[darthmoll]

I am nitrox certified and should have explained what I meant about the 32m part
After telling the students about the convlusions at depth, is it wise to take them that deep, without them having much of an idea how deep they are. Surely all this does is add to their stress loading.
The dive school was Only-Six dive centre based in the Ritz Carlton

Only Six S-7964
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel
Om el Seed, PO Box 72
Sharm El Sheikh, S. Sinai
EGYPT
Phone: (20) 693 620533
Fax: (20) 693 663688
Email Us
Other specialty courses offered by this facility
Instructor programs offered

It seems the club you were with is a PADI Gold Palm IDC, see link for a brief description of what that means.

PADI Gold Palm Instructor Development Centers

 

[darthmoll]

OK let's put the otherside...
But nitrox really is that simple.
If you have the MOD chalked on the tank and you dive a site where the seabed is no deeper it's safer than air.
If you aren't using it to extend your bottom times it's lots safer than air.If you want them you pay for them.
I bet the guide is kicking himself that he missed a sale there.
I admit that I wouldn't enter the water without something to say how deep I am but these people had already agreed to it.
Nitrox doesn't make it more stupid.42m I can see a problem with but 32m is a safe depth. 1.34bar ppO2 isn't much.And look a fool?I hope so. Nitrox needs demystifying and using not treating like the black art from hell.

HTH

I agree with you about your last point, but i feel that your post does very little to help with that, as you seem to saying that the behaviour of this centre is sort of OK.

What you seem to be missing is that these divers, who were customers of this school, had by the sounds of it a very crap introduction to the black art of EANx. They also seem to have paid a lot, and not received, on the face of it, a course that would prepair them properly to use EANX.

Not being given depth gauges or computers is criminal as far as i am concerned, you wouldnt dive without a way of measuring and recording depth, i dont, and wouldnt. Why is OK for students under instruction to do so, i think you would find that PADI would have a very very dim veiw of this little episode.

As a working instructor i get total pissed of with this standard of instruction being delevered to student who know no better. It is time for it to end.

My final point, the cut price, bargin basement aproach to the SCUBA industry does not help this, How many instructors do you know who have been doing it for over ten years, that are over fourty, not too many i guess, most of the divers i train to be Instructors only plan to do it for a few years, no money is the reason.

 

[darthmoll]

Agreed. The tuition is minimal. But making it a 'speciality' affords the training agencies an opportunity to extract more cash from divers. And, from memory, there is the opportunity to go much deeper than 32m on Jackson Reef. Did their 'tuition' cover enough to give them an appreciation of what they were doing and why it could be dangerous?



Definetly not saying it's right, but if it's agreed in advance above water, then the instructor is effectively the depth gauge.



From what I read, I wouldn't agree with this. The Red Sea seems to have some very iffy operators. As an example, four divers lost last year on Elphinstone in an episode that really was criminal; open water divers in strong currents with little or no surface support. Lots of poorly trained divers, quite a few Russians it has to be said, diving deep sites seem to be falling off the perch over there. The more expensive operators seem to be more conscious of safety. The cheaper ones seem to cut a lot of corners.

The tuition may not be a lot, but it should be tought in a proper way. All training should be carried out as per PADI standards, thats the point. You dont seem to understand who gets the money if you think the agencys see it as a way to extract money, your words.

Its not acceptable to allow divers to dive without some way of measuring depth, that would seem to me a first princaple.

It would not suprise me if the Red Sea had a better record than stoney when you consider just how dives per day each venue does.

 

[darthmoll]

Firstly I was a bit sharp because everybody else was going "Oh this is awful" while in reality it was just a bit warm water dive boat.
15-20 minutes is rubbish. Even on a rolling boat.

10 minutes tops.
Including making them work out MOD and EAD.

The rest is just filler to try and make it look like a course you ought to pay money for.
I can see I'm going to have to write Nigel's 10 minute Nitrox course and put it on the web....
...Hang in....
...I did.

Do you mean it takes ten minutes to read it or understand it?

 

[darthmoll]

I did my nitrox course whilst in Sharm the beginning of March. I had the book about 3 months before and had done all the knowledge reviews . I did the exam one evening after getting back to the dive centre. Then the following day I was taken throught the knoewldge reviews and test making sure I understood the questions I had got wrong in the test. i was also asked about the reviews if there was any questions and I had one because I got the right answer bit I wasnt sure why so the instructor went through it with me and explain it until I was happy with my answer and why it was right. Only then was i allowed to actually dive with nitrox and be shown how to analyse it. It made me feel very conifdent that i had learnt what i needed to know

That of course should have been the way it was for the other divers, glad you had a professional instructor, where did you do your course.

 

[darthmoll]

If they went in and sorted out the PIC, yes.

No, it sounds like a breach of standarde from start to end. Its a disgrace that people pay good money for this standard of instruction, if it was as described.