Ability - Are you for real?

One of the greatest issues threatening the existence (resilience) of the diving industry today is a diver’s incapacity to accurately assess their own ability and subsequently assess risk. How exactly does this threaten the industry you might ask? In short, diving accidents drive insurance costs up for shops and Instructors to a point where it is becoming unmanageable to sustain our profession. If the industry cannot thrive (or exist for that matter) divers will realize exorbitant increases in price for gas, equipment, training and dive travel or even worse - these resources will just cease to exist. For a long time I have been in the business of dive accident analysis and causality and simply put, diving accidents are the result of a diver's lack of awareness of what bad things can happen when you dive and what a diver needs to do to prevent them. A key problem is that many divers just have not been taught how to discern what kind of risks there are. They may feel prepared to deal with a problem when it occurs, but even well trained divers are sometimes misled into thinking that they are truly prepared to handle even the simplest of problems in the water.

As we advance in life, we learn the limits of our abilities. ~James Anthony Froude

Take for example a diver who has their mask knocked off in the water. In our open water class we were trained to remove and replace a mask at the bottom of a pool, lake or ocean and like all new skills it was practised under the watchful eye and control of the SCUBA Instructor in a very controlled and placid environment. Successful completion of this skill and issuance of a c-card assured us as new divers that we have been both trained and certified to handle problems of this nature should they occur.

The reality of it is that problems such as a lost mask, like any other piece of equipment, does not necessarily occur when a diver is expecting it nor does it occur in the calm and controlled waters as described above. It will occur when we are in a somewhat compromised and uncomfortable situation. It is then that most divers discover whether they are really prepared to handle the flooding or loss of a mask, the loss of a weight belt, the frantic free flow of a regulator, the out of control inflation of a BCD or drysuit, or the mother-of-all evils; the out-of-air situation. Through trial and experience (and sometimes error) we soon begin to question what kind of divers we really are and wonder how we could have ever prepared ourselves for this. Risk: you need to be realistic about your abilities and how you can accurately assess what kind of problems might occur.

I have always professed that what I as an Instructor am responsible for teaching is much different than what the student is responsible for learning. NO, I am not inferring that my role as a teacher precludes me from covering off the important aspects necessary to prepare an individual to dive. What I am saying is that it is impossible for an Instructor to create supervised learning environments for each and every stage of a diver's development. What we are responsible for is ensuring is that they are aware of the risks and how to mitigate them. Take our lost mask scenario; after reviewing that skill with our open water student I would go on to explain the realities of when that kind of problem could occur and how they might continue to develop their skill-sets and learn how to handle those problems. This process begins by ensuring my students understand what experience really means.

What seems to convince divers that they are well prepared to handle the myriad diver problems that could occur is a false sense of experience. It is not uncommon for divers to embellish the number of logged dives they have made and soon believe that they actually made that number of dives. The dive training industry promotes hero badges which rarely truly reflect the level of competency a diver has. Just recently PADI launched a campaign to honour Instructors who have certified in excess of 50, 100, 150 (and so on) divers annually. It motivates the teaching professional to 'pump' out numbers, and compromises the quality of the training offered. How can Instructors teaching in cold water environments possibly keep up with their Caribbean counterparts? By sacrificing standards and cutting corners, that's how. Subsequently this reflects on the quality of diver training - everywhere.

The emerging pattern involves divers (and Instructors) who really are not aware of how much diving experience they actually have. I have heard on more than one occasion young divers saying they 'have 2000 logged dives' and I honestly think they believe it. It is a proclamation heard time and again by industry professionals when they talk with keen and (perhaps overly) ambitious divers. Wow – two thousand dives and this person is only what...twenty-three, twenty-four years old maybe? In reality this individual not only has difficulty understanding what real experience they have, but what kinds of risks are involved in diving. And has this person really made that many dives?

Without actually logging each and every dive, it is difficult to estimate how many dives we have really done. A 24-year-old with 2000 logged dives has made on average, 6.4 dives every single week, since they were 18 years old (see inset above). That is one dive every day of the year, for 6 years straight. That is a lot of diving; very few active Instructors or even commercial divers in the industry are able to get that many dives in.

I recently saw a post on Facebook wherein a diver posted a newly acquired certification card (c-card). The card stated the diver had over 15,001 dives. Now this diver could very well have made these dives. I do not know this diver and I am not challenging his/her integrity but merely trying to illustrate the level of experience and time in the water this person must have completed. The diver appeared to be about 50 years old on their c-card (granted the picture could have been older) and if the age was correct, this individual would have had to completed 484 dives a year, more than 9 dives per week or 1.28 dives every day of their life since they were 19. That is a remarkable amount of diving!

YES diving can be very safe as long as divers understand their limitations, and are realistic about their abilities. A diver has a responsibility to be honest with themselves, with their dive buddies, with their family and friends, and with the diving industry. This includes accurately assessing all the risks of each dive and making a correct decision as to whether the dive is within their capability based on training, skills, experience, equipment and physical and mental fitness.

Divers also need to understand that there are often many issues that they need to be aware of and familiar with that are not very obvious. Oxygen toxicity is a good example of this. Divers who dive beyond 55 meters (180fsw) on air do not realize the high levels of risk they are assuming. At that depth in cold waters, a diver becomes extremely vulnerable to oxygen toxicity due to the high partial pressures of oxygen, cold water, and currents which require a degree of physical exertion.

Narcosis is another often underestimated and misunderstood problem. ‘I am not prone to narcosis and have never felt it!’. This diver believes that he does not suffer any form of narcosis. The reality of it is that if you are diving, and you are breathing nitrogen, oxygen (a gas denser than nitrogen) and producing carbon dioxide, you will suffer a certain degree of cognitive debilitation. The trick is in determining the point at which it prohibits you from diving safely. A person who drops straight to 55 meters (180fsw) on air and comes straight back up might not feel any effects of narcosis - unless something happens. Their cognitive processes to deal with that problem are restricted, but unless the diver knows this, they cannot accurately assess the total risk involved in the dive (which in this case is a lot).

Humility (or rather the lack thereof) has always been, and continues to be the killer of divers. How to mitigate these risks begins with good training from an experienced Instructor who is not willing to compromise on the quality of their Instruction for any reason - which usually means their programs will cost a little more. Look for training that offers more time in the water under the direction of an Instructor, those professionals who offer more dives than the agency's prescribe really do recognize the value of experience. Approach your own personal development progressively, do not rush it. And finally - maintain a realistic perspective about your abilities and ask yourself - “how much experience do I really have?”.