Rebreather World - View Single Post - Taking Responsibility for Complacency

OceanOpportunity · 21st March 2008, 20:43

Mark,

all incredibly well said, and points that needed to be made.

I've been diving ccr's since 2002, and while I by no means consider myself an expert, I am continually amazed at the degree of complacency out there, and in many ways feel that it is a product of our industry. In the 'good ole days', people learned to dive much out of necessity, or made such a huge investment to get into it, that there was no option but to stick with it..with that comes a degree of self-education that is incredibly necessary, especially with Rebreather diving.

Today, it's possible to go from an OW diver to an instructor in less than a year if you arewilling to pay for it...THIS IS FLAT OUT WRONG. The fact that similar progressions are enabled within technical diving community are also wrong. I'm not opposed to anyone needing to make a living, but somehow we, as a community, need to ensure a better system of checks and balances along the way to keep those back that need to be kept back.

One of my favorite stories was a charter to the U853 I was divemastering in 1998. This was at the early part of the tech 'boom' so to speak. I had a 'certified technical diver' among my clients all dolled up like a christmas tree with twin 120's, 4 reels, 5 lights, a helmet, 50 lbs of lead, and hoses running upside down and backwards. Needless to say he jumped off the boat into 130' of choppy new england water with no fins on...straight to the bottom, and stragiht back like a cork. Fortunately he was ok...my point is that this person clearly missed somethiong critical along the way, and whoever his instructor was did him no favors...he was complacent in lots of ways, and plain out ignorant to what technical diving was all about.

I know Rebreather's are 'cool' right now, but in reality for how many people are they truly 'necessary'? I know that some very experienced divers have had tragic accidents, and we should be able to learn very much from these incidents. The folks skipping from class to class that still havent learned how to dive, I fear, are where we need to be especially mindful, as their complacency is not necessarily their fault, rather the product of all of us and our lack of being better police as instructors, and out on the water.

21st March 2008, 20:43	#2 (permalink)
OceanOpportunity for a world of water Current Rebreather/s: Other CCR Dolphin Home Build Other Rebreather/s: Not Bought Yet Inspiration Classic Other CCR Dolphin Home Build Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Providence, RI USA Posts: 543	Re: Taking Responsibility for Complacency – A short rant… Mark, all incredibly well said, and points that needed to be made. I've been diving ccr's since 2002, and while I by no means consider myself an expert, I am continually amazed at the degree of complacency out there, and in many ways feel that it is a product of our industry. In the 'good ole days', people learned to dive much out of necessity, or made such a huge investment to get into it, that there was no option but to stick with it..with that comes a degree of self-education that is incredibly necessary, especially with Rebreather diving. Today, it's possible to go from an OW diver to an instructor in less than a year if you arewilling to pay for it...THIS IS FLAT OUT WRONG. The fact that similar progressions are enabled within technical diving community are also wrong. I'm not opposed to anyone needing to make a living, but somehow we, as a community, need to ensure a better system of checks and balances along the way to keep those back that need to be kept back. One of my favorite stories was a charter to the U853 I was divemastering in 1998. This was at the early part of the tech 'boom' so to speak. I had a 'certified technical diver' among my clients all dolled up like a christmas tree with twin 120's, 4 reels, 5 lights, a helmet, 50 lbs of lead, and hoses running upside down and backwards. Needless to say he jumped off the boat into 130' of choppy new england water with no fins on...straight to the bottom, and stragiht back like a cork. Fortunately he was ok...my point is that this person clearly missed somethiong critical along the way, and whoever his instructor was did him no favors...he was complacent in lots of ways, and plain out ignorant to what technical diving was all about. I know Rebreather's are 'cool' right now, but in reality for how many people are they truly 'necessary'? I know that some very experienced divers have had tragic accidents, and we should be able to learn very much from these incidents. The folks skipping from class to class that still havent learned how to dive, I fear, are where we need to be especially mindful, as their complacency is not necessarily their fault, rather the product of all of us and our lack of being better police as instructors, and out on the water. __________________ Michael Lombardi Oceans of Opportunity www.oceanopportunity.com Elected Director, Society for Human Performance in Extreme Environments MN'07, The Explorers Club Project Manager, Diving a Dream
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