Is certification necessary for shallow water diving?

[CuzzA]

Why should teaching someone to dive with you be so different?

Liability.

Using your automobile example. My father taught me to drive a stick before I was licensed. It was the vehicle I would use for the driving test. But he did it in the big high school parking lot, not on the highway where I would be an unlicensed driver and liability would fall on him.

Back to scuba diving, I have no qualms about allowing a friend to try scuba diving in a pool (parking lot), where the one big rule of don't hold your breath is pretty simple and straightforward. I would not take them to open water (highway) without being certified due to the fact the possibilities of something going wrong increase significantly.

You can mock the liability issue, but the deceased uncertified diver's family you knowingly took to open water against industry standards will blame you, and a court may agree.

 

[Timmyjane]

A certification gives you enough information not to kill yourself. Open water is not meant to make the student an expert. Perhaps at one time it was but not today. The diver is expected to continue their own education with experience and additional certifications. An open water certification is a "license to learn".

 

[rfwoodvt]

Liability.

Using your automobile example. My father taught me to drive a stick before I was licensed. It was the vehicle I would use for the driving test. But he did it in the big high school parking lot, not on the highway where I would be an unlicensed driver and liability would fall on him.

Back to scuba diving, I have no qualms about allowing a friend to try scuba diving in a pool (parking lot), where the one big rule of don't hold your breath is pretty simple and straightforward. I would not take them to open water (highway) without being certified due to the fact the possibilities of something going wrong increase significantly.

You can mock the liability issue, but the deceased uncertified diver's family you knowingly took to open water against industry standards will blame you, and a court may agree.

I am afraid you missed the entire point of my post. And I am most certainly not mocking the liability issue.

I will clarify though. When we act first and foremost, if not exclusively, with liability as our impetus then we are playing a defensive game, and defensive games are always losing games.

 

[BoltSnap]

I live in a country that has many more divers who aren't certified diving than certified divers. At the same time we have one of the highest death/accident/injury rates in the world compared with the general and diving population. The non-certified divers learned from their diving "cousin, uncle, neighbor, etc." and they almost all get hurt and have some sort of physical disability with neurological deficits. I once walked into a gathering place for commercial divers' hangout who were all non-certified and use Scuba for spearfishing. ALL of them had physical issues and practically all of them were limping one way or another. Of course, no one can teach them anything since they "know it all." I couldn't believe the shiit they did while diving and the extent of their ignorance and the "fairy tales" they believed as the "truth."

It is isn't about "certification" but more about "proper training." Have your friend find a good instructor who actually "educates" the students and gives them time and effort to get trained properly and also get certified. And as it was said above, if they can't afford to do the training, they have no business getting into diving for the training is the least expensive part of the process.

 

[Belzelbub]

Do you believe that from a safety stand point, it is necessary to get certified if you plan to stay in the 40 foot range?

Training is necessary. Certainly some dangers are minimized with shallow depths, but not all. Holding breath when ascending could be somewhat ingrained if the new diver has good water skills, so an instructor along to make sure that they aren’t holding their breath is a good idea.

My oldest son was certified at age 14, and the shop allowed me to be in the pool with him to observe. Needless to say I not was super thrilled at the extent of his training. No real work on buoyancy, just kneel on the bottom and clear your mask, remove your primary and grab your octo, take your buddies octo for out of air practice, etc… At that point I knew I was not comfortable with him doing deepish dives.

That sounds a lot like an instructor problem. My daughters both got certified at 10, and the class was very different than your son’s. With my oldest, weather cancelled the dives after the pool sessions, so she joined another class. During their early skills, she was practicing buoyancy with the DM.

During the checkout dives, I got to go along as well. While doing regulator retrieval drills, I got to wondering how effective that skill would be. It’s one thing to take a regulator out of your mouth on your terms, and it’s a completely different scenario to be suddenly without a regulator in your mouth. I got that answer the next day. During the actual dive portion of one of her checkouts, another student knocked her regulator out of her mouth. I was right behind her. Every fiber of my being wanted to rush over and help, but I also wanted to see how she handled it. She did the arm sweep, but was unsuccessful. Reg went into free flow, so stayed just out of reach. She then grabbed her alternate. Zero panic on her part. Her practice on the skills just kicked in. After the dive, she didn’t think it was a big deal. I had my answer to my question.

Now, I will say that she had an excellent instructor.

 

[thbcthomas]

I think my real issue is #1 the lack of quality training. I am not against training and certification. Yet how many dive shops are willing to “give” someone their certification because they paid the money? They are in no way ready to hit the open water and dive to 60-100 foot. #2 My issue is the whole certification is for life. I can get certified in 2002 and never dive until I go on vacation 20 years later? Yes I know I can and should take a refresher course, but there is no requirement. You mean to tell me that I remember anything from a class I took 20 years ago?

 

[thbcthomas]

@BoltSnap If training is the least expensive part of the process, then what is the most expensive part of the process, gear?

 

[Marie13]

Here in the US, you’d possibly have issues getting tanks filled or tank rentals if you don’t have an OW cert. Some shops might not check, but where I am, they want to see that card.

 

[34109411]

I am not here to say it is not necessary to get certified, but I would like to have a discussion and hear other people’s opinions. Do you believe that from a safety stand point, it is necessary to get certified if you plan to stay in the 40 foot range? I know, “No shop will rent or sell you gear!”

My oldest son was certified at age 14, and the shop allowed me to be in the pool with him to observe. Needless to say I not was super thrilled at the extent of his training. No real work on buoyancy, just kneel on the bottom and clear your mask, remove your primary and grab your octo, take your buddies octo for out of air practice, etc… At that point I knew I was not comfortable with him doing deepish dives. I did take him to a pool we had access to, and we worked on his buoyancy, and after a minute his buoyancy was better than mine. Because I was not comfortable with his training, we have stuck to Blue Heron bridge and Lauderdale by the sea. In those very easy dives, he did great. Also the book work was not very through, mostly at home computer stuff. Dive tables were briefly looked over, and as we were looking over them with the instructor, I realized how little I remembered about them after my certification 20 years prior. The instructor did say something along the line of “Just get a computer and you won’t need to know the tables.” This shop is no longer open today. I feel as if I wasted money on his certification.

Part of the reason I ask is because I have friends that have shown interest in diving. I have allowed them to use my back up gear and we swam around in a pool. They did great, no problems at all. One friend and I went to a small private lake and swam around. He asked me, “Why should I spend $1,000 on certification when you have all the gear I need? Plus the computer tells me everything I need to know.”

Sorry for the late night ramblings, I am on some pain medications.

Tell your friend that is asking why he should spend a 1000$ that ignorance will cost him even more. This is a perfect example of a clueless behaviour.

It's doesn't matter if you are 2 feet under or 200.

No offence you might consider changing medication and have a clear mind on the subject. You put yourself, family and friends in danger.

Be safe

 

[CuzzA]

Here in the US, you’d possibly have issues getting tanks filled or tank rentals if you don’t have an OW cert. Some shops might not check, but where I am, they want to see that card.

I think you missed the part about the friend saying, "Why should I spend $1k for certification when I can just use your stuff." Getting fills is moot if they are provided by someone who is certified.