Diver Training: How much is enough?
- Thread starter DCBC
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From the PADI website: History of PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) - Today' s Largest Scuba Diving Training Organization
Wow. That's a much, much different picture than the one DCBC paints. It sounds as if their goals were and are rather noble. Go read the whole page and see if they are the villainous peeps he makes them out to be. I certainly don't think so and it's why he and I often sharply disagree. What's more. unlike NAUI, the CEO of PADI is an actual diver. Whoa, more than that, he's an actual instructor. NAUI's CEO is not interested in diving. They've built a nice new building with no pool. PADI has an awesome pool. NAUI just had a bunch of rule changes recently and whodathunk: there's a discussion about why the rank and file membership never heard about these rules until they became official. Many of them feel disenfranchised by the process. I can certainly relate to that. It's probably the biggest reason I left them. No, I still haven't embraced PADI and I do see good as well as bad in both organizations. In reality, there is not that much difference in how things are run. They are both businesses out to grow their market share.
BTW, it seems that a few of us are still fighting their dragons: "They felt that the current scuba certification agencies were unprofessional, didn’t use state of the art instruction and made it unnecessarily difficult for people to enter the sport." Kinda funny, actually!
Two Friends, a Bottle of Scotch and an Idea
It’s hard to believe that the world’s largest scuba diving training organization was dreamt up by two friends in Illinois over a bottle of Johnny Walker in 1966.
John Cronin, a scuba equipment salesman for U.S. Divers, and Ralph Erickson, an educator and swimming instructor, were concerned about the scuba diving industry. They felt that the current scuba certification agencies were unprofessional, didn’t use state of the art instruction and made it unnecessarily difficult for people to enter the sport. John and Ralph knew there had to be a safer, easy way for people to learn to breathe underwater.
In 1966, John brought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label and thirty dollars to Ralph’s Illinois apartment in Morton Grove. They decided it was time to start a scuba training organization. John insisted that the word “professional” be in the name of the company. Ralph wanted an “association of diving instructors.” After a few scotches, the acronym PADI was born: Professional Association of Diving Instructors.
The Underground Office
The initial start-up meetings took place at several restaurants in Morton Grove and Niles, Illinois. In a few months, Cronin finished a portion of his basement in his home on Main St. in Niles, Illinois to become the headquarters for PADI. He eventually hired his next door neighbor to be a part time secretary. His son, Brian stuffed and sealed envelopes (he now holds the CEO title at PADI today).
The goal: Give more people a chance to enjoy the underwater world by offering relevant, instructionally-valid scuba diving training to create confident scuba divers who dive regularly.
Wow. That's a much, much different picture than the one DCBC paints. It sounds as if their goals were and are rather noble. Go read the whole page and see if they are the villainous peeps he makes them out to be. I certainly don't think so and it's why he and I often sharply disagree. What's more. unlike NAUI, the CEO of PADI is an actual diver. Whoa, more than that, he's an actual instructor. NAUI's CEO is not interested in diving. They've built a nice new building with no pool. PADI has an awesome pool. NAUI just had a bunch of rule changes recently and whodathunk: there's a discussion about why the rank and file membership never heard about these rules until they became official. Many of them feel disenfranchised by the process. I can certainly relate to that. It's probably the biggest reason I left them. No, I still haven't embraced PADI and I do see good as well as bad in both organizations. In reality, there is not that much difference in how things are run. They are both businesses out to grow their market share.
BTW, it seems that a few of us are still fighting their dragons: "They felt that the current scuba certification agencies were unprofessional, didn’t use state of the art instruction and made it unnecessarily difficult for people to enter the sport." Kinda funny, actually!
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OP
So your saying that this is a good thing????
Diving has largely been transfigured by PADI (with their minimal knowledge approach to SCUBA entry). Along with this, has been an enhanced money grab from the so called diving educators, equipment manufacturers and the tourism industry. Before PADI (yes there was SCUBA Diving long before they came into existence), it was much less commercialized. Divers could still purchase equipment, get air fills and not have to deal with poorly trained divers destroying the reefs (that once upon a time were pristine). Much has been lost... If you give PADI the largest share of the 'credit,' also give them the largest share of the 'responsibility.'
When it comes down to greed, you can't stand in the way of progress. This is reflected in the quality of the air we breathe, the diminishing global water supplies, global warming and the large island of plastic floating in the Pacific (which has been estimated to cover between 1/4 million and almost 7 million square miles). For every positive their can be a negative. It's largely a matter of perspective....
---------- Post added January 17th, 2013 at 01:13 PM ----------
It appears that you will believe everything you read. BTW, I've got a bridge that you will be no doubt interested in buying....
No "NAUI Bashing" here... Great job NetDoc; keep-up the stellar job...
Considering the Agency you quoted, suggesting that the World Underwater Federation (CMAS), BSAC, LAC and NAUI "unprofessional" is totally hilarious.... :rofl:
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And we DIR divers get accused of being elitist . . . I can't believe I'm getting sucked into this train wreck again, but I lost it on this post. DCBC, I AM the diver you are railing against -- I had only a very peripheral interest in the sport prior to being certified. I wouldn't have sought out an instructor if it had involved going very far to find one, and I certainly wouldn't have passed a class that involved pushups in my gear, or much in the way of timed swimming or other physical training matters. I wouldn't have spent a thousand dollars on a cert class (which is why I don't try to promote the GUE one). And furthermore, as a beginner diver, I was pretty hopeless -- although most of my "destruction" consisted of kicking up Puget Sound silt. I was easily able to stay off the coral in warm water, as I think most people ought to be at the end of a standard PADI class, if it is taught properly.
I AM the person you don't want diving, the person you deplore PADI for attracting and training. Personally, I am grateful for PADI for attracting and training me.
I am. We're still a rather small industry, but not near as small and exclusive as it was back then.
Actually, I specifically don't believe much of what you have written about PADI's or Cronin's motives. They might have a positive bias, but your ultra negative bias is more akin to a black hole driven by an agenda of hate and bitterness. I understand that like a big ugly pimple on your nose, you just don't see it like everyone else. You've justified it in your mind but everyone else just shakes their heads and snickers.
I haven't bashed NAUI, PADI or any other agency here. I have put things into some perspective. Perhaps you can correct any of the facts that I have presented? To be sure, I see good and bad in all agencies. I choose to affiliate with and teach for two. I have pointed out that NAUI is both a non-profit and a for-profit entity, but you have yet to comment on that as well. Are you only able to see NAUI GOOD and PADI BAD? It's not just black and white, you know.
Is it? If they were teaching like you are now, I can understand why they said it. As it is, all of those agencies have evolved their methodology considerably. You lament this very thing all the time. PADI seems to be the impetus that made teaching Scuba (oh the horrors) modular and more accessible. I don't find fault in that. But then, you would find fault with them if they solved our budget deficit and enabled world peace.
Wayne -- since you brought up the American Cancer Society and the horrors of businesses, a quick Bing search brought up the following about some "not-for-profit charities":
Wayne, it isn't about the form of the entity -- it is about the entity itself that is important.
Now I (and I think all of us) get that you don't like PADI. You don't like what PADi "did" to you 20 (or so) years ago -- you don't like what PADI does now. You don't like how PADI "supervises" its instructors -- you don't like much of anything about the "modern" dive business. I get it.
But, like you, I really was "trained" back in the good old days, in a University system, where we spent 15 weeks learning how to be scuba divers. Heck, my first dive was supervised by a person who is now a "Golden" NAUI Instructor, Spence Campbell (and someone who is still a friend of mine althoug I don't see him much any more). And guess what -- we dove in ways that would make me cry out in shame today.
What did we do?
Well, on my first trip to Hawaii, we were with a local (Seattle) film crew to, guess what, FILM US CATCHING AND RIDING TURTLES!!!! I must admit it was a lot of fun. Oh, and what else did we do -- dive for, break off and keep, black coral -- ruining it forever and for every one coming after us. Hmm, what else did we do. Oh yes -- the dive club dove for abalone and the 60s and 70s divers took so much that, here in Puget Sound, the fishery was almost wiped out.
Standing on reefs? Hell no, we just broke them up.
Is the diving and training today different than it was in 1966? Hell yes -- and thankfully so.
Wayne, thank you for expressing your opinions but they do seem to be the product of more than a little bitterness and sour grapes.
Wayne, it isn't about the form of the entity -- it is about the entity itself that is important.
Now I (and I think all of us) get that you don't like PADI. You don't like what PADi "did" to you 20 (or so) years ago -- you don't like what PADI does now. You don't like how PADI "supervises" its instructors -- you don't like much of anything about the "modern" dive business. I get it.
But, like you, I really was "trained" back in the good old days, in a University system, where we spent 15 weeks learning how to be scuba divers. Heck, my first dive was supervised by a person who is now a "Golden" NAUI Instructor, Spence Campbell (and someone who is still a friend of mine althoug I don't see him much any more). And guess what -- we dove in ways that would make me cry out in shame today.
What did we do?
Well, on my first trip to Hawaii, we were with a local (Seattle) film crew to, guess what, FILM US CATCHING AND RIDING TURTLES!!!! I must admit it was a lot of fun. Oh, and what else did we do -- dive for, break off and keep, black coral -- ruining it forever and for every one coming after us. Hmm, what else did we do. Oh yes -- the dive club dove for abalone and the 60s and 70s divers took so much that, here in Puget Sound, the fishery was almost wiped out.
Standing on reefs? Hell no, we just broke them up.
Is the diving and training today different than it was in 1966? Hell yes -- and thankfully so.
Wayne, thank you for expressing your opinions but they do seem to be the product of more than a little bitterness and sour grapes.
drrich2
Contributor
Minor tangent to this thread. It was pointed out PADI had a major impact on growing the scuba industry in the U.S., but not in a number of European countries, where another agencies (e.g.: CMAS, BSAC) filled this role to some extent. PADI is credited with greater numbers of hobbyist divers and availability of more advanced gear. This raises 2 associated questions:
1.) Is the prevalence of the scuba hobby equal, greater or less in, say, France, Britain, Spain, etc...vs. in the U.S.?
2.) How centered is the dive gear industry on the U.S., in terms of company location & design? I'm not talking about the hands-on manufacturers (e.g.: Apple is a U.S. company with U.S. designing heavily relying on Chinese manufacturing, I believe), but the companies and where the advances are coming from.
In other words, are a lot of dive gear products designed in European countries by European companies, or do they mainly import stuff made via U.S. companies?
Richard.
P.S.: This is relevant to the thread because the benefits of PADI are used to justify the approach of PADI, to a point.
1.) Is the prevalence of the scuba hobby equal, greater or less in, say, France, Britain, Spain, etc...vs. in the U.S.?
2.) How centered is the dive gear industry on the U.S., in terms of company location & design? I'm not talking about the hands-on manufacturers (e.g.: Apple is a U.S. company with U.S. designing heavily relying on Chinese manufacturing, I believe), but the companies and where the advances are coming from.
In other words, are a lot of dive gear products designed in European countries by European companies, or do they mainly import stuff made via U.S. companies?
Richard.
P.S.: This is relevant to the thread because the benefits of PADI are used to justify the approach of PADI, to a point.
Yes, without reservation. Back in the age of diving dinosaurs accident rates were high, gear was crap, some of it made from used bicycle parts and even (and this is a true story) stolen traffic signs (ask Tom about that when you see him) and old Clorox bottles. Diving wasn't only seen as dangerous, it WAS dangerous. Training was unstructured and ranged from cursory to unnecessarily difficult in part because the trainers, although some certainly had good intentions were ignorant to the applicable educational theory and had no support or training given to them about how to teach.
PADI changed all that. They changed the entire paradigm. Training became structured, affordable, accessible, educationally sound and efficient. The bar for entry to the sport was lowered which created the conditions necessary for equipment manufacturers to invest in R&D so gear would become safer, so that diving would become safer. And it did. They created a pass time for millions of people, laid the foundations necessary for tourist oriented diving holidays. It opened up an entire world of "recreational diving" on many levels from casual and low complexity to wreck exploration, to amateur underwater archaeology, to cave diving. In some ways, you can even credit PADI for creating GUE because without PADI JJ, like many of his generation, probably would never have learned how to dive.
So yes. Unequivocally, yes. I am a product of that evolution. Everyone I know in diving circles is a product of that evolution. I don't *blame* them for making it possible for me to become a diver, I thank them.
But that's ok, Wayne. You can go on blaming them, hating them, thinking that they're sinister and out to get everyone and wishing that people like me, my friends and every single person on scubaboard was never trained. But you're the only one who wishes that the days of the dinosaurs would come back. But they won't. AFter having a good safety record over the last 20 years or so, we can't go back to the way it was. People would never accept the kind of dumbing down that would be required to go back to your "good old days".
You remind me of someone I knew once when I was going to university who would passionately argue that if a business made a profit then it was fundamentally destructive. He (obviously) was a communist.... and look how well that worked out.
I've never seen anything to make me think that PADI or anyone in the diving industry, really, is on an "enhanced money grab". An enhanced money grab is what City Bank did, paying 5 billion dollars in bonuses to the same managers who only months before that had vaporized more than $300 billion dollars of money that people--normal people--trusted them with.
That's a money grab. That's greed. That's unacceptable.
You can't seriously be blaming PADI for these things now, can you? Of course you'll deny that this is what you meant to suggest now that I called you on it, but you did mean to suggest that PADI is "just as bad" as all that.
To me it looks like your hatred of PADI knows no depth or bound. It makes me feel for you. It really does, because carrying around that much animosity in you doesn't make PADI seem that bad to anyone else.... All you'll get from this are scars on the inside of your skull.
R..
---------- Post added January 17th, 2013 at 09:28 PM ----------
The guy is right. CMAS is (or was) a major force in Europe. The CMAS system had a very different approach to the PADI system to begin with but they have converged to a great extent now, not in small part due to European legislation that forces all diving agencies to more or less converge on the PADI model.
BSAC is a different beast, I think. They had a major falling out with CMAS at some point in the past and I think BSAC is on it's own path now. As far as I can tell, their system is a hybrid mix of old CMAS concepts, a NAUI type approach to instructor input and PADI modularity. From what I've seen there is no one BSAC. Every club seems to be inventing their own wheel but apparently since wheels are all round they can issue the same card.
As for gear, the major purely European manufacturers at the moment are probably Suunto and Mares. Suunto's record speaks for itself. Mares is a follower, not a leader although being Italian they do occasionally produce something pretty cool looking.... Mares is also better off as a follower because every time they try to shock the market with some innovation the only shock is that they thought people would actually dive with it (think HUB, for example).
Apeks (was British) had the best regulator design at their peak but have now fused with Aqualung and from a European perspective it mostly looks like Aqualung has pole position on gear design and R&D in the mainstream. There are several niche players around the the world with cool stuff and one or two manufacturers who can play in the same league as Aqualung but most companies have been in "monkey see monkey do" mode for a while and are mostly following trends set by the big US players.
R..
Wow! Threads like this seem to just go on and on...
There is no doubt that I am the diver in question and just feel compelled to add my thoughts to it.
I had always been interested in diving ever since I was a kid watching Sea Hunt or Jacques Cousteau specials. As I grew older, life just seemed to get in the way and I had only snorkeled in tropical destinations until last year.
In March of last year I decided that if I was ever going to do this, there was nothing holding me back, just do it already! So on a whim, I went down to the LDS about 20 minutes away and signed up for the PADI course. Course material, PIC card, videos and basic equipment. (mask, fins, snorkel, boots, gear bag) Walked out around 400 lighter in the pocketbook. I had a choice of open water dives in local lake or Ocean in Monterey CA. I knew I wanted to dive in the ocean locally, so I picked the Ocean dives.
Instructions were to complete the entire PADI Open Water Manual at home and do all the knowledge reviews by the first class the following Tuesday night. I read the book a couple of times, completed all the required reviews. I looked up the tide tables for the certification weekend and printed that off and took it all with me to that first class. I had my four classes, Tuesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday tried on the 7mm farmer john rental suits, got a rental BCD and was ready for my Certification dives that very next Saturday and Sunday.
We followed the course objectives verbatim. On our dives, a float had been anchored in about 25fsw and then a bottom line streched out another 15 feet. There was about a 3 ft. surge going that day and we would complete our skills on our knees (oh the horror!) on one side of the ground line while the instructor evaluated you from the other side. Once that dives skills were complete, we would then move on to a guided dive for the duration.
We did two dives Saturday and two on Sunday. BAM! I am now Open Water Certified.
The only trouble I had was the restrictiveness of that darn farmer john! It made it pretty hard to breath and it had been quite evident on the relatively small surface swim we had to do to get to the float. When I went to return all the gear on Monday, my instructor was working in the shop and I had a talk with him about that. So he takes me to the wet suits, has me take the sleeve of a comparable suit I had rented and had me stretch the arm. It hardly stretched at all. Now he directed me to a nice full suit with a 4-way stretch and when I pulled it, I could hardly believe how much it stretched. So after trying a couple of them on, I walk out with a new, last year model, AquaLung 4-way stretch one piece suit, along with gloves and hood...
Prior to actually leaving though I see they are having a diver social back in Monterey in two weeks where lunch is provided on Saturday, two tank rentals and instructors and divemasters there to organize and lead dives. Sounded like a great idea for my first post certification dives and I took full advantage of that but not before coming back to the dive shop and buying a nice back inflate BCD.
At this point, 7 dives in Monterey, I feel confident that I could plan and execute dives here without too much risk in moderate conditions. A friend of mine is certified at the same basic time in Oregon. Some dives in a jetty and some in a lake and she comes down for a visit. We head to Monterey, rent her some equipment and since I am familiar with where we will dive tomorrow at the Breakwater, we head to Point Lobos where I have a reservation for the day after that just to survey the area. I had already studied it on the Internet, printed off many dive site info and overhead pictures of it. We walked up on the bluff and could plainly see the sand channel that cuts the kelp field in half. We will plan a very basic dive. Enter at the boat ramp, surface swim to the middle of the sand channel, set our compass at 30 degrees, descend and follow that heading until our turn and follow a reciprocol path back to the sand channel and then back in.
The next day we plan and execute two dives at the breakwater. The first dive goes perfect and we execute our plan exactly. Our second dive, we entered in on the south side of the beach. There are some old pilings there with I-beam sticking out that could be dangerous. We time the waves and make a perfect entry, but after we are in and have our fins on, lookinmg back to the beach the waves seem pretty tricky and I do not want to have anything happen that could cause either one of us an injury so we decide to modify the plan. We surface swim out about 50 yards or so. We take a compass heading back to the Breakwater side aimed at a 4 on the wall. We are going to descend, follow that heading over to the breakwater wall andonce there, ascend and surface swim back in and exit where we had exited he previous dive. All went perfect.
The next day, we returned to Point Lobos and executed the dive we had planned there. Before we reached our turn, she signaled to me that she was cold. We turned then, followed the reciprocol path and ascended back in the sand channel and sawm back to the boat ramp where we exited without issue. Her core was too cold for any thought of a second dive so we were done.
Common sense prevailed! Imagine that. Two new divers responsible for their own actions. Modified one dive plan because of conditions and aborted one dive because of getting too cold. All in all, very good dives for our first unsupervised dives.
So after that, I started trying to find other dive buddies and I have used SB with much success. I was "lucky" to hook up with some very experienced divers and I take those opportunities to try and be good buddies for them, but to also try and learn and pick up as much as I can from them to improve my own diving.
Now, not quite 10 months removed from my initial certification I have logged 54 dives with the majority in the Monterey/Carmel area. But I have also dove So Cal in the Channel Islands (15) and have some dives in Cozumel (9) as well as Maui (2).
I am addicted. If I am not planning my next dives, I am here reading and learning on SB. I know there is a lot of passion on here in some of these threads from many instructors and also a lot of bitterness too.
I would certainly think that I cannot be unique. I understand that there are many divers who will never do any other diving than vacation diving in tropical locations but that is not me. They may be completely satisfied to follow a DM around on a guided dive and never want to experience more than that. But I want to be a true diver. That is why I take responsibility for myself by research and reading and execution. I figured the best way to become a good diver was to dive and that is what I have been doing.
I always kind of chuckled when I would hear someone say they are AOW certified and they have a dozen dives... Yeah, OK. I never thought I would have as many dives under my belt before taking AOW, but I am not disappointed that I am where I am now with my diving skills.
The course director at my LDS is the one who usually teaches the AOW and I was interviewing him the other day because I want to make sure that I really get something out of the training knowing that many people jump right to AOW after OW. I was asking about what 5 dives he felt would be the course.
Of course deep and navigation, but then it was boat, night and search and recovery. I said I am surprised you don't do Peak Performance buoyancy. His answer. "We work on that on EVERY dive" Perfect answer for me.
At this point, I think I am a very competent new diver. I think one of the most important things that I have learned is that there is so much more to learn!
There is no doubt that I am the diver in question and just feel compelled to add my thoughts to it.
I had always been interested in diving ever since I was a kid watching Sea Hunt or Jacques Cousteau specials. As I grew older, life just seemed to get in the way and I had only snorkeled in tropical destinations until last year.
In March of last year I decided that if I was ever going to do this, there was nothing holding me back, just do it already! So on a whim, I went down to the LDS about 20 minutes away and signed up for the PADI course. Course material, PIC card, videos and basic equipment. (mask, fins, snorkel, boots, gear bag) Walked out around 400 lighter in the pocketbook. I had a choice of open water dives in local lake or Ocean in Monterey CA. I knew I wanted to dive in the ocean locally, so I picked the Ocean dives.
Instructions were to complete the entire PADI Open Water Manual at home and do all the knowledge reviews by the first class the following Tuesday night. I read the book a couple of times, completed all the required reviews. I looked up the tide tables for the certification weekend and printed that off and took it all with me to that first class. I had my four classes, Tuesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday tried on the 7mm farmer john rental suits, got a rental BCD and was ready for my Certification dives that very next Saturday and Sunday.
We followed the course objectives verbatim. On our dives, a float had been anchored in about 25fsw and then a bottom line streched out another 15 feet. There was about a 3 ft. surge going that day and we would complete our skills on our knees (oh the horror!) on one side of the ground line while the instructor evaluated you from the other side. Once that dives skills were complete, we would then move on to a guided dive for the duration.
We did two dives Saturday and two on Sunday. BAM! I am now Open Water Certified.
The only trouble I had was the restrictiveness of that darn farmer john! It made it pretty hard to breath and it had been quite evident on the relatively small surface swim we had to do to get to the float. When I went to return all the gear on Monday, my instructor was working in the shop and I had a talk with him about that. So he takes me to the wet suits, has me take the sleeve of a comparable suit I had rented and had me stretch the arm. It hardly stretched at all. Now he directed me to a nice full suit with a 4-way stretch and when I pulled it, I could hardly believe how much it stretched. So after trying a couple of them on, I walk out with a new, last year model, AquaLung 4-way stretch one piece suit, along with gloves and hood...
Prior to actually leaving though I see they are having a diver social back in Monterey in two weeks where lunch is provided on Saturday, two tank rentals and instructors and divemasters there to organize and lead dives. Sounded like a great idea for my first post certification dives and I took full advantage of that but not before coming back to the dive shop and buying a nice back inflate BCD.
At this point, 7 dives in Monterey, I feel confident that I could plan and execute dives here without too much risk in moderate conditions. A friend of mine is certified at the same basic time in Oregon. Some dives in a jetty and some in a lake and she comes down for a visit. We head to Monterey, rent her some equipment and since I am familiar with where we will dive tomorrow at the Breakwater, we head to Point Lobos where I have a reservation for the day after that just to survey the area. I had already studied it on the Internet, printed off many dive site info and overhead pictures of it. We walked up on the bluff and could plainly see the sand channel that cuts the kelp field in half. We will plan a very basic dive. Enter at the boat ramp, surface swim to the middle of the sand channel, set our compass at 30 degrees, descend and follow that heading until our turn and follow a reciprocol path back to the sand channel and then back in.
The next day we plan and execute two dives at the breakwater. The first dive goes perfect and we execute our plan exactly. Our second dive, we entered in on the south side of the beach. There are some old pilings there with I-beam sticking out that could be dangerous. We time the waves and make a perfect entry, but after we are in and have our fins on, lookinmg back to the beach the waves seem pretty tricky and I do not want to have anything happen that could cause either one of us an injury so we decide to modify the plan. We surface swim out about 50 yards or so. We take a compass heading back to the Breakwater side aimed at a 4 on the wall. We are going to descend, follow that heading over to the breakwater wall andonce there, ascend and surface swim back in and exit where we had exited he previous dive. All went perfect.
The next day, we returned to Point Lobos and executed the dive we had planned there. Before we reached our turn, she signaled to me that she was cold. We turned then, followed the reciprocol path and ascended back in the sand channel and sawm back to the boat ramp where we exited without issue. Her core was too cold for any thought of a second dive so we were done.
Common sense prevailed! Imagine that. Two new divers responsible for their own actions. Modified one dive plan because of conditions and aborted one dive because of getting too cold. All in all, very good dives for our first unsupervised dives.
So after that, I started trying to find other dive buddies and I have used SB with much success. I was "lucky" to hook up with some very experienced divers and I take those opportunities to try and be good buddies for them, but to also try and learn and pick up as much as I can from them to improve my own diving.
Now, not quite 10 months removed from my initial certification I have logged 54 dives with the majority in the Monterey/Carmel area. But I have also dove So Cal in the Channel Islands (15) and have some dives in Cozumel (9) as well as Maui (2).
I am addicted. If I am not planning my next dives, I am here reading and learning on SB. I know there is a lot of passion on here in some of these threads from many instructors and also a lot of bitterness too.
I would certainly think that I cannot be unique. I understand that there are many divers who will never do any other diving than vacation diving in tropical locations but that is not me. They may be completely satisfied to follow a DM around on a guided dive and never want to experience more than that. But I want to be a true diver. That is why I take responsibility for myself by research and reading and execution. I figured the best way to become a good diver was to dive and that is what I have been doing.
I always kind of chuckled when I would hear someone say they are AOW certified and they have a dozen dives... Yeah, OK. I never thought I would have as many dives under my belt before taking AOW, but I am not disappointed that I am where I am now with my diving skills.
The course director at my LDS is the one who usually teaches the AOW and I was interviewing him the other day because I want to make sure that I really get something out of the training knowing that many people jump right to AOW after OW. I was asking about what 5 dives he felt would be the course.
Of course deep and navigation, but then it was boat, night and search and recovery. I said I am surprised you don't do Peak Performance buoyancy. His answer. "We work on that on EVERY dive" Perfect answer for me.
At this point, I think I am a very competent new diver. I think one of the most important things that I have learned is that there is so much more to learn!
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- Reaction score
- 5,414
- # of dives
- 1000 - 2499
Yeah, the train wreck. I was very comfortable snorkelling--free-diving if you will-- before my PADI OW course. But I think I came out OK and don't kick up the silt/sand in N.S. I only have PADI training and experience, but I think it's been OK for me. I won't comment on those who come in off the street for scuba lessons who haven't even snorkelled yet. My uneducated opinion on the demise of pristine reefs over the decades is that pollution, agricultural runoff, coastal development, etc. has a lot more to do with that than "poorly trained" PADI divers.
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