Re: Damn... I may be turning into a DIR Nazi ;-)

I have printed deco runs from V-Planner and using clear packaging tape laminated them to the back of a slate. It goes inside a pocket and is called upon as a backup to the two computers. The tape has always lasted through the dive day.



"Don" <aussie.import2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:009f91a9$0$20311$c3e8da3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
John C. wrote:

I too have seen people gearing up on a dive boat looking like a
recovery waiting to happen. The real problem is that they are taught
these wreck and deep courses by instructors who don't dive up here
on a regular basis. They often bring their students on our boat and
hand them off to us. I have been on trips where the instructor never
got into the water. He briefed his students, helped them gear up and
like a new mother sent the kids off to school on their own. I have
seen students freak out at the jump and not spend 10 minutes in the
water let alone get down to the wreck but the instructor pats them
on the back and signs the book. "You will do better next time. Don't
sweat it. Every one goes through it." What your students needed was
an instructor who actually looked at his students and knew the
difference in set-up and how it would effect access to the gear.
Maybe if he dove more he would have a solid opinion of how to gear
up.

That's the crazy bit, actually. I regularly see him on the
deeper dives that I'm doing and I see him on occasion with
a re-breather. (And I've opened a whole 'nother can of worms
with that one, I suspect ;-)) Mostly, from observation, he
personally seems to know what he's on about. And generally
his students seem to have more of a clue. Maybe he was having
an "off-week". And before anyone else says it, at the pointy
end you really can't afford an "off-week", can you?

And to end the speculation, AFAIK he was teaching a DSAT
course.

Re the re-breather, I've always had the opinion, based on
limited actual knowledge, that if you are using a re-breather
you need to be incredibly picky about all of the details, or
you're a *dead* re-breather diver. So, once again the question is
raised, if he's that picky about his own diving, why is he
letting students get away with that level of sloppiness? The
only reasonable answer is *money*.

I've trained with a TDI instructor, but given that there's a
fair degree of flexibility in the TDI program, a lot more
depends on the individual instructor. And my instructor has
been diving deep for well over 10 years. He thinks a lot about
what he is doing, how he is doing it, how he can do things better
and better yet, can communicate to students not just what to
do, but why.

If anyone had turned up with the half-arsed kit that these
guys had, he'd have taken them aside and quietly told them that
they weren't ready for the dive that was planned. And that would
have been the end of it. I don't mind admitting that some of
my first course dives were "less than perfect"[1], but by the
end of the course it was a case of "meet the standard" or you
do not pass. Even if it meant extra dives, there was a standard
and it wasn't going to change.

Teach his philosophy and the let the diver modify it to his/her
preference after the course as they developed their own style of
diving.


There is some room for variations in style, provided the critical
safety aspects of the setup remain fairly constant. (No, actually
remove the "fairly" in the last sentence. I want the safety stuff,
like how the primary and secondary regs are organised and where the
sling cylinders are attached, and cylinder marking to be constant
and consistent with the people I dive with. It's one less thing
to have to worry about if(when) something goes pear-shaped.)

By the way, thanks for all of the replies and contributions to this
discussion. It's giving me another chance to evaluate the decisions
that I make regarding how I set things up.

And, on another note, one of the things that I've found useful
is to produce my run-time sheets in colour from a spreadsheet --
with colour codes for gas switches, etc. And typically large type
for the important numbers so they're easy to read. This produces
a *** that is about 1/2 of a letter or A-4 size *** of paper.
Then I get the printout laminated in plastic with a wide edge of
plastic all around, punch a hole through just the plastic in one
corner, run a thin nylon line through it and clip it in my thigh
pocket with a double-ender. It is a lot easier to read than a
series of numbers either in wet-notes or on a slate. Anyone else
doing something similar?

-Don



[1] demonstrating a gift for understatement, "less than perfect"
should probably be translated "bloody awful" :-)

[previous stuff snipped]

.