Transitioning From Confined Water To Open Water
By: Jersey Mike
Transitioning From Confined Water To Open Water
Instructor’s Discerning Eye
As a scuba instructor I’ve noticed that with open water students, transitioning from confined water to open water setting to the open water setting is sometimes very stressful for students to demonstrate proficiency of his or her skills in the open water setting. The student is well aware that they are no longer in a pool 7 to 10 feet deep but now are 25 feet deep or more.
Proficiency Depends On Skill
Depending on the skill would determine how an instructor would attempt to see the proficiency of the student. For example, if her or she is stressing about the mask flooding and clearing skill, the instructor would attempt to have the student demonstrate the skill in a shallow area of water before attempting to have the demonstration done in a deeper area for safety reasons in the event the student panics.
Visual References
Also, having skills demonstrated in platforms with visual line decent references eases the transitioning from confined water to open water setting because the student has a visual reference point. Another example would be the regulator recovery and retrieval skill.
Comfort Level Of Student
The student feels comfortable about removing their regulator from their mouth to complete the skill in the confined water setting. But when he or she does this in a quarry the perceptions change and the student no longer in confident with the skill. It is this transition that is crucial. Performing these skills in a shallow area of a quarry, for example, then transitioning to a deeper area would ensure the success of the student in demonstrating master y of the skills.
Accounting For Different Student Personalities
There are some students that are perfectly comfortable transitioning directly from the pool to an open water setting. It is the skill of the scuba instructor to be able to discern this ability and that is where the true skill of the instructor is evident when transitioning from confined water to open water.
To find out more about Transitioning From Confined Water To Open Water, please call 908-379-8220 or fill out the contact form above.
