dive magizines

[john]

i recently bought two dive magazines: Sport Diver and Dive Training. Here are descriptions: Sport Diver: made by PADI, articles are travel ads and there is nothing about the actual sport of diving. Dive Training:#@!^ travel ads! The actuall training articles are completely obvious and basic, one was about donning and releasing weights duh! and another was how to act on the surface. I am only 13 but i agree with you guys about the dumbing down of dive instuction and ignorance of some divers who seem to just be unable to read the d#@$$ textbook. But i think it is not the most of the PADI Instructors indivually who are incompetent but the organization itself. My instructor was a die hard tekkie who has gone on decompression dives past 280 feet. I hope that this is not the exception to the rule or the sport of diving will eventtually be a bunch of divers who are supposed to get certified to go past 60 feet or to use a drysuit. I have been to 100 feet and i havent go training oh no im gonna die, not!
pardon my rant,

John

[SeaRat]

John,

First, I hope what you say is not completely true. Not all instructors behave this way. Second, if you are 13, and are scuba diving without a C-Card, please do get one, and from a competent instructor. Fish around, but get the training.

I was in a similar situation, although I did not get to 100 feet before 13 years old (1958 or so). In Oregon, where I dove, there wasn't much to dive in the rivers that was over 30 feet deep. We formed what became the Salem Junior Aqua Club (Salem, Oregon). It was affiliated with the Salem Aqua Club, which were grown-up scuba divers. We arranged for an LA County Scuba Instructor to come to teach us to dive correctly, since we were already doing it by ourselves. I was certified in 1963, after several years of actual diving experience. No, I don't think you're going to die. But I do think that before you dive again, especially deep (100 feet is deep), you need to get the instruction. My instruction, before I was certified LA County, consisted of reading Jacques Cousteau's The Silent World three times. I was also a member of the YMCA and high school swim teams, so my water skills were very good.

By the way, if your "die hard tekkie" instructor actually did dive beyond 280 feet, he had better of known the exact depth that he dove, and not just said "beyond 280 feet." This is kinda important for decompression calculations. Again, I think it is foolish to dive beyond the no-decompression limits without a lot of backup, including either oxygen decompression with an evacuation plan, or a recompression chamber on-site.

John

[john]

i am certified and my instructor does is a certified decompression/technical diver, i just dont remember exactly who deep he went, and by saying you are supossed to get ceritfied and have deep diver cerification to go past 60-100 feet

[john]

i dont mean all instructers have to be technical divers i just mean they should not have to do things like look in the text the whole class while there teaching and should be comfortable in the water

i got 100% on the open water test, which although that isnt amazing now days i think it means my istructor knows how to teach, but my traing had 10 or so more pool dive than the regular coarse so i got more equipment experience and am very comfartabe in the water,

ill shut up now
john v

[SeaRat]

John,

No need to feel bad about that. I just was not sure where you were coming from concerning your instructor. Sometimes, it isn't the technical expertise of the instructor that makes him or her read from the book, but the inexperience in teaching others. That leads to a lack of confidence which makes the lecture seem artificial. That, and some instructional agencies want instructors to go through the materials word-for-word. Anyway, I'm glad you had a good instructional experience overall. It sounds like you are going to be enjoying diving for a long, long time.

For me, starting in 1959, and continuing to today, diving has been a life-long activity. I watch some of the programs on TV, read some of the recent books, and read the dive magazines, and I wonder why we are stuck with the "adventure" or "danger" title for diving. The feeling of being weightless, of swimming with fish, of breathing, actually breathing, underwater is wonderful, as in full of wonder. It is artificial, and I think the only other place where you can get that feeling would be in space. But in space, an astronaut does not have much to look at. Underwater, there is so much intrigueing, absolutely beautiful life to see that I never grow tired of diving. I have now dived the same place over ten times this year, and every dive in the Clackamas River is different from the last one. I see different things, go to slightly different areas, and have a different experience, over and over, in the same general area. Dive sites constantly change, and that shows the wonder of being there.

John