News
Choosing your Technical Instructor: Explorers & Educators
By: Allison White
As in every aspect of technical diving, choosing the right instructor should involve careful consideration and sound reasoning. Can this person teach me what I need to know? Do I agree with or can I learn from this person’s diving philosophy? What is this person’s teaching experience? How often does this person do the type of diving that I am hoping to learn? These are all very important questions that may take some time and research to satisfactorily answer. Technical students are often tempted to skip this time and research by basing their decision on one unrelated factor: How well known is this instructor?
Notoriety in any given realm of technical diving often stems from accomplishments in exploration. This is especially true of cave diving. Many divers wanting to take a cave or cavern class look for an instructor who is known in the cave diving community as an explorer. This explorer may be someone who dives sumps, surveys and maps virgin caves, sets new records for depth or time, discovers new cave biota, or researches the geology or hydrology of caves. The student is choosing this person to be their instructor based on these accomplishments, or often simply on other divers opinions of this person’s diving skills. However, these are the qualities that divers should consider when choosing a dive buddy, not an instructor.
When choosing an instructor, especially a technical instructor, divers should consider a person’s instructional skills, as well as their diving skills. While it is important that the instructor is an accomplished diver in the type of diving that they are teaching, have a strong passion for diving, and dive regularly, the student needs someone who can effectively teach them to safely achieve a knowledge and passion for technical diving of their own. This may or may not be an explorer.
Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario
I am a technical diver looking for a cave instructor. I am considering the following three instructors. Instructor A is a famous biospeleologist who has been cave diving for 40 years and still travels internationally at least four times every year to conduct cave diving expeditions for research. Instructor B is not as well known in the cave diving community. Instructor B has been teaching cave diving for fifteen years and also teaches a wider variety of technical diving, including wreck and ice diving. In the past five years, this instructor has done 50 cave dives, 45 of which were for instruction. Instructor C is also not as well known and has only been teaching cave diving for five years. This instructor doesn’t teach as many other specialties as Instructor B, but has done over 300 cave dives in the five years which they’ve been teaching, only 100 of which were for instruction.
I could choose any of these instructors and get a certification card
However, more than a card, I want to really learn about cave diving. I want to be as safe and informed as possible. I also want an instructor who can make me excited about cave diving. Instructor A is obviously very passionate about cave diving and has more experience in it than the other two instructors combined. However, I can’t find any information about his activities as an instructor. Other divers have only told me about his accomplishments as an explorer, and his website is focused on his scientific findings, though it does mention that he is a cave diving instructor and accepting students. I finally find a previous student of his and they tell me that while they learned a lot about biospeleology from him, he left most of the diving instruction to his graduate student, who was a divemaster. Despite being a famous scientist with an obvious passion for cave diving, Instructor A does not appear to have any passion for dive instruction.
Instructor B appears to have a great passion for dive instruction. His website is exclusively an exhibition of the various courses for which he offers instruction and is plastered with pictures of him diving with previous students. However, when I ask around the cave diving community, I don’t find anyone who has been cave diving with him for fun. I do find several previous students of his, all of whom assure me that he was a very thorough instructor and very few of whom ever went cave diving again after certification. Instructor B has the opposite problem from Instructor A: while he is very passionate about dive instruction, he has no apparent passion for cave diving itself.
Instructor C appears to be passionate about both cave diving and instruction. Many of the other cave divers I’ve spoken with have been diving with her and have nothing but high praise for her. I’ve also talked with several of her previous students, all of whom are still active cave divers and didn’t hesitate to share the many things that they learned from her. Her website is a balance between the instruction that she offers as well as her personal cave diving experiences, and has plenty of pictures of both. In the same amount of time, she has been cave diving six times more frequently than Instructor B, and two-thirds of her dives have been just for fun. After speaking with her on the phone, I discover that this instructor also shares many of my personal diving philosophies and has even more insights to offer. Even though she is not a famous explorer, Instructor C is clearly the best option among the three instructors for me to gain the knowledge and passion that I need to proceed.
Technical diving is often much more involved and dangerous than sport diving
It is imperative that students gain the information, passion, and experience that they need to become the next generation of safe and active technical divers. To achieve this is the responsibility of both the student and instructor. In order to ensure that you get the most out of your passion for technical diving, you should always be willing to spend the time and effort required to find the right instructor to help you get to where you want to be.
By Allison White TDI Full Cave Diver AAUS Scientific Diver
To find out more about International Training, visit www.tdisdi.com.
Blogs
TRAVEL BLOG: Jeff Goodman Dives SOMABAY, Part 2
Day three of my trip to Somabay and we were spending the day on the Lady Christina and diving on the wreck of the Salem Express.
Diving wrecks for me is always one of mixed emotions. The excitement of diving a wreck is more than often tempered by the thought of loss of life when she sank. The Salem Express was a passenger ship and a roll-on/roll-off ferry travelling from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to Safaga, Egypt. Most passengers were of poor class travelling home from their holidays while around 150 people were returning home from their pilgrimage to Mecca.
The ship struck a reef and sank within 20 minutes. Passengers were trapped below deck and the ship was filled with fear and panic.
The wreck area is strewn with personal belongings from the crew and passengers such as a transistor radio and a flat iron for clothes. A diver at sometime has put them in a prominent place to be seen.
Tragically only one life boat was launched while the others went down with the ship. More than 600 men, women and children lost their lives here.
It’s a stark reminder that the sea can be unforgiving and so when we dive on such wrecks we should do so with humble regard.
Returning to the surface, shoals of fish are gathered under our boat and seem to be welcoming us back into the light.
Back at the Breakers I sat in the dining area with a beer and a very good meal while my thoughts still remained with the day’s dive on the Salem Express.
Check in for part 3 tomorrow for Jeff’s last day of diving with Somabay on the off-shore reefs looking for turtles.
Book your next Red Sea dive adventure with SOMABAY! For more information, visit www.somabay.com.
Stay at the Breakers Diving & Surfing Lodge when you visit! For more information, visit www.thebreakers-somabay.com.
Find out more about ORCA Dive Clubs at SOMABAY at www.orca-diveclubs.com/en/soma-bay-en.
Blogs
TRAVEL BLOG: Jeff Goodman Dives SOMABAY, Part 1
For a week at the end of February I was invited to sample the diving with Orca Dive Club based at the Breakers Diving and Surfing Lodge by courtesy of SOMABAY.
Somabay covers an entire peninsula and is home to several resorts as well as residential compounds. Somabay caters for scuba diving as well as many other sports, including windsurfing, golf, sailing, go-carting, horse riding and many other activities.
All the activities are of a world-class standard and any or all of these can be booked directly from The Breakers.
I took Easyjet from Bristol (UK) to Hurghada. Easyjet are not by any means my favourite airline but the flight was cheap and direct (except for the surprise extra £48 I was charged at the gate for my carry-on bag).
I was met at Hurghada airport by a driver and car and taken to the Breakers 28 miles (45Kilomaters) south along the coast. Once at the hotel I was too late for an evening meal and so a basic meal was delivered to my room. That and a beer from the fridge and I was fast asleep.
Early the next morning after breakfast I arrived for my rep meeting at the Orca Dive Center for 8.00am. I was immediately made to feel welcome, and after brief introductions I got some dive gear from the store, had a chat with my dive guide Mohamed and got ready to try the house reef situated at the end of a very long wooded pier where all diving gear and divers are taken out by buggies.
Once at the end of the pier, a helping hand from staff makes sure your gear is set and then it’s a short walk to the very end where you can either climb down a ladder of simply jump in the water next to the reef. The house reef extends both north and south giving a very easy and safe dive with plenty to see. At this time of the year the water temperature was a constant 22 degrees Centigrade and there was little or no current, so there were no issues in swimming back to the pier.
Quite a few divers were in dry or semi-dry suits, but being from the UK and used to the cold I found a 3mm wetsuit with a 3mm neoprene vest quite comfortable. Even after 50 years of diving I still find that first dive of a trip slightly nerving until I am actually underwater and then all becomes relaxed and I ease into auto diving mode. There was plenty to see with many of the Red Sea favourites along the way.
After the dive and a buggy ride back to the hotel for a very good buffet lunch I was back in the water, once again on the house reef for an afternoon dive.
Check in for part 2 tomorrow when Jeff gets on a day boat and dives a few of the off-shore reefs.
Book your next Red Sea dive adventure with SOMABAY! For more information, visit www.somabay.com.
Stay at the Breakers Diving & Surfing Lodge when you visit! For more information, visit www.thebreakers-somabay.com.
Find out more about ORCA Dive Clubs at SOMABAY at www.orca-diveclubs.com/en/soma-bay-en.
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