It's a wonder Dive pros don't get bent often.

[pnevai]

Years ago when I was an instructor in training, you could have called me bouncy. I mean as dive professionals we broke every rule we sought to teach at one point or another. But I think in my case it was bounce diving.

Bounce to set the anchor, bounce to check the training area, bounce a couple of times to get all the students situated. Bounce on getting the stragglers back on the boat, bounce a whole bunch of times teaching the emergency ascent technique. Add to all this bouncing about 30 minutes at depth conducting the class and perhaps the UW tour.

Actually now that I think back on it......... Damn!

[Aussie]

Originally Posted by pnevai

Years ago when I was an instructor in training, you could have called me bouncy. I mean as dive professionals we broke every rule we sought to teach at one point or another. But I think in my case it was bounce diving.

Bounce to set the anchor, bounce to check the training area, bounce a couple of times to get all the students situated. Bounce on getting the stragglers back on the boat, bounce a whole bunch of times teaching the emergency ascent technique. Add to all this bouncing about 30 minutes at depth conducting the class and perhaps the UW tour.

Actually now that I think back on it......... Damn!

It still happens today. I was talking about this to my mate who is a full time instructor. I took him on a fun dive the other day. Asked him when was the last time he went passed 12m and for more than 35min? He said about 9 months ago. Told him strange things can happen when you dont bounce and you have a dive which you dont have to worry about students.

It was a whole new diving experience for him. He actually enjoyed a dive.

Aussie

[datamunk]

yea. but with the emergency assent is from pretty shallow and the dives arent typically too long with students ;P

[tbuckalew]

Have a buddy that use to be a hard hat diver in the gulf. We spoke of his diving several times as now he dives only rec on vacation once in a while.

He said he spent alot of time in chambers after his dives....sounds like lots of fun - one of the reasons he stopped that years ago.

[PhantomCat]

Originally Posted by tbuckalew

Have a buddy that use to be a hard hat diver in the gulf. We spoke of his diving several times as now he dives only rec on vacation once in a while.

He said he spent alot of time in chambers after his dives....sounds like lots of fun - one of the reasons he stopped that years ago.

Was that for Surface deompression on 02, or because he got bent?? Or both? I am a commercial diver, there is a bit of bounce diving. Most of the time however it was get to depth do the job and get out. Time decompressing in the chamber was so we could get underway and not have to decompress in the water.

[Dive-aholic]

Originally Posted by datamunk

yea. but with the emergency assent is from pretty shallow and the dives arent typically too long with students ;P

That all depends on the instructor. The dives I do with my students can last anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. Occasionally less due to air consumption. We come close to the maximum limits allowed by standards. And we do CESAs from 25-30'. But then, I'm only in the water with 2-3 students at the most and not everyone does the CESA on the same dive.


Also, in response to the OP, there doesn't have to be that much up and down. I do all of my OW dives from shore. I don't have to drop down to check the training area, because the entire dive is the training area. Skills are performed midwater during the dive. If all instructors would adopt this method, then there would be less bouncing occurring.

[pnevai]

Man U guys had the life, the OW certification outings to open water usually revolved around multiday dive trips with as many as 30 students completeing their OW dives. I'd be in and out of the water ALL DAY LONG and then running the night dives for the AOW students. All the dives were conducted off of a boat. I was averaging 5 training dives each day over a 3 day period.

[woody]

Yeah it was a sad day when I realized that I won't get bent because I'm an instructor and that I'm not super human. Guess that's when I traded in the really stupid stuff for a lot less stupid stuff.

A friend and I worked it out the other day and we will do a minimum of 5 training ascents per student plus additional general diving ascents over the course of the first day of open water.

[Charlotte Smith]

Don't envy the instructors at all..........