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> Your recommendation to this Joe person should have been to tell him to
call quality assurance at PADI/NAUI.......... whomever. They can deal with
it. They are supposed to deal with it.
> I'm not trying to start something with you. I just wanted to let you
know that what you've been saying could use a little temperance. Ken
Dear Ken:
No one is dealing with these student deaths in any serious fashion. So its
up to us, as divers. Or at least I am doing what I can.
If you have read my posts, then you have read about divers that have died on
"training dives " under the supervision of " an instructor ". I will not
recap, but these deaths must stop. I also included the e-mails from the
relatives of these divers. The people who knew them, the people that loved them.
You seem to think the various Quality Assurance departments deal with all
these deaths and near deaths, they do not. I know for a fact they do not.
The recent near-death at Catalina will probably go unreported also.
Here is a sad tale I have not mentioned before. Meet Jane Doe, brand new
open water student with a very large Visa limit. Beautiful, wealthy, not too
many friends, brand new to diving. Meet the Super Duper Diveshop owner Tom
Slick Doe trying to scramble to make the rent payment due soon. If Jane Doe
will enroll in the Advanced class and buy a complete rig, the rent gets
paid. The week after getting certified Jane Doe is invited on the local
informal night as an enticement to enroll and buy gear, and is paired with
one of the store's instructor's to "keep an eye on her."
Jane Doe drowns and dies in the surf line alone before even getting out
there, while the "instructor" continues on the dive and surfaces much later
only to see the lights of the departing ambulance. The ambulance drivers
took it slow back to the hospital because you don't risk a traffic accident
when you are cabbing a DOA. DOA is DOA.
Jane Doe DOA was know by some and loved by some.
Doubt me ? Jane Doe DOA died at Deer Creek, just north of Malibu, CA a
little over two years ago. Names to remain protected as I found out that all
the parties settled out of court. No Quality Assurance investigation. The
"Instructor" continues on in a glorious path of full blast strokery. I met
this instuctor about a year after the incident and parted company with her
permanently the day after I found out all the facts. It was the same day I
watched her hand out six divemaster C-Cards to some pretty average divers
because she was trying to quickly scrape together some money from the shop
she was working for. Do you see a pattern ? A few of those very average
divemaster went on to become very average instructors handing out more
c-cards to other very average divers. Now do you see the pattern ??
The student deaths have got to stop and I will apologize in advance if I
keep screaming this at the top of my voice and from the top of my soap box.
These deaths are just not sterile names on a form but real people that
others just knew and some loved.
I am just one person stating what's on my mind when it relates to diving or
instruction at any level. That's what this forum is all about. I encourage
others to speak up and say what's on their mind. My own promulgations have
given you a vehicle to make your first post to the list, so I guess it's
working. SPEAK UP EVBERYONE.
No flame war please, my fellow diver. It turns more people off that it does
on. But the bottom line is that this student at Catalina last weekend did
not have to almost die on his first ocean training dive at 34 feet. The
instructor needs to be held accountable, before it happes to someone you or
I know or love.
>p.s. I used to teach at Catalina. I don't remember Farnsworth Banks being
220'.
Since you posted this to the list, perhaps you doubt that some of the best
Farnsworth dive sites are this deep. East South East of the two Farnsworth
pinnacles that everbody dives ( the 55 FSW and the 70 FSW pinnacles with a
ridge connecting them ) are two pinnacles that top out at 65 FSW and 80 FSW.
They are off the regular site and stand alone and distinct. They are hard to
drop a hook on but worth the search pattern and monitoring the electronics
to find them. A good stong current runs through the area. This area is
virgin and prestine and the purple, vermillion, lavender and lilac
hydrocoral are so thick and large and abundant that they make all the water
seem topaz blue. To the north of these gradually sloping pinnacles are
fields of this amazing hydrocoral, interupted by large sand bowls that BIG
bat rays love to play in. Depth are in excess of 150 FSW. The largest one I
have found bottoms out at 220 FSW. The bat rays were the largest I have
every seen. This is one of the best Catalina Island divesites.
Also, there are also a bunch of great OLD anchors around this area. One of
them has been set in concrete and is my mail box post.
LORAN and GPS available by private e-mail.
Kevin
"Don't forget your history,
Know your destiny,
In the abundance of water,
The fool is thirsty."
Robert Nesta Marley
[\]
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
o o
o o
o o
_____ o o
(_/\_) o o o
=( )= oo
Kevin Rottner
Southern California SCUBA
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