Month: January 2010

I have written in the past (in other forums) that student divers need to talk to a perspective instructor. This is especially true when looking for a continuing education instructor to train with. One of the questions that need to be asked is, “what type of diving do you do when you are not teaching, how often and when was the last time you did it?”

For me that is easy: I cave dive. Why? There a number of reasons and these are not in any kind of order. First, to cave dive one must have a skill set unlike any other. There is no room for errors. For instance, in relation to buoyancy or gas monitoring. Touching the bottom can cause a major silt out and total lost of visibility, and if you run low or out of gas a Controlled Emergency Swimming Accent is not in the cards. Second, planning takes on a new diminution from open water. You cannot just plan on going underwater, swimming around and then coming back to the surface. Third, when caving, I am not in-charge, all plans are team driven. Finally, caving has given me many adventures. I have had the opportunity to go into caves that no one else or only of hand full of others have seen. For me the darkness still does beckons me.

Last Dive of the weekend. (Synopsis of a dive)
Recently, I had the privilege of diving with a great team. Two members from Kentucky and my regular buddy here in Virginia. My favorite was our last dive of the trip, Orange Grove to Peacock traverse. Earlier we had swum from Peacock to Challenge sink, via the Peanut line (~2650ft) on less then one third of our back gas (104s). In planning the traverse, we knew that Challenge was our cookie. A cookie is a line marker and in this case, it references the point we had to be at or past once we reached one third of our gas supply. If not we would have to turn the dive and exit the way we came. Poring over the map the night before, we came up with a simple but elegant plan. Since none of my team, except for myself, had done the traverse, we decided to carry a stage bottle (80AL) for extra safety.
We entered at Orange Grove. After our bubble check and a quick S-drill descended breathing our stage bottle. We had decided to use a primary reel that a fellow diver had left connected the previous day and marked it with a cookie. Orange Grove to Challenge is around 1800ft; at 1000ft penetration, we switched from our stage to our back gas. The switch conveniently occurred in a room with plenty of room for all four of us. After sorting out our gear and a quick team check, we continued the dive. We arrived at Challenge with more then enough gas and after about a10 min surface break we continued the dive. The distance from Challenge to Olsen is a little over 1400ft, and then Olsen out is about 1500ft. We stopped at Olsen for a quick break and checks. It was a great dive and besides a cramp on the way out, uneventful. Our average speed was about 50ft per minute and our SAC was right at .5. Hungry, tired and very pleased with ourselves, we exited the water, recovered our equipment and prepared for the long drive home.

As a scuba and a DAN Instructor I am asked by students and fellow instructor: “Why take DAN classes?” They are not dive classes in the classic, get in the water and do skills kind of classes. DAN classes are of a different flavor. They are dry classes.

For the student diver or in DAN terminology/Providers: Your knowledge of dive related medical emergencies will increase exponentially. The classes build your confidence to react to a diving medical emergency, be it a spine puncture from a sea urchin or a decompression illness event. DAN classes teach basic Life support skill (CPR & 1st Aid), how and when to administer oxygen, marine life injury 1st aid, even, how and when to take a blood pressure. These are skill that you never want to have to use, but would it not be nice to know what to do if you needed them? Moreover, with most classes you will learn more about DCI and how to limit your risk. When diving with a commercial operation, one would hope that the crew knows what to do in case of an emergency; this may not always be the case. Armed with the knowledge from these classes you will know if proper care is being administered. Finally, as an active diver you want to surround yourself with dive buddies who can assist you in case of an emergency.
For the Instructor, why would you not want to offer DAN classes to your students? DAN classes offer you a chance to provide classes year round. Keeps your students interested in training and teach them skills that could save a life. DAN classes work well as stand alone classes but I have had better experience in making them value added classes. For a minimum increase in the price add DEMP to your rescue class. Your students will finish class with two certifications and more knowledgeable in how to use oxygen and taking care of hazardous marine life injuries. Add BLS Pro to you Dive Master Program, this will provide them with a BLS review and new skills that could save a life., maybe even yours.
Isn’t your goal as an instructor to train safe and confident divers? DAN classes will help you in those goals.

Let us look at it from two different perspectives: the Dive and the Instructor.
For the diver going beyond open water means continuing their diving education/training. The only true way to learn to dive is to dive. Under the supervision of an instructor, you will learn how to do it properly. You attain new skills and become a more confident diver. How far do you go? As far as you want. Instructors and most divers will say that rescue is a minimum. Open water class gives you the basic skill you need to dive, there is so much more to learn, and many ways to challenge yourself. It is worth the investment.

For the instructor it means promoting continuing education and teaching it so that the students have fun and learn at the same time. Let’s face it, if you are only teaching the open water class; you are good at kneeling on the bottom, demonstrating and evaluating mask clearing. As an instructor, continuing education classes give you a chance to practice your own skills and teach students how to really dive. You may be really good at clearing your mask but when was the last time you swam a search pattern or practiced your rescue breathing?