Diving beyond cert?

[Blackcrusader]

The upcoming dives are “Trust Me Dives”

All dives are trust me dives. I am going to Maldives in November to do shark diving with a buddy.
My dive buddy is a Padi instructor and also TDI ANDP certified.
I am Padi Rescure but BSCA sports diver so we are both trained deco and nitrox divers.

We've done over a few hundred dives together including fast current dives in South Lombok. You want to really trust your buddy on those dives as you can easily be separated and the vis at times can be down to a few meters.

Most dives are just NDL dives but sometimes we might do some unplanned light back gas deco on an AL 80.

I also do vacation dives with divers who just have OW and 10 dives.
I trust they know nothing about gas management or how they would rescue me if I had an issue. Many don't own a DC and if they rent one don't really know how it works they just see the numbers and are told not to exceed NDL.
Mostly these dives don't exceed 25m depth.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Just to be clear on something many people don't understand....

DAN has a number of policies with different names and different requirements. That is because the policy a diver chooses as to be legal in the state or country in which they have their primary residence.

Yup. I emailed DAN as my coverage is based in Taiwan but I pay through the Australian service.

I asked if any countries were excluded this was the reply

Thank you for your inquiry.

The following countries/regions are not approved for travel assistance benefits at this time: Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Pakistan, and Yemen.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards and safe diving!

Ira Adhisti

CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE

DAN World PO Box 6073

Vermont South, Vic 3163, Australia

 

[steinbil]

All dives are trust me dives.

[...snip...]

You want to really trust your buddy on those dives as you can easily be separated and the vis at times can be down to a few meters.

I think you misunderstand the expression "trust me dive". It's not simply a dive where you trust your buddy. It's not a dive at the edge of your comfort, training and skills that you only would do with a good trustworthy buddy of equal or higher skill/experience.

It's a dive outside of your comfort, skills and experience, that you wouldn't undertake with a buddy of equal skills/experience as yourself. It's a dive that you would only do because you trust someone else to show you how to do the dive, how to resolve problems that may arise and how to get safely home - in a way that you are unable or insufficiently trained to do.

 

[admikar]

And I see a trust me dive as a dive where I know no better than to just blindly follow wherever my dive lead takes me, not knowing the risks or how to mitigate them.
I don't see it as a dive outside of my comfort zone/skills/experience, since I don't even know I'm out of my comfort zone.
If I know of those, either I am responsible for myself or I'm not doing it, so there is no trust involved.

 

[Wheeler925]

Op here. Its a couple months later now. I'm now AOW certified with a handful of 'deep' dives under my belt. One pretty big criticism I have about the PADI OW -> AOW pathway now is that they don't even ATTEMPT to explain why 60 vs 100ft. I was overly concerned about being narced at depth and was also paranoid about other concerns I might not have been aware of. Having done these dives now, I find it a bit laughable that I ever really had a concern - especially knowing the conditions on my first 'deep' dive vs what I had previously been (visibility was the best I've ever experienced at 50'+, vs diving in muck ridden inland lakes with 10' vis)

I just want to say that I really do take what people say on this board seriously, but at the end of the day I have to use my own judgement and risk assessment as well. Unfortunately PADI has me tainted as a money grab at this point. I think they provide VERY valuable training, but its diluted by ********.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Op here. Its a couple months later now. I'm now AOW certified with a handful of 'deep' dives under my belt. One pretty big criticism I have about the PADI OW -> AOW pathway now is that they don't even ATTEMPT to explain why 60 vs 100ft. I was overly concerned about being narced at depth and was also paranoid about other concerns I might not have been aware of. Having done these dives now, I find it a bit laughable that I ever really had a concern - especially knowing the conditions on my first 'deep' dive vs what I had previously been (visibility was the best I've ever experienced at 50'+, vs diving in muck ridden inland lakes with 10' vis)

I just want to say that I really do take what people say on this board seriously, but at the end of the day I have to use my own judgement and risk assessment as well. Unfortunately PADI has me tainted as a money grab at this point. I think they provide VERY valuable training, but its diluted by ********.

Thanks for the update.

Well next course after you do more deep dives should be Nitrox then the TDI ANDP.
You will get some real learning on that one. Forget the PADI deep cert.

 

[MB NZ]

I would view PADI as a stepping stone. On the whole, not a bad place to start, but after that, the world is your lobster.

 

[Wibble]

Kind of like elementary school teaches you the very basics. Junior school the intermediate skills. Secondary/high school teaches you things that you could never have understood in earlier studies.

Open Water and Another Open Water are the very basic skills; elementary school.

ANDP (advanced nitrox and decompression procedures) and basic trimix are intermediate, nowadays rebreather MOD1 too.

Cave diving, CCR MOD2 & MOD3, etc. are the advanced studies.