Recalculating Thirds

[TracyN]

I took NAUI cave 1 and my instructor was horrible. It was horrendous training. Of course I didn't know that at the time because he was the greatest instructor in the world. It wasn't until I got out diving when I realized my deficiencies. 15 min of deco is not standard for a cave one class and I think my second dive at Ginnie we got 15 to 20 min of deco because he didn't give us a long enough surface interval. I think it surprised him that we had deco because he quickly swam over to me and checked my computer. Needless to say I didn't take any further classes with him and haven't recommended him to anyone

[kensuf]

AJ, the bottle is a safety bottle in case you screw up because you're learning this stuff and wind up in deco with little/no gas. As a reference, NAUI cave 1 is up to thirds of the least volume in doubles on the team, intro/basic cave is 1/6ths of doubles, and I believe GUE cave 1 is "1/3rd of 2/3rd of your starting gas" (so if you're starting with 3000 psi you can only use 600 psi for penetration? Please correct me if I'm wrong). The intro/basic and GUE model each give the budding cave diver built in safety gas in your doubles, the NAUI model does it by staging a cylinder.

IMHO, speaking as a NAUI cave 1/2 instructor, and a TDI intro instructor, I think that the NAUI gas limits is a lot of penetration gas for n00bs. I'm more of a fan of the "let's get you to intro, then you go dive for a period of time and gain some more experience staying within those limits, come back to finish cave 1, then dive for awhile more, then let's work on full cave/cave 2" model. However, the pre-reqs to sign up for a NAUI cave 1 course are higher than the pre-req's to sign up for intro/basic with just about every agency except GUE.

Tracy, staged decompression is not allowed in Cave 1, period. One of the last things I have my students do before they submerge for each dive is verify their NDL (every computer has a dive planning mode, or they can use tables) and give me a time plan based on their NDL. My students probably hate the fact I have them spend close to 15 minutes in the water before each dive doing their pre-dive drills, but I want them to build the muscle memory to do this safely. Tracy, if you went into deco during your training, your instructor was in violation of standards, period. If you have the log information, please report him to NAUI HQ so we can clean this up, feel free to PM me for contact info (note: I'm going to be away from the computer for the next week, so it may be a bit of time before I get back to him).

Cheers,

Ken "I was not Tracy's instructor who is also named Ken, so let's just clear that up once and for all and put that rumor to rest, thanks Travis"

[PfcAJ]

Oh I get the point of safety bottles. My gripe is that there's just one. What are you gunna do with it, buddy breath? Seems silly to not place one per diver.

[rddvet]

I took NAUI cave 1 and my instructor was horrible. It was horrendous training. Of course I didn't know that at the time because he was the greatest instructor in the world. It wasn't until I got out diving when I realized my deficiencies. 15 min of deco is not standard for a cave one class and I think my second dive at Ginnie we got 15 to 20 min of deco because he didn't give us a long enough surface interval. I think it surprised him that we had deco because he quickly swam over to me and checked my computer. Needless to say I didn't take any further classes with him and haven't recommended him to anyone

Here we go again. The one thing that all of these threads has taught us is that theres's 3 sides to every story.

I will agree that your cave1 instructor is not my first choice or recommendation. I will also agree that decompression is not allowed in NAUI cave 1.

Lastly, I will also agree that the intended point of your post is to say that too often students blindly follow their instructor, and that it's a good one.

Let's call a spade a spade though. Tracy there are several (more than two I can attest) instructors that considered you to be at that time one of their worst or most frustrating students. At what point is student responsibility not a consideration? I can confirm that everyone in my Cave1 class knew deco was not allowed. Had any one of us gone into deco, I guarantee we would have alerted the instuctor and called the dive. You say that your instructor didn't allow for a proper SIT? Maybe he thought he had, but your algoithm was not what he expected, I don't know. I do know that I'm sure your instructor's account would be different than yours, but honestly we'll never know the truth since there's actually three sides to every story.

There's quite a few of us that know of the true early exploits of TracyN, and are really tired of hearing the "my instructor was the worst" comments on multiple forums. Sure you've grown as a diver over the years from what I've heard, but maybe part of that growth should be to quit talking crap about your cave1 instructor. We're tired of hearing it, and I'm sure he would prefer you just file a formal complaint with NAUI if the wrongdoing was really that severe.

Sorry I'm the pain in your a$$, but I'm the only one in the group of us rolling our eyes when we read these posts that doesn't know how to shut his mouth.

[nakatomi]

At what point is student responsibility not a consideration? I can confirm that everyone in my Cave1 class knew deco was not allowed. Had any one of us gone into deco, I guarantee we would have alerted the instuctor and called the dive.

So now students are responsible for ensuring their instructors uphold the training standards? Really?
How is that possible when most of the agencies do not even publish their training standards?

[bamafan]

If Tracy was so bad why did this instructor give her a card. I see how Tracy could be frustrated with her training. I don't know about her early exploits but I am sure we are all better divers after a couple hundred cave dives than we were starting out. She has done what alot of people don't do and that is admit their mistakes and short comings and worked to become a solid diver now. She is now better than most in my opinion and I enjoy diving with her.

[rddvet]

So now students are responsible for ensuring their instructors uphold the training standards? Really?
How is that possible when most of the agencies do not even publish their training standards?

I guess you could read it that way, but that's not exactly how I meant it.

Let's go at it another way then. Is a student not trained in deco procedures not at least partially responsible for making sure that their instruction in other courses not break their personal limits (set forth by their level of training)?

The main point of my post was to hopefully put an end to the repeated "woah is me, I was wronged by my instructor" posts that have come out of her particular experience. There is more to the story

Oliver, on edit, I thought about my comment and yes.......A student should make sure they are informed well enough to know if their instructor is breaking a MAJOR standard. Going into my courses I knew excactly what NAUI required of me. If it wasn't published, I was either told by my instructor or I asked about it. I am the type of person that seeks to be overinformed. Maybe I'm not the norm. I think too often people don't accpept personal responsibility and pass the buck to someone else. When you're talking about being trained in something as dangerous as cave diving, yes you should absolutely know whether you are allowed to do deco or not going into it. I think as a student if you're not trained in deco procedures and go on a training dive and get yourself inadvertantly into deco and you don't inform your instructor and call the dive, well you're an idiot who just did a trust me dive and you shouldn't pass the class. Note that nowhere in my statements did I say her instructor was 100% right in every aspect of her training, including giving her a card.

[rddvet]

If Tracy was so bad why did this instructor give her a card. I see how Tracy could be frustrated with her training. I don't know about her early exploits but I am sure we are all better divers after a couple hundred cave dives than we were starting out. She has done what alot of people don't do and that is admit their mistakes and short comings and worked to become a solid diver now. She is now better than most in my opinion and I enjoy diving with her.

I have agreed with her in PM previously that I'm glad she got her head straight finally. It was never a matter of skills, but a matter of mindset that was going to get her or someone else killed. As stated, you're not privy to the early exploits. I'm very glad she has progressed. Point is, she needs progress past talking crap about her instructor or report him. I am neither personal friend or a particular fan of her instructor. I simply am tired of the comments about him, when those in the know have heard the other side and can see where things are not what they seem. As I said there's 3 sides to every story. I don't think two of the sides in this one are particularly right. I just get sick of hearing the same bs. Report him or shut up. My suspicion is there's a reason he wasn't reported.

[nakatomi]

Let's go at it another way then. Is a student not trained in deco procedures not at least partially responsible for making sure that their instruction in other courses not break their personal limits (set forth by their level of training)?

Just look at the amount of cave divers that use O2 for accelerated decompression and have never received formal AN/DP training.
There are a lot of them around.
And guess during which part of their classes they learned that, informally more or less?
There are many cave instructors that incorporate decompression on O2 and even stages into their curriculum, which may or may not be a violation of standards, depending on the agency.

[TracyN]

For one RDDVET at the time I thought he was the greatest instructor and that everything he was teaching me was the correct way. Like most new students going in, I didn't know what the standards were, what was supposed to be taught, and how those standards were supposed to be taught. I didn't even know what drills were to be expected until we got into the water. I will stand by my opinion and say, yes he was a crappy instructor. There is no getting around that. I will be the first one to admit, and I have in the past, that I shouldn't have gotten a C-card in the beginning. I have accepted that and frankly I'm not ashamed. The only thing I would have changed is going with a different instructor in the first place with better standards. Do you hear me?? I am not ASHAMED of my initial shortcomings and would tell them to the world if they really wanted to know. Because some great buddies and mentors had the guts to point out those flaws I am a better diver today. People can talk it up on the internet all day long being the super internet divers they are. Love or hate him, I have Pete to thank for my real wake up call. He tells it straight up and doesn't hold back. For that I thank him. The deco dive I admit I was extremely task loaded, I monitored my air but I didn't monitor my computer as much because we were in the front of Ginnie for God's sake. Had we gotten a proper surface interval the deco would have never happened. Do you want to hear it to make yourself feel better, to make yourself feel like the super diver, yes I sucked in the beginning. I sucked and that's a point I will not deny. You find me one diver who never sucked in the beginning or struggled. There may be a few out out there but I think it's safe to assume that many of us had bad habits we had to break and were not instant divers. It's starts with crappy OW training.

Do you want to know why I never reported this instructor? At the time I didn't think he was doing anything wrong. The deco thing, I thought, maybe the agency gave some latitude. It wasn't until I got to diving with other instructors that I realized my training was sub par. By the time I realized I could make a report I figured that too much time had elapsed and filing a report would make no difference and plus I moved on. You can go on hating me all you want but frankly I don't care one psi. Dive more and post less!!