You can have a good time in poor conditions!

[DeputyDan]

My kids and I (ages 12 and 15) dove in the quarry this weekend. Visibility was terrible 3-4 feet tops.

There were at least 9 open water classes from various schools there doing their checkout dives.

Our original OW instructor was teaching one class and it just so happened out DM for our OW class was there as the DM on another class.

Fun stuff - - -

My kids telling our OW instructor's class to be careful and not let the instructor get them lost cause his compass skills are not where they need to be

15 year old telling another class as we were exiting and they were entering - Hey visibility was great we could see our compass.

The 12 year old carrying on by saying "and I saw lots of dirt mixed with some rocks".

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We were there to specifically to work on navigation and compass skills so it was a good day for that.

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Side note:

The kids also learned something about trusting others and questionable instructors.

One lady in her 60's was having a great deal of difficulty on her shore exit. We helped her with her fins and weights but she was still having trouble. I think she was plain worn out physically!

I was going to help her remove her BC with tank but the instructor or DM ?? of the class came up and said he would handle "implying that we leave" but the lady ended up crawling out of the water.

I made for interesting discussion on the way home.

 

[SubMariner]

was going to help her remove her BC with tank but the instructor or DM ?? of the class came up and said he would handle "implying that we leave" but the lady ended up crawling out of the water.

Unfortunately, when you are "on the outside looking in" you may not have the WHOLE story about students and Instructors. IOW, you were not present for the entire dive nor were you privy to how that person was handling their training up to that point. All you witnessed was a very small part of the training process.

By way of explanation: if someone keeps "helping" another diver throughout their training, that person WILL NOT become a conpetent, independent diver who understands the whole diving process and learns to problem solve/handle a variety of conditions.

That's probably one of the main reasons I usually break up couples when they are learning to dive: when I see one buddy basically doing EVERYTHING and the other buddy doesn't do ANYTHING. By the end of the training, how competent do you think this dependent buddy will be? More importantly, would YOU want to dive with the dependent buddy?

Just my 2psi,

 

[DeputyDan]

the process was handled. Just stating facts.

My kids and I discussed the fact

That she was in no danger of drowning - she could sit down and others in the class were still in deep water - thus the instructor was responsible for them as well.

We discussed should she be diving at all.

We discussed where was her buddy if she needed help.

We discussed deferring to the instructor "or leader" because of the reasons you discussed.

Finally, we discussed the fact that we gave her the assistance that she requested rather that just assuming what she needed.

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My point was that it was a positive learning opportunity.

 

[SubMariner]

My point was that it was a positive learning opportunity.

Agreed!