Check dive?

"Pete S." <spamPetespam@spamderwentspamelec.spamclara.spamco .spamuk> wrote
in message news:419aa22f.135996093@news.clara.net...
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:22:58 -0000, "Bardo" <me@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Indeed - I'd be surprised if they'd insist on a check dive if you turned
>>up
>>waving an advanced trimix card and a log book thicker than the complete
>>works of Shakespeare...
>>
>>
>
> What's a log book?
>
> Now check BOOK I can understand.
>
> Pete S.

Now there's an idea for a new page design for the logbook - as before with
dive profile , but with a new tear-off section
at the bottom in the form off a cheque, pre-printed as "Put Another Dollar
In - lots of money" .

"David Walker" wrote

>> logs for just the last few years are pretty thick. On the other hand,
>> somebody like me, who never dives anything warmer than a 3mm wetsuit,
>> gearing up for a drysuit dive in the UK might find a checkout dive to be
>> a really good idea.
>
> For someone coming from wetsuit to drysuit diving, i'd want more of a
> lesson than a check dive - obviously it depends on experience of the
> divers involved.

So would I, but you get teh idea.

> I think check dives for Open Water/Ocean Divers in the Red Sea may be a
> good idea too if they haven't dived for a while. But if they made an
> experienced, well-dived Dive Leader / Dive Master sit for half an hour
> doing mask clearing thats when it gets silly.

Agreed. I think that goes way beyond what a check out dive should be. In
my experience, the best resorts do check out dives in ways that keep the
average diver from realizing that's what they are. Chances are, if it's a
first dive with a resort, is relatively easy and there's more than one DM in
the water at a time, it's a check out dive.

> In any case, the drysuit probably won't be a problem for an experienced
> diver, only last weekend I took a PADI instructor who'd never used a
> drysuit before into Stoney and she was completely comfortable with it,
> like she'd been diving drysuits forever!

Wonderful when it happens, but not everybody is a natural at everything. To
be honest, I suspect I'd have to pay quite a bit of attention. Most of my
diving is done with no gas in my buoyancy compensator at all and no thermal
protection. In that configuration, I don't have to deal with changes in
buoyancy as a result of changes in depth. I don't think about controlling
buoyancy, I just do it. When diving in any other configuration, as I was
day before yesterday, I have to pay a bit more attention to buoyancy issues
than those that dive that way all the time, particularly when I'm in an
overhead environment. I never have a problem staying where I want relative
to the bottom, but staying off the rocks or steel above is not quite so
automatic.

Lee

JamesM <james@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I only have come across mention of a check dive when looking into the red
> sea
>
> The dive centre I had enquired with (which I shall not name yet!) makes it
> *obligatory* for all divers and then charges you for the privilege which is
> basically to assess you ability to dive. I have already paid my cert fees
> for that (for courses above OW) and been certified as competant to dive by
> an instructor. Since passing my Open Water my competance has improved over
> the OW standard. I can travel to xxx and dive with my buddy - just the two
> of us, yet the dive centre want me to pay them to prove my competance. If I
> am suppose to demonstrate my ability each time why do I need a cert card and
> log book? I just demonstate my skills each time!
>
> I can understand why they may wish offer a refresher dive for the "dive 1
> time a year on holiday brigade" -but when your last dive was about 6 weeks
> ago this seems a bit much. I did check again with the dive centre about the
> requirement of a check dive - but once again was told it was obligatory.

I feel that you should name the dive centre as the requirement is beyond
reasonable and they should be made aware of that, as should we.

It seem as if it is the dive centre a friend of mine talked to me about.
They tried to demand that he did the *obligatory* check dive which,
since he is a PADI staff instructor with some 1,000s of dives and 100s
within 6 months, you can understand he did not accept. The compromise
was that he demonstrated a few skills and was not charged but he had to
fight to get that.

The usual practice seems to be that the first site is a less challenging
/ easy one with the guides assessing performance, unless you have either
a low number of dives or a big gap from your last dive.

For example if you did an OW corse then nothing for a year I would
require a Scuba Review before letting you dive.

If you had a couple of hundred dives but nothing for a year I would
watch you on your first dive, no extra charge.

>
> I didnt want to complain too much, if this was normal practice which I hadnt
> yet seen. However it does not appear to be the case, and should at least be
> negotiable based on experience.


--
>replace spamblock with my family name to e-mail me

Lee Bell wrote:

> I'm 56. Now I'm saying that I'm an old git.

OI! Not so much of the old!

nigelH 55

"Lee Bell" <leebell@ix.remove.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:qyHmd.1744$Qh3.399@newsread3.news.atl.earthli nk.net...
> I'm going to threaten for years more, too. 8^)
>
> I'm not much for sightseeing or for travel just to be going someplace
> different. I will travel for new dive experiences, but there's really not
a
> lot of incentive for me to travel far. Florida has deep and dark caves,
> plenty of wrecks, plenty of deep and shallow reefs and more fish than I
will
> ever learn to idenify. About the only things we don't have, diving wise,
> are cold water and walls. The Bahamas, the closest of which is about 50
> miles from my home port, have walls. I almost made it to the UK a couple
of
> years ago. I very much wanted to attend the wedding of a good friend who
> lives somewhere outside of London. Unfortunately, work got in the way.

But do the wrecks have brass?

Andy