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The flawed concept? Wait a minute for that. The three bad
instructional practices:
1) Deep Air
2) Putting bottles with different mixes on different sides as
as aid to identification, instead of marking the
bottles correctly in the first place and doing it right.
This is
in the same category with putting different colored regs on
to identify gases, or any other convoluted scheme.
The correct way? Mark the operating depth on the bottle
the way WKPP does and leave it turned off with the reg
parked on the bottle until ready to use. Unpark the reg,
from the marked bottle you want, put it in your mouth
turn that bottle on. IF YOU CAN BREATH, YOU ARE BREATHING
THE RIGHT GAS.
Any other scheme is dangerously flawed, and I invite anyone
to argue this with me.
3) A new one: using quick releases on harnesses, or useing
convoluted harnesses. The dive harness should be made of
one continuous piece of webbing, with a separate crotch strap.
See the "Doing It Right" video or webb page, which you can
locate from the WKPP web page at wkpp.org.
NOTE: if the harness is not weaved properly, the shoulders
will slip tight when you stand up, causing the gear to be
hard to don or dof. Any instructor should know this,
especially the ones who claim so many years of experience.
A harness failure underwater from using separate pieces of
webbing, plastic pieces, or quick disconnects is a death
sentence.
THE FLAWED CONCEPT:
The concept that there is a solution for every self-inflicted
problem, which is itself a problem , is flawed. For example,
putting in a quick disconnect because you rigged the harness
wrong is not the answer - it creates a bigger problem.
Putting bottles on either side to try to compensate for not
marking them properly, or adding the insanity of special regs
is a complication and convolution that adds risk to the
situation, WHERE THERE PREVIOUSLY WAS NONE.
WHY THE FLAWS?
Several things contibute to flawed logic. The first one that
comes to mind is that we have people teaching diving and
running agencies who do no real diving themselves, and are
only involved as instructors. Another reason is they all want
to be big heroes and reinvent the wheel when they clearly are
not thinking things all the way through. They are at the same
time constantly preoccupied with covering their asses from
previous mistakes, and to cover the fact that they are or
were lacking the knowedge at the time. They hold hands to
try to fight guys like WKPP who have long since learned
better methods, and are willing to bring them to divers while
pointing out where we wre wrong and why and why the changes.
I CHALLENGE THE DIVE INDUSTRY TO MEET THAT STATNDARD
They are trying to teach people to do things they should not
be doing, rushing people inbto more an more courses. Tech
diving means doinog it right in any situation , including
instruction.
AN EXAMPLE
An incident comes to mind in Ft Lauderdale where an instructor
tried to take an overweight novice on a deep wreck dive, only to have
the person panic , loose a fin, drop the reg from its mouth, and go
appaplectic and refuse donated air. The student had to be cut from its
gear and taken to the hospital. The solution: put quick diconnects on
the studnets's gear - this is what we have out there. Here is the best
part - the "student" is an INSTRUCTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The ultimate flaw comes with the instruction of DEEP AIR. The new
line of reasoning from instructors is that deep air gives the student an
appreciation of gas. My son is getting his drivers license. Do you dive
isntructors , and deep air advocates, think I should have him drink some
vodka and go for a drive so that he will appreciate driving sober?
Let me tell all of you something: you can all band up and cry
about me all you want, the fact is that IF I WERE NOT RIGHT, YOU WOULD
NOT BE SO WORRIED. Come on out here and take me on, I will not use any
bad words or call you any names, and that, my friends is going to be
YOUR worst nightmare - me on my good behavior, and I will do whatever it
takes to take you out or change you, even do it nicely.
George Irvine
Director, The Woodville Karst Plain Project
Zero Tolerance
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