I have learnt a lot too

. That was the goal.
I hope that I won’t offend anyone by saying that I believe that the diving teaching standards in Europe are higher than in the Worldwide Agencies. (I would not dare including GUE in this category

)
Last summer, I made inquiries to pass a french cert in order to be able to dive freely. For French divers, a SSI DM is barely a level 2. I think that I could easily pass level 3 but not the practical exam of level 4 which should be the true equivalent of DM. A 800 m dive in less than 15 min, I can do, but immediately followed by a roughly one 90 seconds free dive to 10 meters then another one to rescue a dummy diver would require some serious training out of me. Even the theory is way higher than the PADI/SSI/SDI? standards.
There is no club where I live now. I left Cape Verde. Even in Amsterdam, there are only strange divers using alien devices called dry suits, diving under temperatures that should be forbidden in places where even the most myopic moles would feel at ease as you can’t see anything.