really turned off of diving right now. And have no desire to to it again anytime soon.
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[Diver Dennis]

In your original post on this thread you said you were using rental regs. What happened to the new ones you had here?

06-22-2006, 08:09 PM #5
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I bought the atomic t2 and think its great.I have never tried anything else but on the pool sessions and on the open water.I decided to spen the extra $$ because i hated trying to work for the air and when i went upside down it felt like i was trying to struggle again for air.
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07-23-2006, 05:30 PM #4
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I dont have the ti version as my octupus midnight.I`m using another t2 the same as my primary.


Thx sadamune If and when i find one I will Surely let you know how it is.

Email already sent to atomic thx!
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[Diver Dennis]

I took the time to answer all of your questions, which I didn't mind at all but now I'm wondering what's up. I do not like being strung along and by looking at these posts you were stringing more than me along.

 

[RonFrank]

My class was exactly the same style. I did mine in St. Croix and bought the books locally and did the knowledge reviews on the plane.

So did they do knowledge reviews, some classroom discussions, answer questions, and then pool sessions to teach and practice skills. To be honest, the AOW pool dives we did mainly focused on buoyancy, navigation, and discussion of what to expect the CO dives to be.

However that is mainly due to the fact that the three divers in my AOW were all competant divers, and did not really need much. However the LDS/Instructors made sure we were all comfortable with what we would be doing.

There is nothing wrong with self study, and doing the knowledge reviews on one's own. The those reviews should be *graded* and questions discussed along with revelant pool time to further ask questions and practice skills. I don't know of an agency in Denver who does NOT offer that and/or more, and while I've only done training with two, I have second hand experience through others in regards to just about every LDS in the Denver area. NONE operate the way this LDS did, based on LogSplitters comments, and PM's.

 

[TheRedHead]

So did they do knowledge reviews, some classroom discussions, answer questions, and then pool sessions to teach and practice skills. To be honest, the AOW pool dives we did mainly focused on buoyancy, navigation, and discussion of what to expect the CO dives to be.

No, the entire class was joke. We did all the dives and had some "discussion" on the boat, or in the case of a shore dive, someone's truck. My buddy and I took this class and we were already experienced divers. We took it to get the card to dive the Florida wrecks. The main thing I learned was not to get to close to bridge pilings covered in urchins on night dives with surge.

 

[RonFrank]

I took the time to answer all of your questions, which I didn't mind at all but now I'm wondering what's up. I do not like being strung along and by looking at these posts you were stringing more than me along.

Hey Dennis,

Yeah, something does not seem to add up, does it? His profile is not that of a troll. I have not bothered to track down his posting history, nor will I.

One thing is clear, he does not seem to be much of a diver at this point... Yeah, why would anyone rent regs if they owned top of the line atomic?

It just does not seem to add up.

LogSplitter, I would suggest AGAIN, you respond to the thread, not to me/others via PM.