The value of PADI

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Trillhouse,
If you want to connect with divers in the Vancouver region go to the western canada subforum here on SB. We are starting to organize some regular group dives. At our last event we had a good mix of new(ish) and more experienced divers and I am sure you can find individuals who would also dive with you.
You can PM me if you want.
Dale.
 
Um.....wow. FYI, I was referring to instructors of the English language, not diving instructors from a particular area of the world.
Ah, Okay then :cool2:
 
AmMC10,
I think you're being a bit harsh. Sometimes with the best will in the world it can be difficult to get in the water. Last year quite a few of the dives I had planned were binned due to adverse weather conditions.

I don't disagree. Till I moved to my current location, I had the same issues. However, I still maintain that it will be very difficult for the OP to become an "Advanced" diver if he/she is only diving eleven times a year.
 
I read the original post, and thought about my skills when I had 20 dives. I know exactly what they were, because my 20th dive was done with the man who was to become my mentor (as a result of a Scubaboard-organized Big Buddy dive here in Seattle). I had my OW cert, and had gone on to do AOW immediately, simply because I was afraid to get in the water with anyone but an instructor. I had then done some dives in Maui, where I had had a lot of fun, but had had horrible problems trying to figure out how to stay in contact with my buddy and with the dive guide at the same time, and didn't do a good job of either.

At 20 dives, I did my descents on my back, fell until I hit something, and rolled over and went diving. I had sketchy buoyancy control and virtually no situational awareness. The only thing I did right was stick to my dive buddy like glue, because I was so worried about getting separated. If someone had suggested that I LEAD a dive at that point, I would have stared at them in complete disbelief.

I don't know the woman in the dive described, so I don't know whether she was way over her head and not smart enough to realize it, or whether she was just a brave woman, trying her wings and stretching her limits and maybe not quite up to the task. But I do know that 20 dives isn't very many, and I personally would never expect good situational awareness from a 20 dive diver. With people that novice, I do what I suspect Bob did with me -- I take it upon myself to be the one who keeps the team together, because I have the skills to do it, and my buddy does not.

I agree with my husband, too -- a companionable debrief after the dive might have been a real good learning experience for this woman,who may not have been aware at all of the fact that she was making her buddy uncomfortable.

It is sad that we turn out divers from OW and AOW classes who are as unskilled as I was, but it is a fact that it happens, which is why I try to do as much mentoring as I can. It's constructive to view novice divers as unskilled because they are novice, rather than being angry with them for not being skilled. With a good attitude, ANYBODY can learn to be a better diver. I know, because I did.
 
When I compare my skills to the guys in the Essentials video, well, I come up lacking. If I were to dive with them, I would do all I could to learn the techniques and emulate their diving. I would probably bore them to tears with questions. But I don't think I would welcome their uninvited opinion expressed after a dive. I know I'm lacking and they know it. There's no need to point it out!

Until I become as competent as the Essentials guys, I think I'll keep my mouth shut about other peoples skills. I'm not qualified to offer an opinion.

But that's the problem with 'insta-buddy' dives. They are almost always less than satisfactory. In fact, of the very few I have done, not one was satisfactory. You would think the law of averages would be more in my favor but here's why it wasn't: I dove with a club and I was the new kid on the boat. If I didn't have a dive buddy and somebody came in from out of town, well, I was their buddy. The long time members had established their diving relationships and that's the way it was. We all knew our place on the boat. I didn't get one of the bunks either. I'm not complaining, read on...

The best way to learn to dive is to buddy up in OW and take all the classes up through Rescue together. Then make 100+ dives all over the world. There's nothing like sleeping on the beach at Pulau Dayang (Malaysia), drinking wine donated by the Australian and New Zealand embassies (they have a competition you know), eating food donated by the American School and making bubbles in warm clear water. When you dive with someone that much, you have no surprises. Life was tough...

Richard
 
You have 30 dives and you "feel" advanced?? That false sense of security could get you in trouble. With all due respect....You may feel advanced but you are not....nor is she. You could have 100 or 200 dives and still not be advanced. It all depends on the various types of conditions you dive in, cold water, low vis, night, strong currents, rough water etc...it could take years to experience all these types of conditions and be confident in each situation.
 
"Advanced" in quotations in light of the fact it has nothing to do with being advanced. I meet the PADI criteria for AOW now after having taken the course and accumulated 30 dives, but in no way feel this makes me an "advanced diver", as the name suggests (and is used within our club). A quote from the PADI website:

Exploration, Excitement, Experiences.
They’re what the PADI Advanced Open Water Course is all about. And no, you don’t have to be “advanced” to take it – it’s designed so you can go straight into it after the PADI Open Water Diver course.
Hmmm. One would think it would be more about "skill, safety, and experience" (singular, implying familiarity with the activity rather than "fun times"). The same webpage drops the link to sign up five times throughout the description of the course (five chances to snag potential customers, I guess), ensuring that it's fun, simple, and certain to have the student dying to purchase additional PADI courses. On top of that, links to resorts which feature a PADI outlet are provided, and the course is now offered online, completely divorced from any interaction with an actual scuba-diving DM during the theory section.

Yikes.

Seems like an organisation designed to educate divers and cultivate safety among the community is becoming... McScuba Course? Maybe it always was like that, I can't say I know much about its history, but I found the book to be frusteratingly condescending. At the end of the day, offering a difficult course with a lot of theory, a lot of information, and stiff requirements for skill completion and gear familiarity under the ocean doesn't earn cash like a quick-fix printing press for certification cards. There's no reason an "advanced" course can't exist, done in conjunction with a lot of underwater skill and familiarity building, but that simply doesn't seem like a selling point. A friend of mine is learning to fly right now, and it's interesting how the process contrasts with scuba. Granted, scuba divers aren't likely to slam into a house if they make a mistake, but there's still a distinct lack of professionalism in the whole PADI setup. I did a bit of reading on DIR and it seems to be much more rigorous on preparing divers for mishaps, errors, and accidents. I have no idea what NAUI is like, or any of the others (whichever there are) but it would be nice to see PADI put more emphasis on method and training, less on profit and turnover times. The fact an AOW can be done while on vacation at a resort over the span of a few days no doubt figures into the architecture of their programs.

Fine for some people I guess, but I'd prefer a more in-depth and methodical approach to what can be a very hazardous, but enjoyable activity.
 
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Thrillhouse:
Fine for some people I guess, but I'd prefer a more in-depth and methodical approach to what can be a very hazardous, but enjoyable activity.

Those courses are out there, but they're fairly hard to find. You might check out Bob's courses. He's not in Vancouver, but he's fairly close.
 
Seems like an organisation designed to educate divers and cultivate safety among the community is becoming... McScuba Course? Maybe it always was like that, I can't say I know much about its history, but I found the book to be frusteratingly condescending. At the end of the day, offering a difficult course with a lot of theory, a lot of information, and stiff requirements for skill completion and gear familiarity under the ocean doesn't earn cash like a quick-fix printing press for certification cards. There's no reason an "advanced" course can't exist, done in conjunction with a lot of underwater skill and familiarity building, but that simply doesn't seem like a selling point. A friend of mine is learning to fly right now, and it's interesting how the process contrasts with scuba. Granted, scuba divers aren't likely to slam into a house if they make a mistake, but there's still a distinct lack of professionalism in the whole PADI setup. I did a bit of reading on DIR and it seems to be much more rigorous on preparing divers for mishaps, errors, and accidents. I have no idea what NAUI is like, or any of the others (whichever there are) but it would be nice to see PADI put more emphasis on method and training, less on profit and turnover times. The fact an AOW can be done while on vacation at a resort over the span of a few days no doubt figures into the architecture of their programs.

Fine for some people I guess, but I'd prefer a more in-depth and methodical approach to what can be a very hazardous, but enjoyable activity.

Given that AOW is just 5 dives and that Deep and Navigation are required as two of them, what do you expect? It's essentially the same with NAUI.

The only thing 'advanced' about AOW is that it is more advanced than OW. At the end of the program, a diver could have just 9 dives. That means exactly nothing!

Richard
 
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