Ks54 -
It great to chat with a real diver. Behind the scenes, I have read a lot of diving accident reports and sat in on my share of court cases where the courtroom had that "quiet" in it. One factor that was behind every diving accident report I have ever read is this. The concept of "Self-Imposed-Limits" was not trained into the diver. It is in every dive accident I have ever read. People get "words" confused with "things." Because the card says that they "are" an advanced diver they think semantically that they magically "are." The other report I have read a lot is the spouse-diving-scenario. I have watched many different associations teach this and they all drill it in differently, to different degrees. If I may, may I suggest the Japan-CMAS model for this. They have very, very carefully studied diving accidents from the big, major dive certification organizations and have quite a team on researching this. A result is that they really empower their divers to call it off - no pressure. If its your once in a lifetime trip? So what! Every class, every block of instruction, every review, every class module will be interrupted with a Japanese phrase that goes something like, "Karaoke is just as fun!!! You don’t have to dive today!!!" Even in instructor training, we get them all kit’d up, get them standing there, make sure it is hot, and then ... call the whole thing off, lol! And we hold the training on an island that is about 3, 000 miles to get there an costs a couple of grand to get there. You should see how much they drill them to pass this class and these tests. My point is, every pre-dive plan, add it, every drive to the dive site, say it, on every flight to wherever, review it, and as you are kitting up, "How do you really feel?" By the time you say that, you have carved out quite an escape plan for your diving partner who isn’t as strong a diver. Divers have all these redundant systems, but they don’t add that same thought to their dive buddy. The accident reports show this to be one of the weak links in Sport Diving.