Do certs matter to you?

[Falcon99]

*shakes head*

The level of respect (lack of) shown for certification and continuing education in this thread by some of our more experienced members disgusts me.

D,

I'm sorry, but I have to chime in. If instructors like you took more control of your instructor peers to stop the trend of greed vs. actual training, I think it would improve.

When LDS owners/instructors started giving divers flack about not having a certification for things like Dry Suit certs, I pretty much lost all faith in the system. Nitrox? Yes. Advanced Nitrox? Yes. Underwater Photographer? Come on!

J

 

[Genesis]

You and I have had it out on this one before. I agree that that the log is more important than the card. But, some of us don't wish to be around when Darwin takes his share.

I dive one site every summer. The initial "price of admission" is my AOW card. The second thing before I am allowed on the boat (for the two best wrecks in the area) is a look at my dive to verify that I have logged 10 Cold Water deep dives in the last six months. Third, the charter captain that we use is an experienced dive master. If he doesn't think that you are fit to dive, you don't go in. This is regardless of the money that you have paid or the waivers that you sign. He is one of the few boat captains up there who hasn't had to watch Darwin at work and he is proud of that. BTW, the two wrecks that I refer to have claimed better than 10 divers apiece since they started recording incidents. When acting as a DiveCon, my personal view is "NOT ON MY WATCH!" It is traumatic for people to get injured or killed when you could have done something about it. It is also nice to know that someone with more experience with a particular site actually has an interest in their customers and a conscience. In spite of your individualist attitude, I am sure that you can see my point.

I do see your point, but I disagree with it.

As a "guy with a boat" I don't care what you dive or how hard you dive on board. I do want to know when to declare you overdue, so I ask what your intentions are if its not obvious.

If you tell me that you're going to do a 1 hour runtime deco dive with a single AL80, in 100' of water, I will certainly ask if you wife/girlfriend is cute, whether I can have a picture to see what I think of her, etc.

If you don't "get it" and splash anyway, I'll call the USCG when you are overdue. If you blow up behind the boat and are choking on your own froth, I've got the O2, and I'll do my damndest to keep you alive long enough for the chopper to come get 'ya.

Now I do understand the "not on my watch" thing.

But let's say that I show up for a dive that I intend to do as a deco dive on some commercial boat. Its not horribly deep (130' or so), I have a set of doubles with an appropriate gas in them, I have a bottle of 50% for deco, and when queried I show you a log with 40 similar profiles in them, and obviously, I didn't kill myself.

Is this enough, or do you want to see an Adv Nitrox/Deco procedures card?

Indeed, do you want to see any card at all?

Why?

Remember, I didn't ask you to fill the cylinders. Its rather obvious that I did get them filled (or filled them myself!) and they have proper contents tags on them. Its also rather obvious that I have reasonable gear for the dive I'm contemplating; you note my single-piece harness, backplate, Abyss wing, high-quality regs complete with long hose, a can light and two backups, all nicely arranged. My drysuit is in a bag along with its underwear. All I want is transportation, and I can present evidence that I'm rather unlikely to be dying on your watch - far better evidence, in fact, than a guy with a newly-minuted deco card who might have no dives that weren't under instructor supervision! I've got 40, and none of them were supervised, total dive counts in the three digit range, and a lot of them (indeed, nearly all) are well beyond "OW" limits (deeper than 60'.) I didn't bend or kill myself doing any of them.

Now if you want to make cracks about divvying up my gear as I get on board, or about my girlfriend, heh, have at it. I might make a few in reply myself

But what does a card prove to you?

Nothing, other than that I spent some amount of money acquiring it.

BTW, I do not have a "drysuit" cert. I dive in a drysuit when conditions warrant. I thought about taking the class BUT the agencies that were here to teach it both wanted me to use it as a BC.

Uh, no thanks; IMHO if you have THAT cert you are actually documenting that you don't know how to use the suit!

 

[TCDiver1]

I've got 40, and none of them were supervised, total dive counts in the three digit range, and a lot of them (indeed, nearly all) are well beyond "OW" limits (deeper than 60'.) I didn't bend or kill myself doing any of them.

But what does a card prove to you?

Nothing, other than that I spent some amount of money acquiring it.

The fallacy with the dive log thing Karl is that anyone, can write down anything in a dive log. How do you know they were real dives? You don't. At least not much more than you know the c-card means anything.

I think with a valid c-card one can have a reasonable legal expectation that the person in question did the required training at one time. Not being an attorney i have no idea if that means any more or any less than logged dives if something does happen.

The only place the rubber truly meets the road is observation of in water skills. C-cards and dive logs are not truly proven experience unless you were there to observe the same.

 

[J1M1]

CAVE DIVER-----""""""""""""""""""""Absolutely. I have three certs that mean a great deal to me. Full Cave, Trimix and Dive Master.

Why? Because they allow me to opportunity to do practically any type of diving that I am interested in. Many cave systems are restricted to divers with at least a cavern cert, some are restricted to full cave only. No cert, no dive.

Some wrecks I dove required proof of Trimix training in order for me to be included in the trip, as they were well beyond recreational depths and would require extensive deco. And I have ran into cases where holding the appropriate card was not enough. I was also asked to provide references of people I had dove similar conditions with in order to verify my qualifications. That was something I was happy to provide, because I knew that would keep the quality of divers on the trip at a higher standard.

And finally, my DM cert allows me to help out with students and to take charge of groups and trips that I ordinarily would not be able to do.

Do I expect my certs to mean anything to anyone else? Nope. The only person I expect them to matter to is the person I show them to when I sign in.""""""""""""""""""""""""""""


Well said,,,, J.D.

 

[Genesis]

The fallacy with the dive log thing Karl is that anyone, can write down anything in a dive log. How do you know they were real dives? You don't. At least not much more than you know the c-card means anything.

Uh, well, in my case you'd have to make quite a stretch to think that the log was forged - its a dive computer download. It'd be quite a ***** to sit out there on a boat and put the thing on a shotline just to "fake" the log printout......

Since the log has graphs of the dives, the detail there is pretty intense - to enter that by hand would take a very long time.

 

[TCDiver1]

Uh, well, in my case you'd have to make quite a stretch to think that the log was forged - its a dive computer download. It'd be quite a ***** to sit out there on a boat and put the thing on a shotline just to "fake" the log printout......

Since the log has graphs of the dives, the detail there is pretty intense - to enter that by hand would take a very long time.

Fair enough. Dive log to me means handwritten paper log, not computer generated downloaded logs. That would definately make those dives more reasonable to accept as real experience if dive computer generated.

 

[Scott M]

I do see your point, but I disagree with it.

As a "guy with a boat" I don't care what you dive or how hard you dive on board. I do want to know when to declare you overdue, so I ask what your intentions are if its not obvious.

If you tell me that you're going to do a 1 hour runtime deco dive with a single AL80, in 100' of water, I will certainly ask if you wife/girlfriend is cute, whether I can have a picture to see what I think of her, etc.

If you don't "get it" and splash anyway, I'll call the USCG when you are overdue. If you blow up behind the boat and are choking on your own froth, I've got the O2, and I'll do my damndest to keep you alive long enough for the chopper to come get 'ya.

Now I do understand the "not on my watch" thing.

But let's say that I show up for a dive that I intend to do as a deco dive on some commercial boat. Its not horribly deep (130' or so), I have a set of doubles with an appropriate gas in them, I have a bottle of 50% for deco, and when queried I show you a log with 40 similar profiles in them, and obviously, I didn't kill myself.

Is this enough, or do you want to see an Adv Nitrox/Deco procedures card?

Indeed, do you want to see any card at all?

Why?

Remember, I didn't ask you to fill the cylinders. Its rather obvious that I did get them filled (or filled them myself!) and they have proper contents tags on them. Its also rather obvious that I have reasonable gear for the dive I'm contemplating; you note my single-piece harness, backplate, Abyss wing, high-quality regs complete with long hose, a can light and two backups, all nicely arranged. My drysuit is in a bag along with its underwear. All I want is transportation, and I can present evidence that I'm rather unlikely to be dying on your watch - far better evidence, in fact, than a guy with a newly-minuted deco card who might have no dives that weren't under instructor supervision! I've got 40, and none of them were supervised, total dive counts in the three digit range, and a lot of them (indeed, nearly all) are well beyond "OW" limits (deeper than 60'.) I didn't bend or kill myself doing any of them.

Now if you want to make cracks about divvying up my gear as I get on board, or about my girlfriend, heh, have at it. I might make a few in reply myself

But what does a card prove to you?

It proves if you go to court someone other than you said the guy was qualified to dive.

 

[Genesis]

It proves if you go to court someone other than you said the guy was qualified to dive.

Irrelavent, if I waive my right to sue you, and sign a piece of paper stating that all you gave me was transportation.

And, by the way, it won't stop you from getting sued. The waiver will, however, stop the person doing the suing from recovering.

Just ask Murley's family.

 

[Snowbear]

Well, some do. Some are a waste of plastic.

My frequent dive buddy Karen recently completed her PADI instructor cert. In order to be qualified to teach "specialties," she needs to issue 25 certification cards which can be for OW, AOW and Peak performance buoyancy and DM. So to get her numbers up, she asked me if I would let her do my PPB cert (no charge of course). We're planning to do it Monday - bet my buoyancy is better than hers wink Hope she doesn't expect me to wear a snorkel.

 

[Scott M]

Irrelavent, if I waive my right to sue you, and sign a piece of paper stating that all you gave me was transportation.

And, by the way, it won't stop you from getting sued. The waiver will, however, stop the person doing the suing from recovering.

Just ask Murley's family.

True in the case of a "just there for the ride", if thats the only diving you are talking about. My impression was that this thread was refering to diving in general, my bad.

Although, it would still be up for debate, It could easily be argued that you well know the guy wasn't qualified because he did not have the proper credentials and you being the qualified diver well knew the risks you were exposing him to, he not being card carrying certified diver truely did not understand the risks of what he was doing. He wasn't qualified to truely understand the risks nor sign the form. Simpathic jury could easily be swayed to the side of the grieving widow who's poor unqualified husband was brought to a dive site by that mean ole diver guy.