How long do your members stay Ocean Divers?

[David G]

Hello All,

The subject asks it all!

Do your newly qualified Ocean Divers do some "fun" diving or are they "pushed" into Sports Diver Training straight away?

I look forward to your replies.

Dave

[tony dwyer]

Not long at all, nearly all new joiners achieve Sports Diver within their first diving season. Quite a few ignore seaons altogether!

There are of course varying levels of committment and availability of time.

We don't 'push' anyone. We find that new members seem to be pretty well motivated to progress. Some stop at Sports Diver, but we see strong motivation in most to progress to Dive Leader.

Tony Dwyer
Basildon Sub-Aqua Club

[David Walker]

Do your newly qualified Ocean Divers do some "fun" diving or are they "pushed" into Sports Diver Training straight away?

As a Uni club, in the past we haven't generally had a long break between the two, just through trying to get both covered in the year. There have always been trips between the two courses, so the chance to get at least 10-15 fun dives in, and always the chance to go to Stoney too. A lot don't take up those opportunities and want to go straight into Sports Diver, but we're going to stop that from next year (ie the next time we do it) and make sure that they do have some real experience before they start SD. Generally those who are keen and really want to keep diving will want to go on the trips and for fun dives in Stoney (well...).
I definitely think there should be some sort of gap, even if its just an extra 2 or 4 dives (can be done in a couple of days) it'll just let people have a proper dive without worrying about doing skills.

David

[terryh]

Do your newly qualified Ocean Divers do some "fun" diving or are they "pushed" into Sports Diver Training straight away?

Another Uni club and we in effect don't do Ocean Diver going
straight through to Sport.
We have a seamless transition where pool & lectures are run
back to back with the OW element done in two quick bursts.

OD may be a diver grade, but it is considered (by us) to be
under the required minimum (for our dives) of Sport.

The trick is to get all the training out of the way fast so
that the boredom factor doesnt set in. We take our students on
in beginning of Nov and they will be full Sports by March
ready for the Easter start of the Diving (not training)
season.

TerryH

[Nick McV]

We kick on straight into the theory bits, but don't have a rigid schedule of SD training dives, so the trainees get to mix 'experience' dives into their SD training schedule. Mind you, as a coastal club, it's easier for us to accommodate that sort of scheduling.

[Mike Halligan]

Do your newly qualified Ocean Divers do some "fun" diving or are they "pushed" into Sports Diver Training straight away?

Dave,

We encourage OD trainees to become SD trainees as soon as they qualify, just as we do OWD and AOWD joiners. However, during both OD and SD training we also encourage some non-instructional diving in order to consolidate learning and give a break from continuous assessment.

Regards,

Mike

[Matts]

Hello All,

The subject asks it all!

Do your newly qualified Ocean Divers do some "fun" diving or are they "pushed" into Sports Diver Training straight away?

It can be quite a long slog from Try Dive to Ocean Diver so most of our qualifying ODs prefer to have a brief hiatus from continually doing skills. I fully support this as it allows us to pair them with some experienced divers who can teach them some more general dive conduct not covered in the courses. For instance, how not to lose kit, why a buddy check should not take 5 minutes etc etc. It also provides the OD with an opportunity to consolidate the skills they have learnt which makes teaching Sports easier on the instructor.

A small minority are fantastically keen to learn, dive and help the branch and these people tend to qualify as Sports fairly quickly. Because they are involved the instructors get to know them and are more likely to put themselves out to help.

There is a tiny minority who are happy to languish as ODs whilst they and the rest of the branch gain confidence in their skills.

The vast majority of ODs would like to qualify as Sports faster than they do. Generally this is caused by lack of available instructors - on the calm, sunny day, there is no football on, the grass doesn't need cutting and the OD is prepared to do skills.

ODs are not really treated any differently from other grades. We do not push anybody to do skills, and that includes the instructors. If the opportunity arises then we encourage everyone to do skills, and that includes the instructors.

[Bill Bird]

Hello All,

The subject asks it all!

Do your newly qualified Ocean Divers do some "fun" diving or are they "pushed" into Sports Diver Training straight away?

I look forward to your replies.

Dave

Probably longer than we'd like. However, that's down to availability of instructors and the fact that at certain times of the year dive trips get in the way (very inconsiderate). However, we do try to push straight onto the Sport Diver Course after a few week break as we see a progresion to Sprot Diver training as being a natural progression.


Bill