Are Deep Dive and/or Wreck Dive specialties necessary?

[BoltSnap]

If you find the tone difficult to grasp, stop saying "Full stop". It's comes across as confrontational and arrogant.

She should have used "PERIOD" with lots of "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" to be very clear and not offend Americans I guess.

 

[JMarc]

On the other hand if you're going to be diving often in Europe, particularly the Med, you might be surprised at whats considered a normal deep dive...

By regulation(*), you need a CMAS***, a PE60 or a PA60 (those later two are delivered only by French agencies) to go below 40m on air in France. In my experience it is commonly done, but still too niche to be considered as normal. And even with the needed qualifications, operators I'm familiar with are prudent about allowing people they don't know do it, but that can be a local culture. I'm not sure it is the same for operators in other region of the coast with interesting wrecks in that range or lacking interesting sites at shallower depth. Personally that's not the kind of dives I do with an insta-buddy and more in depth planning than usual.

By the way, if you're diving in Northern Europe it's almost a given you won't be guided.

Here you better ask if you want to be guided if you have a certification allowing to dive without a guide (French regulations again, some certifications do not allow to dive without one just like some certifications are limited in depth; the regulations leave some agency to the operator on the way the mapping is done for certifications not mentioned in the text and that is relevant to this thread, you may be imposed a guide and a limit on depth depending your certifications and the familiarity the operator has with you and your certifying agencies; having AOW and a deep specialty may help you to avoid being imposed a guide and a depth limit to 20m. While I'm on the initial subject, when those regulations apply(*), you can't dive solo whatever certification you have.)

(*) The regulations are for dive operators (and cave diving is also not in covered by those texts) so they don't apply if you aren't using an operator. (If you are an operator, then there is the question if you are acting or not in your operator capacity.)

 

[Celt]

I'm an AOW/Nitrox/Solo certified diver with 45 years experience, 745 dives to date. I've dived in the cold dark waters of the Atlantic off my own boat, and to depths of 140 feet , and run reels during penetrations in low visibility wrecks. I carry a 2nd bottle as a redundant gas supply and routinely deploy my dsmb from depth at the end of drift dives. On my recent liveaboard in Australia I had to "try out" to prove my skills were adequate enough to solo dive. They had me go through a battery of skills tests, and ultimately gave me the ok. Towards the end of the trip the dive leader told me that many divers try out for the solo diving, often bringing tons of tech gear and they don't make the cut. I was actually one of the few over the past few years that they gave the green light to. I'm not bragging, (although the validation was nice), I'm just making the point that I'm an experienced diver.

I'd think that my credentials are sufficient for any diving within recreational limits but recently I have run into a few dive operators who question the fact that I do not have Deep Dive and Wreck Dive certifications. It has not yet prevented me from doing any dive in particular but it seems to be a trend lately. Those 2 dive operators were in Australia and Thailand.

As I am now retired and living in Europe I'm expanding into other areas on the other side of the world and I'm wondering if this is going to be an issue.

Not really looking to spend the time and the money on two specialties that are not going to teach me anything I don't already know, just to be certain I won't be prohibited from diving a deep wreck because of an overly restrictive dive operator.

In your experience, have you run into this issue, does it seem to be happening more often, and if so, where and with which dive operator? Did it prompt you to get one or both of those specialties?

It’s not more training you need but more independence. Try working around these people who say you can’t do this or that. I wouldn’t waste a second on someone who would say this is my boat and it’s my rules full stop. There on a power trip.

 

[paddydiver]

By regulation(*), you need a CMAS***, a PE60 or a PA60 (those later two are delivered only by French agencies) to go below 40m on air in France. In my experience it is commonly done, but still too niche to be considered as normal. And even with the needed qualifications, operators I'm familiar with are prudent about allowing people they don't know do it, but that can be a local culture. I'm not sure it is the same for operators in other region of the coast with interesting wrecks in that range or lacking interesting sites at shallower depth. Personally that's not the kind of dives I do with an insta-buddy and more in depth planning than usual.



Here you better ask if you want to be guided if you have a certification allowing to dive without a guide (French regulations again, some certifications do not allow to dive without one just like some certifications are limited in depth; the regulations leave some agency to the operator on the way the mapping is done for certifications not mentioned in the text and that is relevant to this thread, you may be imposed a guide and a limit on depth depending your certifications and the familiarity the operator has with you and your certifying agencies; having AOW and a deep specialty may help you to avoid being imposed a guide and a depth limit to 20m. While I'm on the initial subject, when those regulations apply(*), you can't dive solo whatever certification you have.)

(*) The regulations are for dive operators (and cave diving is also not in covered by those texts) so they don't apply if you aren't using an operator. (If you are an operator, then there is the question if you are acting or not in your operator capacity.)

Yeah, I know France is a bit special in terms of regulations. I wasn't really thinking of France in terms of Northern Europe as most diving is done in the French Med, but I realise there are plenty of good dives in the north.

 

[paddydiver]

It’s not more training you need but more independence. Try working around these people who say you can’t do this or that. I wouldn’t waste a second on someone who would say this is my boat and it’s my rules full stop. There on a power trip.

Thats fair enough in some circumstances but if he's talking about going to dive further east at popular holiday diving destinations it most definitely is 'my boat, my rules'. This is not always a power trip for the reasons mentioned already. Most operators are trying to cater for huge numbers of divers of wildly varying skill levels day after day. Not ideal but thats the way it is.

 

[JMarc]

Yeah, I know France is a bit special in terms of regulations. I wasn't really thinking of France in terms of Northern Europe as most diving is done in the French Med, but I realise there are plenty of good dives in the north.

My point (obscured by my ramblings) was that even outside of the North, guided was not the norm. My experience in Spain is the same, buddied and decide my dive with my buddy without a guide after a more or less thorough briefing about the site. (Still ramblings, Spain also has applicable regulations, some of which seems to be regional)

 

[BoltSnap]

Try working around these people who say you can’t do this or that. I wouldn’t waste a second on someone who would say this is my boat and it’s my rules full stop. There on a power trip.

So somebody who is professional and cares about having rules and respecting their own rules is on a "power trip"? Do you want them to run a lossy, gossy dive boat operation and let everyone enjoy themselves as they please? Try that in a commercial airplane, and let us know what jail you end up in, please.

 

[Celt]

Thats fair enough in some circumstances but if he's talking about going to dive further east at popular holiday diving destinations it most definitely is 'my boat, my rules'. This is not always a power trip for the reasons mentioned already. Most operators are trying to cater for huge numbers of divers of wildly varying skill levels day after day. Not ideal but thats the way it is.

He wants to dive solo, he could hire a small boat to use for the dives he wants to make and be independent of someone else’s rules. You could buy a small boat for the cost of 2 weeks diving charter hire and sell it on for half what you paid when you finished with it. There’s always a way around red tape.

 

[Celt]

So somebody who is professional and cares about having rules and respecting their own rules is on a "power trip"? Do you want them to run a lossy, gossy dive boat operation and let everyone enjoy themselves as they please? Try that in a commercial airplane, and let us know what jail you end up in, please.

I wouldn’t deal with someone who would speak to me like that in the first place.

 

[scubadada]

Required on boats in my part of Australia where the entire bottom lies in the in the 30m - 40m range.

What additional certification(s) are required?