If you were to redo the scuba industry how would you do it?

[grantctobin]

I'd establish an "open source" or "non profit" training agency, effectively eliminating the giant cut training agencies take from a number of scuba-classes. At least for OW and AOW and local prices, about half of the cost goes to the agency itself, leaving the dive-shop, instructor, and expenses to fight over the scraps.

You do realize GUE is a non profit org right? Or is this just continuing to speak about things you know little about?

 

[SlugLife]

You do realize GUE is a non profit org right? Or is this just continuing to speak about things you know little about?

Do you have to insult everyone over minor issues?

 

[schuylerclark]

But diving is not driving a car. I'm not sharing a public road. There's no traffic laws for diving.
Diving is like using a firearm or rock climbing. Without training it's a high risk sport. Done improperly, it can increase fellow participants risk.

Rock climbing is an interesting comparison, and something I learned as a 16 year old kid. I never once had an official course in climbing. I read books and buddied up to more experienced climbers. Over the years I started ice climbing as well. I at one point taught rock climbing courses and worked as a mountain guide. The only "certifications" I've ever known are at the local indoor climbing gyms, and those are just basic skill checks. You could usually tell someone's skill level in a few minutes of conversation. If you saw someone being unsafe you'd usually just chat with them about it, and maybe you'd get through to them or maybe you wouldn't. But if I didn't agree with their approach to safety, I'd not be climbing with them and that was that.

I'd say that rock climbing has about the same potential for danger as scuba, in that you really need to know what you're doing to consistently prevent accidents. To me, the training and certification focus in scuba seems a bit nanny-state-ish, though I understand the importance for charter boats and tank fills from the LDS, obviously. After OW, I felt very comfortable diving on our own (with my wife/buddy) in a lot of situations - shore, springs, lake, in calm seas - without a guide. I also knew enough not to be headed out to the Oriskany or a serious drift dive on our own. I've got SDI Advanced training scheduled for next month because I want to expand my skills, not because I feel a need to be certified for diving deeper or permission for a swim through. I also realize I'm probably not the average student.

It also seems clear to me that scuba, like many adventure sports, is expensive. The more complex the training and certification is, the more expensive the sport will become, and the fewer youngsters will be able to try it out. I'm not advocating to eliminate certification, but I do think the industry generally makes a bit too much of it.

 

[Cthippo]

Instructors and certifications are not the crux of the scuba industry, I really don't understand why people consider them so important.
Destination dive sites are where the money is, they create the most jobs and create a huge demand, local instructors in the US are not even on the map of the scuba industry as a whole.

I think this is the crux of a lot of discussions that have been going around SB recently.

Local diving, the sport we think of when we talk about SCUBA, is probably dying. It was never huge to begin with, it is too expensive for most people to get into, and in most of North America it is highly seasonal due to weather. People don't want to struggle into heavy gear, schlepp it to the water, and freeze their asses off in cold water. They don't know anybody who dives locally and aren't interested in spending hours on FB looking for a dive buddy. They aren't getting into the hobby, which is hurting LDSs and down the line.

On the other hand, vacation diving in clear, warm, tropical water seems to be doing fine. There are enough people willing to spend the money as part of a vacation (Just put it on the air miles card!) and get an adequate level of training that they can (mostly) go dive a few times once or twice a year in warm clear water without dying.

The canny dive shops are adapting to this by offering partial training, referrals, and organizing tours to those warm, clear waters. They also cater to the few remaining locals and the people who need to go dive more often, but we are not the majority.

Is there an instructor crisis? Yes, if you are trying to make a living teaching local students in cold, dark waters

Is there a diver skills crisis? Yes, if people who have only learned to dive in warm clear water with a legally mandated guide are now trying to dive in cold, dark, current influenced waters.

Is there a LDS crisis? yes, if you are only really selling to local cold water divers, especially in cold climates and think the twice a year on vacation diver is a waste of your time.

Just as the industry is adapting to customer demand, so to do our expectations need to adapt. It's going to get harder to find boats and buddies and in some cases air fills. The next generation of scuba diver is not going to be like us, and isn't going to want to do the things we find valuable. Like it or not, we are the dinosaurs here, and blaming the end times on the mammals will not preserve the species.

 

[Cthippo]

I’m going to try and answer your very poorly written post.
Are you saying that in Montana you can have a private driving instructor also sign you off and issue you a state of Montana drivers license?

In California you take drivers ed in high school, or you go to a driving school, and/or you get a learners permit and your parents or somebody else teaches you how to drive. Then when you turn 16 and you feel you’re ready, you go to DMV (state agency) and take the written test and go for a drive with an examiner. If you pass both of these tests to their standards then you get your license.

I can't speak for Montana, but Washington has now entirely outsourced new driver testing as well. You go to a driving school, do your course and however many hours behind the wheel, and then they send a certificate to the DMV and you get a license. The state cut costs by getting rid of state employed evaluators and pushed that cost onto the student.

 

[Vicko]

If we do consider the perceived lack of new divers (hint, there has never been more new divers than now by any agency metric) how would making training harder and less available help that?

 

[Cthippo]

If we do consider the perceived lack of new divers (hint, there has never been more new divers than now by any agency metric) how would making training harder and less available help that?

I think there is perhaps a need to better recognize that OW doesn't prepare your for all environments. Someone can be an extremely competent diver in warm clear water, but be dangerously lost in cold, low viz, high current environments. There is a dry suit certification, but not a cold water cert, per se. There is a night diver cert, but not a low viz cert. There is a "Tides and currents" course, but I don't know if it give you the experience of "Oh, this is what 4 knots feels like".

If you are someone who was certified in warm clear water, there is not a "How to dive in Puget Sound" class covering these things. Yeah, you can hire an instructor to create a course on local conditions, but that is not a mainstream thing. For that matter, I'm not sure you can even hire an instructor or DM to go with around here. Probably can, I just have never tried.

Anyway, my point is that OW doesn't prepare you for diving everywhere and there is not really a great system to get up to speed on local conditions and whatever local knowledge you might need for a new location.

So, maybe if more shops offered a "local orientation dive" program where you get an hour in the shop talking about local sites, conditions and area specific hazards, and then maybe a dive or two to get used to those conditions, it would help with getting in the water in new places and probably also generate some rental income for the shops.

 

[SlugLife]

There is a night diver cert, but not a low viz cert.

One of the sub-courses of my SSI AOW repeatedly suggested it was teaching you how to dive in limited visibility, not just night. In my opinion, that entire section was about night-diving and none of it was about diving in very silty water.

I can share tips I learned from experience, like go slow, feel ahead, better vis might be available going up a few feet, and beware entanglements. But they didn't teach any of that.

 

[L13]

So, maybe if more shops offered a "local orientation dive" program where you get an hour in the shop talking about local sites, conditions and area specific hazards, and then maybe a dive or two to get used to those conditions, it would help with getting in the water in new places and probably also generate some rental income for the shops.

This sounds like a great idea.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Diving is like using a firearm or rock climbing. Without training it's a high risk sport. Done improperly, it can increase fellow participants risk.

Rock climbing is an interesting comparison. . . . The only "certifications" I've ever known are at the local indoor climbing gyms, and those are just basic skill checks. You could usually tell someone's skill level in a few minutes of conversation. If you saw someone being unsafe you'd usually just chat with them about it, and maybe you'd get through to them or maybe you wouldn't. But if I didn't agree with their approach to safety, I'd not be climbing with them and that was that.

I'd say that rock climbing has about the same potential for danger as scuba, in that you really need to know what you're doing to consistently prevent accidents.

I, too, think rock climbing is an interesting comparison, but I think it's a difficult one to make. There are rock climbing gyms, which have safety measures in place, and then there are mountains on government-owned land where the owner can't be sued. If climbing routinely required something analogous to a boat and dive crew and rental tanks of compressed gas to get you onto the wall, there might be a call for better evidence the climbers know what they're doing. There are so many differences between climbing and scuba that, while it's an interesting comparison, it's a difficult one to make.