Computers and Decompression Planning

[Deep Blue]

Jason,

I do agree with Colin, in many cases, training is better today than it has been in years past. An example is the weekend class structure. I have taught the 3 week evening classes as well as the weekend classes. I find that I can get much better results in the weekend classes. There are a number of reasons that this is true. Students are more focused, tend not to miss as many classes due to outside committments, and actually spend MORE time in the water as opposed to a more traditional class structure.

The biggest factor in graduating a quality student isn't as much the agency as it is the instructor. You need to find an instructor that has the experience and teaching philosophy that you are comfortable with. I personally will not graduate a student that I would not allow my wife to dive with. Also, just to let you know, I have had students that were not ready at the end of a class, they are allowed to come back and keep working with us until they can successfully complete the class.

As we move forward, the guiding philosophy of Deep Blue will always be "safety first" and then "have fun". A perfect example of our sales philosophy is demonstrated by the number of backplates that we sell. There are lots of different BC's that we could sell, and in 2 years, upgrade to a new one, and in 2 years upgrade to a new one. Once I sell a backplate, my customer has probably the last BC they will ever need. I don't see that as a lost sale, as I truly believe that since they are more comfortable and efficient in the water, they will be diving more and in the end purchase lots of equipment, just not the same thing over and over.

Now, off of my soap box and back to the topic at hand. I think there is a BIG difference between using a computer to PLAN your dive and strapping a computer on your wrist to CONTROL your dive. As you stated, a computer is a tool, and it is critical that you choose the correct tool for the job. The major difference is the midset. In the first situation, you are conciously making decisions before you get into the water. You have the control, depending on the software, you can reshape your profile, change your bottom time, change your depth, change your decompression settings etc. You can do this until you get a profile that is acceptable with regard to exposure as well as risk/reward. In the second situation, you are reacting to what the computer tells you only. The computer is controlling your dive. If you don't have an overhead, this may not be a critical difference, but if you need decompression information to get out of the water safely, it is a critical difference.

I am not saying that there is no appropriate task for a multigas computer, I just can't think of one for the diving that we do up here. Also, per the question earlier regarding whether or not I would sell a mixed gas computer to someone that walked in off of the street, my feeling is that one of the things of value that a dive store vs the internet brings to the table is that we can councel our customers and give them advice on what computer is the most appropriate for them.