Attitudes Toward DIR Divers

[boulderjohn]

When you know nothing, you don't know how different things are between benign warm, clear, good weather conditions and diving in more challenging waters requiring a lot more self reliance.

Being fluffed up by the OW/AOW instructors "you will be qualified to dive anywhere" gives a false sense of safety.

You can be certified in different conditions, depending upon where you live. When we certify in our area, divers are in very limited visibility using 7mm suits. In some cases, a thermocline will give you an ice cream headache if you go beneath it. Other places require a drysuit.

The course clearly says repeatedly that when you are certified, you are certified under the conditions in which you were trained. It emphasizes getting further training before diving in different conditions. Unless it has changed since I was an instructor, it is on the final exam.

You put quotation marks around "you will be qualified to dive anywhere." Whom or what were you quoting? Or were you just making it up?

 

[Lorenzoid]

Teach the world to dive... within strict constraints.

When you know nothing, you don't know how different things are between benign warm, clear, good weather conditions and diving in more challenging waters requiring a lot more self reliance.

Being fluffed up by the OW/AOW instructors "you will be qualified to dive anywhere" gives a false sense of safety.

I felt quite the opposite immediately after my PADI OW course. I did not feel qualified to dive independently even in the place I had been trained.* Seems to me that the major agencies teach divers at least enough to safely dive the way the vast majority of new divers wish to dive: with a DM in nice waters.

*From prior discussions here, I have gotten the impression PADI makes a bigger effort nowadays to make sure the OW course leaves divers feeling they can plan and execute dives independently.

 

[boulderjohn]

(o) sure replace that with "PADI equipment standards or whatever"

PADI accepts all normal equipment configurations, with obvious exceptions for absurdities. That includes the GUE configuration.

 

[Boarderguy]

*From prior discussions here, I have gotten the impression PADI makes a bigger effort nowadays to make sure the OW course leaves divers feeling they can plan and execute dives independently.

Not my wife. She's a padi casualty of 2022 and we're working together to fix that shortcoming whenever she gets the nerve to dive here in cold water. Our next trip to Hawaii will give us better opportunity to work in a nice environment.

 

[Wibble]

You can be certified in different conditions, depending upon where you live. When we certify in our area, divers are in very limited visibility using 7mm suits. In some cases, a thermocline will give you an ice cream headache if you go beneath it. Other places require a drysuit.

The course clearly says repeatedly that when you are certified, you are certified under the conditions in which you were trained. It emphasizes getting further training before diving in different conditions. Unless it has changed since I was an instructor, it is on the final exam.

You put quotation marks around "you will be qualified to dive anywhere." Whom or what were you quoting? Or were you just making it up?

Alas I wasn't making it up. Was a considerable shock to dive in more challenging conditions.

The instruction in these colder, more challenging climes is quite different to that found (by me) in those benign conditions.

 

[boulderjohn]

GUE lists 28 dive centers, with 5 in the US, and 28 instructors in the US.
Maybe someone has better numbers?

The dive shop I used to use in South Florida was a GUE Instructor Development Center. It had no GUE instructors on staff. It taught OW through SSI, and it taught tech through TDI. If you wanted to go through the GUE instructional training process, they had the phone number of someone who could do it for you.

by creating a culture where those people are reported to the certification agencies by the instructors, and they lose their affiliation with the certifying agency.

How do you create a culture that makes it OK for you to be fired for reporting on your employer? In many cases, the owner is not affiliated with an agency--they hire instructors who are affiliated with an agency. That is especially true in Asia, which is why the majority of instructors expelled by PADI each year live in Asia. The dive shops require their instructors to violate standards, and if something goes wrong, they fire that instructors and hire a new one. The agency has no power over them whatsoever.

*From prior discussions here, I have gotten the impression PADI makes a bigger effort nowadays to make sure the OW course leaves divers feeling they can plan and execute dives independently.

Nothing has changed agency-wise. Training was always designed to make independent divers. Diving under the care of a DM (or whatever) was not even mentioned in the course. If your instructor did not prepare you to plan your own dives, then that was the fault of the instructor.

 

[Cthippo]

I think there is an inherent limitation imposed by where you learn that no amount of training in the same place can overcome. Most people choose to get certified in warm, clear water and even the best training in that environment will not prepare them for cold, dark, low vis diving somewhere else. This is not a fault of the instructor or agency, it is just the conditions of a given area.

On the one hand, a C card will get you in the water most anywhere in the world, but also understand that you may not be qualified for the conditions there.

 

[boulderjohn]

Alas I wasn't making it up. Was a considerable shock to dive in more challenging conditions.

The instruction in these colder, more challenging climes is quite different to that found (by me) in those benign conditions.

We are not communicating.

You said PADI OW instruction says "you will be qualified to dive anywhere." I wrote that PADI teaches that you will need further training to dive in different conditions. In response, you wrote that you found it quite the shock to dive in more challenging climes than you were trained in. Yep. That's why PADI says you need further training to dive in those different conditions.

So you said you were not making up the quote. In that case, please say where you got it.

 

[scubadada]

When I got certified through PADI, we did our check out dives in 52 degree water in the Pacific Ocean in Northern California. The vis was about 2 or 3 meters, there was surge back and forth and we needed stay off the bottom otherwise we would have been picking urchin spines out of our knees. The entry /exit was over a rocky beach so we had to be ultra careful not to slip on slimy rocks getting in and out.
Everyone did their skills as outlined in the manual, no shortcuts. Everybody passed.
When we were done we were able to plan and conduct a dive on our own with another certified diver without being assisted by an instructor or divemaster. We were trained to dive in the conditions we were certified in.
I don’t know how much more you want than that?
Sorry it wasn’t GUE or BSAC or some other super hero agency because where I live we have PADI, SSI, or if you go through Sonoma State University then it’s NAUI.

I was initially certified in 1970 by LA County in Southern California. My training was similar to @Eric Sedletzky and after certification, I was competent to independently dive in that environment. I actively dived for 10 years before moving away from Southern California.

Jump ahead 17 years. I was recertified with my 12 year old son by PADI on Grand Cayman. Again, training was consistent with the prevailing environment. This time, it was boat diving in warm, clear water with very little current. My experience has expanded dramatically since 1997

 

[crofrog]

How do you create a culture that makes it OK for you to be fired for reporting on your employer? In many cases, the owner is not affiliated with an agency--they hire instructors who are affiliated with an agency. That is especially true in Asia, which is why the majority of instructors expelled by PADI each year live in Asia. The dive shops require their instructors to violate standards, and if something goes wrong, they fire that instructors and hire a new one. The agency has no power over them whatsoever.

You create an environment where instructors choose not to work at dive centers that compromise safety. Many of these instructors are teaching at 'Dive Centers,' and if these centers put undue pressure on instructors to engage in unsafe practices, there should be an organizational requirement for instructors to report these unsafe acts. This approach will naturally create tension between unethical dive operators and instructors, as instructors will risk losing their certifications and ability to teach if they are associated with operators that do not prioritize safety. In the long run, this tension can help to drive out unethical practices, leading to a safer and more reliable diving industry.

This creates a feedback loop where dive centers can be decertified if they consistently engage in unsafe practices. Additionally, individual dive operators would be included in safety reporting, which becomes a valuable resource for both organizations and consumers to make informed decisions.