Certification-Which One?

[JamesBon92007]

Well said.

Would agree that different operational environments require different skill-sets and knowledge? I presume "Yes" - especially for the obvious ones (overhead environments, deco-depths, ...).

Are the students learning just how minimally qualified they are? Do they "know what they don't know"?

Isn't it this knowledge that keeps them in the operational environment they are (perhaps minimally) qualified for?

I'm not defending the minimums - the question of whether they are "too minimal" is probably best discussed in a different forum.

Previously (somewhere) I stated that I think divers should be trained to be able to dive from the beach under "local" conditions. My experience has been that some certified divers that I came across were only trained to jump off of a boat. Once they became certified they headed to the beach and were in trouble. I'm in South California and we get some surf here and a lot of rip currents. If a diver is certified somewhere inland where there's nothing but a pond to dive in then sure, they should get their certification. But they will probably need some additional training or guidance to get through surf that we locals consider normal. I'm not going to start saying one agency is better than another but I will say that I know NAUI divers who have rescued INSTRUCTORS (who were not NAUI) under conditions where the NAUI divers were having a nice, pleasant dive. I too do not "know what I don't know"as far as rescue goes because I did not take a seperate Rescue Diver class. But they must have covered at least some of it because I do know some things and there are several divers who are probably glad I do. Maybe I got some of it from watching Sea Hunt. For all I know NAUI may offer only minimal training now like the other agencies so it may not really matter any more. But, from my point of view, the level of training I received should be the minimum level of training to qualify a scuba diver. I suppose it would be something like OW, AOW, and Rescue combined. Maybe that's more instruction than I got, maybe not. But I have heard such things as they don't teach buddy-breathing anymore, you just hand your dive buddy an octopus that's been hanging from your tank for years, unused. It will probably work, but what if it doesn't? And many people don't seem to have any idea of how much weight they should be wearing. To me that should be about as basic as how to put on a mask and fins.

When I completed my scuba course I felt I was qualified to go scuba diving. I've read some posts where newly certified divers state they do not feel qualified and it sounds like they are probably right. The general response seems to be that they now need experience and a mentor. I'm thinking they should have gotten more experience while in training, and the instructor should have been the mentor. It looks like they are purposely holding back specific training so they call sell another course. This is beginning to look like negligence to me. I can't really say that I've learned all that much through experience because I think I already had the knowledge that was required before I made my first dive as a newly certified diver.

My fear is that, the way things seem to be going, this self-regulated industry may eventually end up being goverment regulated, and I doubt very many of us want that!

 

[tomfcrist]

The CMAS One Star Program sets this as an Agency Standard. After 16 dives (10 past certification), the Diver may take the Two Star Program that includes 40-50 hours of academic training and 20 dives in various conditions/environments. After this they are good to go to 130'.

This is my point exactly Wayne....If a fully competent qualified diver can dive at 60', why would he need 50 hours of classroom training, and 20 dives to learn that he needs to check his air more often, carry more gas, and know what narcosis can do to you? I'm assuming that Nitrox is part of the academic training, which could be taught in about 6 hours even if the OW course didnt cover Boyle, Dalton, Henry, or Charles. Where does the other 44 hours go?

Point is fresh OW divers cant expect to perform well in those conditions due to lack of experiance, not training. I trained for 6 years kicking down doors and clearing buildings, and it never fully prepared me for the real thing.

 

[SC_Hoaty]

JamesB - Maybe I didn't express my thought clearly enough - since we are pretty much in agreement!

If all I know is boat entry, when I hit your SoCal coast, I should be aware that I have never done an entry into surging surf, and seek out instruction (of some sort - like a good local buddy if nothing else) on how to do it safely. (We were taught the techniques, but I shore dive in a lake, and there is no surf to be concerned with. I deal with surf at the beach on the Atlantic side of the country, but that is not when I'm diving - nothing to see close to shore where I am.)

I think you DO know "what you don't know" about rescue - the trained folks have more skills, and also have been taught to see little problems and fix them before they become big problems. You probably also know that you are (I'm assuming) not trained for diving in an overhead environment - thus you stay out of them. And so on. You (as a "fish") know your own limits and stay within them.

Do the really new folks understand they may not be ready to deal with (for example) getting tangled in kelp, and thus should avoid it until they are more experienced/better trained? Do they understand that silting up the viz is a bigger problem in an overhead environment, and another good reason why they should stay out? Do they know how much is beyond their current skill/training?

I hope so!

 

[DCBC]

Where does the other 44 hours go?

I don't know about you Tom, but when I got certified initially I couldn't sit down and pass the instructors exam. There's plenty to learn after your basic course. This starts to address much of it.

 

[tomfcrist]

I don't know about you Tom, but when I got certified initially I couldn't sit down and pass the instructors exam. There's plenty to learn after your basic course. This starts to address much of it.

You arent teaching instructors, you are teaching divers.
And yes, when i certified initially i could have passed the instructors exam, minus the buisiness, and liability parts. However i dove for 15 years before getting certified.

 

[DCBC]

You arent teaching instructors, you are teaching divers.
And yes, when i certified initially i could have passed the instructors exam, minus the buisiness, and liability parts. However i dove for 15 years before getting certified.

I was certified at 12 and it was all I could do at the time to handle what I needed to learn as a diver. I became an instructor 6 years later.

Actually I teach and certify both Divers and Instructors. There is a road to follow and this is just a stage on that road. The World Diving Federation's system has been in-place for over 50 years. I believe in it, but am only a small part of the organization.

 

[Thalassamania]

... So if they are none of those things, and that is what we expect out of a quality diver, why not extend EVERY agency's curriculum to the point that you must have at least DM level skills before being allowed to dive indepenently?
A: Because it is an unrealistic expectation. I personally believe that Padi's standards create divers that are just as competent as any agency out there. If they didn't, I guess I was an incompetent diver for a few years.

I guess you're right, that must have been the case.

Now, given what I (and others) do, we know that it is perfectly possible to "extend EVERY agency's curriculum" or should I say refuse to gut most agency's earlier standards. I use the old NAUI Master Diver standards as the base for my training (it helps that I wrote those standards for NAUI with this alternate purpose in mind).

DC,
I understand your point, but if Instructor A only teaches part of the curriculum he should be censured by his agency, and never allowed to teach again. After all they are called STANDARDS for a reason right? I feel that a course based upon agency standards can be either sufficient or insufficient depending on the locality. Padi has a bare bones approach to diver training, and that seems to be OK in the conditions that MOST padi shops operate in(Quarrys and Tropics). That same course would be insufficient doing surf entrys off Jersey or NC. The brutal truth is, most divers dont dive unless the water is flat and the surface temp is 85 deg.(Unfortunate, I know).

Regardless of the agency, i have yet to see a fresh OW diver that has GOOD self rescue/buddy rescue skills, or is of any use to his buddy. It just doesnt happen these days. The only way to make that happen is to teach an OW course over a couple of months with 15 pool sessions and another 10-15 OW dives prior to certification.

You can call anything that you want, "standards." That has nothing to do with their quality or adequacy.

I see lots of new divers with excellent self rescue/buddy rescue skills, and I have seen and trained such divers for over for over four decades now, but you are right ... it does not tend to happen these days, but does that mean that I should reduce what I do, just because many others have done so?

To quote an old Navy Master Chief, "You're either qualified or your in-training. No son-of-a-bitch is operational unless he's qualified to my satisfaction!" I have to agree; although you will always continue to learn, you don't go operational until you have the knowledge and skill-sets you need to keep yourself and your team safe. But that is just my opinion.

Aye aye, Master Chief.

If they are so competent and qualified why limit them to 60ft?

Actually I don't I limit them to 30 feet for their next 12 dives, 60 feet for 12 dives, 100 feet for 12 dives, 130 for 12 dives, and so on, for 150 and 190. And those are dives made with a buddy who is qualified to that depth and who is approved to provide such supervision. Adjusting to the special problems of increased depth takes time and experience, and this is the purpose of this system. A system that was designed by the very people who bought the first scuba units imported to the U.S.A. and who designed the initial training programs and qualification schemes for the academic community, LA County, NAUI, PADI and yes, even the U.S. Navy.

... When I completed my scuba course I felt I was qualified to go scuba diving. I've read some posts where newly certified divers state they do not feel qualified and it sounds like they are probably right. The general response seems to be that they now need experience and a mentor. I'm thinking they should have gotten more experience while in training, and the instructor should have been the mentor. It looks like they are purposely holding back specific training so they call sell another course. This is beginning to look like negligence to me. I can't really say that I've learned all that much through experience because I think I already had the knowledge that was required before I made my first dive as a newly certified diver.

My fear is that, the way things seem to be going, this self-regulated industry may eventually end up being goverment regulated, and I doubt very many of us want that!

I doubt that we'll see regulation, not that many people die, most just get scared and quit. The government (at least the US Government) doesn't care about that. Ultimately the resort diving industry will collapse (I'd say implode, but that's too dramatic) under the weight of it's (and the economy's) failures and the industry will have to retrench on the base of local diving, much as it was in the old days.

This is my point exactly Wayne....If a fully competent qualified diver can dive at 60', why would he need 50 hours of classroom training, and 20 dives to learn that he needs to check his air more often, carry more gas, and know what narcosis can do to you? I'm assuming that Nitrox is part of the academic training, which could be taught in about 6 hours even if the OW course didnt cover Boyle, Dalton, Henry, or Charles. Where does the other 44 hours go?

Point is fresh OW divers cant expect to perform well in those conditions due to lack of experiance, not training. I trained for 6 years kicking down doors and clearing buildings, and it never fully prepared me for the real thing.

Training and experience can be traded off against each other, though training is usually faster. It is true that even the best training is never a perfect simulation, but well designed training can often present analogues of the situations that will be faced that are amplifications of reality that make, "the real thing" rather easy to deal with in a matter of fact way. At lest that's true for most diving, I suppose other fields may not be quite as amenable.

I don't know about you Tom, but when I got certified initially I couldn't sit down and pass the instructors exam. There's plenty to learn after your basic course. This starts to address much of it.

Since I designed the NAUI Master Diver course to meet the learning objectives of the NAUI Instructor Course (less the sections on NAUI policy and procedure and the Teaching topics) I'd have to disagree. It is quite possible to have students sit down and pass the instructor exam, since the old Master Diver Exam (that we used as a final, with an additional section) was identical to the NAUI Instructor Exam.

 

[DCBC]

Since I designed the NAUI Master Diver course to meet the learning objectives of the NAUI Instructor Course (less the sections on NAUI policy and procedure and the Teaching topics) I'd have to disagree. It is quite possible to have students sit down and pass the instructor exam, since the old Master Diver Exam (that we used as a final, with an additional section) was identical to the NAUI Instructor Exam.

I agree, but most people aren't taking 100 hour initial training programs. Not that it would have helped me much. There are not many instructor's exams that are worth their salt that a 12 year old could reasonably be expected to pass (or at least not one of my instructor's exams).

 

[Thalassamania]

I did have a 14 year old pass it once (that's the youngest I know of).

 

[JamesBon92007]

JamesB - Maybe I didn't express my thought clearly enough - since we are pretty much in agreement!

Or maybe I didn't, because I was basically agreeing with you!

If all I know is boat entry, when I hit your SoCal coast, I should be aware that I have never done an entry into surging surf, and seek out instruction (of some sort - like a good local buddy if nothing else) on how to do it safely. (We were taught the techniques, but I shore dive in a lake, and there is no surf to be concerned with. I deal with surf at the beach on the Atlantic side of the country, but that is not when I'm diving - nothing to see close to shore where I am.)

This is getting side-tracked a bit, but just so you'll have a clue: when diving SoCal surf and surge Use The Force. By that I mean use the rip currents and waves to your advantage. They can either rip your mask and fins off and bounce you off the rocks, or pick you up and deliver you to where you want to be. I would recommend doing some body-surfing and free diving first before attempting entry with full scuba gear so you get the "feel" of it. I used to have quite a collection of misc. dive gear from those who didn't use the Force.

I think you DO know "what you don't know" about rescue - the trained folks have more skills, and also have been taught to see little problems and fix them before they become big problems. You probably also know that you are (I'm assuming) not trained for diving in an overhead environment - thus you stay out of them. And so on. You (as a "fish") know your own limits and stay within them.

I'm not sure if it came from my diver training but no, I do not dive in caves etc (partly) because I am not qualilfied/trained/prepared to do that.

Do the really new folks understand they may not be ready to deal with (for example) getting tangled in kelp, and thus should avoid it until they are more experienced/better trained? Do they understand that silting up the viz is a bigger problem in an overhead environment, and another good reason why they should stay out? Do they know how much is beyond their current skill/training?

I hope so!

I've seen Mike Nelson get tangled in kelp but it was usually during an underwater knife-fight. If nothing else I've learned from watching Sea Hunt that you should always carry a knife while diving because you never know when you are going to get into a knife-fight. As for the rest of us, I think it would take a lot of effort to get tangled in kelp. They actually taught that in my wife's course. Meanwhile, I have been carrying my dive knife for 41 years (same knife). I actually used it once to cut some fishing line I ran into.