As you may or may not be aware and Advanced Open Water class is the second level of certification with PADI, it involves making five dives with an instructor, each of which are specialised around one particular theme. For example there is The Night Adventure Dive, The Underwater Photography Adventure Dive, the Search and Recovery Adventure Dive to name a few. There are two obligatory Adventure Dives.... Deep and Underwater Navigation. The other three are chosen by the students.
For me, the Advanced Open Water is about taking divers and increasing their confidence and ability underwater. It is about creating self awareness and producing divers that take responsibility for their own safety and for their buddy's safety. I believe that we accomplish this by task loading, through practicing good diving techniques, and by talking to our students. For example in the Underwater Photography Adventure Dive we go through all of the motions of being a safe diver... and then we throw a camera into the mix, or for Peak Performance Bouyancy we ask students to control their bouyancy, and then we make them jump through hoops... literally. In order to take photos... search and recover lost items... navigate a square using a compass... or other tasks underwater, it forces the students to practice safe diving AND something else. I believe that it is important to stress this to the divers.
"Your compass work was great, you came back exactly to the same place... but did you notice that you left your buddy way behind?"
"Wow, these photos are fantastic... but did you notice that you lost control of your bouyance and kicked up loads of sand?"
Also, for me anyway, I believe that a good AOW class teaches the student to take responsibility for their diving. It isn't always true that you can trust every instructor or dive guide, as much as we wish that to not be true. This is why at Octopus Diving we have all of our students dive with a computer and have them take the responsibility not run into any decompression time while doing the Deep Adventure Dive. We make them take control of the three minute safety stop and tell us when they have finished completing it. We have them use the computer to make sure they ascend at a proper rate, and to rely less on the instructor or the dive guide.
The Advanced Open Water is also about self rescue and self preservation. Divers need to take control of their assessment of how safe a diving center is, how safe the diving boat is. We do this by stressing the questions that divers should ask when they go somewhere new... these include:
1. Can I look at your compressor?
2. When did you last change the air filter?
3. Is there an O2 kit on the boat? Can I see it?
4. Do you have a way of communicating with the shore if there is a problem on the boat?
5. When was my regulator last serviced?
These questions should not be frowned upon by diving centers if you ask them. So I stress my students to, I mean after all, this is your LIFE and your HEALTH and SAFETY at risk, so don't be afraid.
Chris and I also have a general rule that we tell all of our students, whether it be Open Water, Advanced, Rescue or Divemaster.... "if the boat and the equipment look like #%@! then it probably is."
Unfortunately there are diving centers that try and save a buck or two by not changing the filters in their compressors as often as they should, resulting in hydrocarbons and other contaminants in the air. When we breath this cotnaminated air at increased pressure due to our depth in the water column, we can have serious problems. Chris and I have left jobs because of bad air. We take it very serious. Chris always asks... "how was the air?" and he is religious about changing the filters. It isn't just the guests that breath the air, it is us too, and our instructors.
We had a diver the other day with a small test kit that attached to his low pressure inflator so that he could test the quality of the air he was breathing... (of course we passed with flying colors) but we were impressed with him, he was taking his own safety into HIS hands.
So, if you are an open water student looking to complete your Advanced Open Water, then you should look for some of the things mentioned above when you take your course. If you are an instructor then you should think about mentioning some of those things in your course.
OK OK OK, enough of the serious stuff! I know that the rest of you just want to know ... whats going on down there? Well... lots of diving and lots of fun. Here are photos of our three most recent Advanced Open Water students who did a great job! There is... Kelly, Cyd and Mike.
Here is a photo of Kelly and Cyd underwater that I took during their Underwater Photography Adventure Dive. They were really great students, look at the bouyancy control.
The diving was great and we had loads of fun at the same time. Also, some of you might be excited to know that there were whale sharks spotted on the Dutch side. I didn't see it, and neither did any of our instructors, it was spotted by another diving center. Apparently it was a juvenile... but REALLY BIG!
So fingers crossed we will get some more.
ok. I got work to do! Less typing... more diving!
(this was written by Sally).
No comments:
Post a Comment