| Would you want to learn technical diving from an instructor fresh out of the training box? It's one example of the let's get deeper faster school of diving - but, says Bob Elliott, depth and speed aren't everything |
 |
"Can you take us to the M1?" I resist the temptation to suggest that the caller ring a coach company, while considering whether he is serious. Am I talking to an extremely experienced tekkie diver, or is he confusing the M1 and M2 wrecks?
The voice continues: "We've already done the M2, and we've all done 70 or 80 dives. We're doing our Tec Rec course at present and then we want to dive the M1." The receiver makes a funny clicking noise as I hang up. What an attitude: I can afford to do it, I know how to do it, and I want it in black now!
And this attitude seems typical. I recently taught a basic nitrox course to a small group. The greatest experience among them was 40 dives, the least 20. All arrived with twin-sets, wings and multiple regulators. An inspection of their logbooks revealed dives to 50m-plus, and that one had recently suffered a bend on a 30m dive on which his bottom time had been in excess of 50 minutes.
Talk about running before you can walk! Of course, this scenario places the instructor in a moral dilemma. Do you turn them away, knowing that they will be accepted elsewhere, or take them on in the hope that you can temper their ardour with good advice?
I remember the rebreather divers who, on their third dive after training, descended to more than 100m, and the trainee trimix diver with only two seasons' experience on scuba under his belt. Where are these people's brains, and why are they being trained? Anne Robinson would say: "You are the weakest link, goodbye", but they don't simply walk off-stage, they become accident statistics.
Divers are progressing faster than they should, and using the equipment that has become available in recent years to go deeper than they should. The diving press is full of tekkie gear and stories about excursions to very deep wreck sites. Perhaps this glamorises this type of diving. It certainly encourages new divers to try to emulate others' successes.
The gear manufacturers should take some blame. Every marque has several wing-style jackets in its range that new divers are encouraged to buy in preference to a standard BC. Clearly the profit on a wing is greater.
Instructors often set a poor example. I have seen entry-level students being taught in a pool by an instructor wearing wings and a twin-set. This surely indicates to the students that this is what they should be using. Twin-sets and side-mounts are the correct tools for a technical dive over 50m; a basic stab jacket and single cylinder are the right tools for a shallow bimble or pool training.
The result of all of this misinformation and poor example is more accidents and near-misses than ever before. One dive centre told me that it considered 60 dives adequate to engage in technical-diver training using twin-sets and gas mixes. I reckon divers with 60 dives can barely look after themselves under water, let alone get involved in technical diving.
So where is the system failing? In the past it was traditional to serve an apprenticeship in the club environment. Students progressed steadily and were allowed to go deeper only when ready. Prudence and caution were advised by all.
Now they frequently pass from one course to the next without doing much diving in-between. They are rarely refused access to training. So we end up with a diver with heaps of plastic cards but little experience, getting involved in potentially dangerous diving.
There are also problems with the basic training. The agencies will say that there is nothing wrong with their courses, that they are educationally sound.
They are - the problem lies with those who deliver them. Corners are cut to save money, "optional" skills left out because they can be, and courses not delivered in the spirit in which they were intended. The problem even extends to a "we must do this dive today because the next course starts tomorrow" syndrome.
Sometimes courses are delivered by inexperienced instructors. Are 12 months' diving and 100 logged dives sufficient before you start telling others how to cope with such a complex and life-threatening activity as scuba-diving?
Their experience might have been gained in a single season, perhaps only in warm water, or at an inland site. Would you wish to be taught technical diving by an instructor who had just qualified after completing his basic course and three "experience" dives? I have had instructors on my boat who have never dived in the sea before, teaching new divers on an entry-level course.
The training organisations seem to be failing to address these problems, yet if the current trend continues we will see further legislation applied to the diving community. And we already have quite enough problems with wrecks.
|
