Diving without certification in venice Florida?

[Damselfish]

Look for good instruction, not cheap instruction. If you are lucky enough to find both great, but good is a whole lot more important. While there are ways to save money and not break the bank, scuba is basically not a cheap activity to get started in. If you are worried about the price of certification, that is only the start of it.

Look at everything a class includes when you are comparing prices. Some will list a low price but not include book, gear rental, getting the actual card, or even the OW dives. And even if rental gear is included as it often is, expect as a minimum to have to buy mask/fins/snorkel, and maybe boots or a few other things. (Fins are a good place to save money - you can buy simple relatively inexpensive scuba fins that are just as good or better as expensive gimmicky ones, and buying used fins is also a good way to save money.)

If you are thinking about buying your own snorkeling gear, try to get gear that is suitable for scuba so you don't have to buy it again. Cheap "snorkel" fins can be too wimpy for scuba, and a mask that fits passably for snorkeling may not fit well enough for scuba (where a leaking mask is a big nuisance.)

 

[iluvtheocean]

agreed... an example would be the Tusa Liberator X10 fins - they run about $40 on leisure pro - and they are decent if not particularly powerful fins - i had a pair for 10 years until i switched to hollis f1's. mask fit is crucial but brand name isn't. -- snorkels? if you plan on doing a lot of snorkeling you can get an expensive one - otherwise any snorkel is good.

check the stickies for finding good instructors -- and can always ask for recommendations on here.

 

[toddthecat]

because adults are free to make their own decisions only when it's a "good" decision. hmm that doesn't seem like freedom at all...

Welcome to the United States. Wait...what's that word "freedom"?

 

[adurso]

Go to this forum Venice Fossil Divers, for information on fossil diving in Venice.

To be safe, get certified.

Charter operators want to see the card.

I go to Venice at least once a year and dive for fossils, any of the operators are good to go with.

You can also dive from the beach, the various sites are in the forum I listed.

 

[flots am]

G

You'd almost think if there are no helmet laws in Florida that there must be no people left whose brains are not "scraped like butter over too much bread".

R..

They ambulance crews are pretty good at getting the remains off the road quickly.

Both my current doctor and an ER nurse I dated 20+ years ago were fond of calling them "donorcycles," and really liked them because once you get rid of the physically damaged stuff, they were good for a steady stream of healthy organs.

flots

 

[FloridaPhil]

I got certified with Florida Underwater Sports in south Sarasota and highly recommend them. Not so far from Venice.

Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using Tapatalk 4

 

[chrpai]

It is really good that the users of ScubaBoard have you providing the service of checking on my every post in case there is any flaw so that you can point it out. I am sure all appreciate your continued help in that regard. As I said, it was a quick Google search, and I just took the first one to pop up. As I also said, I don't know anything about them--my point was simply that such services are available and easily found.

Sigh.... I only mentioned it because I did the same google search (attempting to be helpful) and then followed it up with another search to see how far it was. Then I decided to not post at all.

Of course you did the same but weren't as thorough in your research and now you are all snarky and insulting to cover up for your own issues.

 

[Tom Winters]

Geezus peezus, did this thread get complicated in a hurry.
Hey look Cswan, I probably took at least 10,000 Japanese on intro dives on Oahu - a bunch of haoles too, but nothing like the Japanese numbers. It amde me a GREAT deal of money, and everyone had fun.
If you were closer and I felt more like it, I'd haul your carcass on an intro dive. You could not do anything to incur liability on my part. You could try, but sir or ma'am, it would not happen.
It's no big damn deal like all these people are weighing in with.
Try to have some fun before that too becomes illegal.

 

[Splash-X]

To be safe, get certified.

Yeah, because ALL of the certified divers are safe . I get where your coming from, but having been certified doesn't make you safe it just proves that you took the class at some point, did some check out dives with an instructor and that's about it. There are no scuba police, it's rare for any dive operator to turn any business away even if the person dives once every 5 years and that hardly makes being certified "safe".

I am in no way advocating diving without certification but I am suggesting that learning to scuba dive isn't as complicated as everyone makes it seem. Most major certifying agencies offer some form of online classes and the ability to complete the checkout dives with a diver operator to become certified. The OP and his mother could easily take those online classes to learn most everything a student learns in class aside from the hands-on training in the pool and still come out ahead of most certified divers in regards to the knowledge of scuba diving.

Having a law that says you can't dive would just be silly, who would enforce such a thing? Requiring a certification card to either rent tanks or gear is a pretty big deterrent for non-certified divers not to try to dive. Diver operators also require c-cards to dive so all of those things combined make it pretty difficult for a non-certified diver to just jump in and dive.

Possessing a c-card doesn't make you a "safe diver", understanding what scuba is, the risks associated with recreational diving and possessing the skills necessary to dive make you a "safer diver". Beyond that, practice makes for a better diver.


If the OP and his mother have the same knowledge as any other newly certified diver, what difference does it make if they dive or not? We all recommend that they only diver under the direct supervision of a dive professional but no one can stop them from doing what ever it is they want to do.

 

[adurso]

Yeah, because ALL of the certified divers are safe . I get where your coming from, but having been certified doesn't make you safe it just proves that you took the class at some point, did some check out dives with an instructor and that's about it. There are no scuba police, it's rare for any dive operator to turn any business away even if the person dives once every 5 years and that hardly makes being certified "safe".

I am in no way advocating diving without certification but I am suggesting that learning to scuba dive isn't as complicated as everyone makes it seem. Most major certifying agencies offer some form of online classes and the ability to complete the checkout dives with a diver operator to become certified. The OP and his mother could easily take those online classes to learn most everything a student learns in class aside from the hands-on training in the pool and still come out ahead of most certified divers in regards to the knowledge of scuba diving.

Having a law that says you can't dive would just be silly, who would enforce such a thing? Requiring a certification card to either rent tanks or gear is a pretty big deterrent for non-certified divers not to try to dive. Diver operators also require c-cards to dive so all of those things combined make it pretty difficult for a non-certified diver to just jump in and dive.

Possessing a c-card doesn't make you a "safe diver", understanding what scuba is, the risks associated with recreational diving and possessing the skills necessary to dive make you a "safer diver". Beyond that, practice makes for a better diver.


If the OP and his mother have the same knowledge as any other newly certified diver, what difference does it make if they dive or not? We all recommend that they only diver under the direct supervision of a dive professional but no one can stop them from doing what ever it is they want to do.

The OP has never dived, his mother did it once 25 years ago, according to his post.

His question was "does anyone know of a charter that will take non certified divers"

The answer is no.

"To be safe" is a phrase that means the same as "in order to be able to do what you want"

In order for the OP to get on a charter boat in the Venice area to dive for fossils he/she needs a card.

Safety has nothing to do with it.

I started diving with just a few instructions: never hold your breath, pinch your nose and blow as you go down, pull the lever on the tank when it gets hard to breathe, never come up faster than your slowest bubble.

When boats started asking for cards, I got some.

That was then, there were few places to learn scuba, instruction was from a book, or someone that was a diver.

Today there are plenty of places to learn.

"Certification" has nothing to do with safety; the class, no matter who runs it, still will give more information than what many of us started with.