DaleC
Contributor
Diving is not an industry.
Even I Cringed A Little
- Thread starter Tropicalwolf
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ScubaSteve1962
Contributor
Correct me if I'm wrong, don't military divers dive with out any certification? If so would they need cert to continue to dive?
Scuba Steve I actually met a retired para rescue diver in the keys a few weeks ago and he had gotten his wife and kids certified and stated that he too went through the course to get his card.
Really good guy and family, i should have asked his name!
Mike
Really good guy and family, i should have asked his name!
Mike
Danny Heng
Registered
I am going a little off topic and I hope you guys do not mind... but there has been something that has been bothering me. I am very new to diving and have only logged 10 dives to date since my PADI OW certification in April. My question is, why is there all this negativity towards PADI? The OP opens by saying that he has no love for PADI. Some other threads there have been outright negativity towards PADI. What concerns me is that I plan to take this sport seriously and my next plan is to get AOW.
Where I am, I have limited choice... it is either, get further certification from PADI or not dive deeper, dive wrecks, do night dives or cave dives at all. Should I be concerned about getting my certification with PADI then? Is there something that I do not know of? What other options do I have then?
Where I am... you cannot dive without a certification and I plan to dive Sipadan next.
Sorry for hijacking this thread.
Danny
Where I am, I have limited choice... it is either, get further certification from PADI or not dive deeper, dive wrecks, do night dives or cave dives at all. Should I be concerned about getting my certification with PADI then? Is there something that I do not know of? What other options do I have then?
Where I am... you cannot dive without a certification and I plan to dive Sipadan next.
Sorry for hijacking this thread.
Danny
Pauly854
Contributor
Danny, that is a huge debate in all scuba circles, unfortunately. Everyone thinks their agency is the best, all others are sub-par. No different from Chevy v/s Ford, Coke v/s Pepsi, tolilet paper feed from the top v/s bottom. PADI is the largest, therefore gets the most criticism. In my humble opinion, they all teach you how to dive safely. Pay attention, practice, and enjoy.
I kind of agree with Dennis and I kind of agree with Howard on this one. I think the big question is whether or not your friend knows what he is doing. If he is just going for a dive and doesn't understand the risks, sooner or later it will catch up with him. If he has the knowledge and just lacks a piece of plastic which shows he took a course then it might not be an issue.
Just having the card does NOT mean you are prepared to dive. I have seen a lot of yahoos out there but they are fully certified open water divers. The certification is only as good as the instructor who gave it to you.
I do however tell my friends that anyone can scuba dive. You don't need the training to scuba dive. You need the training so you don't die when something goes wrong.
Danny, PADI is the largest certifying agency out there. Because of their size, it is easy to find an instructor who does not teach the intent of the course. There are plenty of instructors who teach the letter of the course. Things like, the manual says you must pass the 20 skills. One of them is clearing your mask. The intent is that if you should lose your mask or it becomes flooded, you can clear it and continue the dive. The letter of the course says they must be able to clear their mask. If the instructor is holding on to you to prevent you from bolting to the surface, you flood your mask, thrash around violently, finally get it back on and some how after numerous attempts clear it enough you can see (but there is still water in the bottom) then some instructors would say you passed that skill. Because PADI is a large agency, instructors like this can hide among the ranks.
Is the percentage of bad instructors higher in PADI? Probably not. Is the raw number of bad instructors higher in PADI? Absolutely. If PADI has 1% bad instructors and 10,000 instructors then they have 100 bad instructors. If agency X has 2% bad instructors and 500 instructors they are only going to have 10 bad instructors. It therefore seems like PADI has 10 times more bad instructors but they can also be said to have over 20 times more good instructors.
So really, PADI is not bad. Some of the instructors are. If you find a good instructor, it doesn't matter which agency they are with.
Just having the card does NOT mean you are prepared to dive. I have seen a lot of yahoos out there but they are fully certified open water divers. The certification is only as good as the instructor who gave it to you.
I do however tell my friends that anyone can scuba dive. You don't need the training to scuba dive. You need the training so you don't die when something goes wrong.
Danny, PADI is the largest certifying agency out there. Because of their size, it is easy to find an instructor who does not teach the intent of the course. There are plenty of instructors who teach the letter of the course. Things like, the manual says you must pass the 20 skills. One of them is clearing your mask. The intent is that if you should lose your mask or it becomes flooded, you can clear it and continue the dive. The letter of the course says they must be able to clear their mask. If the instructor is holding on to you to prevent you from bolting to the surface, you flood your mask, thrash around violently, finally get it back on and some how after numerous attempts clear it enough you can see (but there is still water in the bottom) then some instructors would say you passed that skill. Because PADI is a large agency, instructors like this can hide among the ranks.
Is the percentage of bad instructors higher in PADI? Probably not. Is the raw number of bad instructors higher in PADI? Absolutely. If PADI has 1% bad instructors and 10,000 instructors then they have 100 bad instructors. If agency X has 2% bad instructors and 500 instructors they are only going to have 10 bad instructors. It therefore seems like PADI has 10 times more bad instructors but they can also be said to have over 20 times more good instructors.
So really, PADI is not bad. Some of the instructors are. If you find a good instructor, it doesn't matter which agency they are with.
Its not just diving. In cars there is a Ford - Chevy debate thats been raging for decades, Airlines are no better. There are those that love American Airlines for example and there are those who hate them. When you look at dive shops and internet sales there are those who hate the internet because they view them as killing their beloved dive shop then there are those who would not buy anywhere but the internet to save money and sometimes alot of it.
There are those who say they will only dive in the ocean and there are those who say they will only dive in lakes.
PADI has some who wont do business with anyone but PADI and there are those who wont do business at all with them.
drrich2
Contributor
My cert.s are with PADI so far. I'll tell you the basic criticisms I've seen voiced:
1.) PADI has a very modular system - and many people think the basic OW course doesn't have enough 'stuff' in it (e.g.: rescue skills offered in the Rescue Diver course), that the basic course should basically cover the kind of training you'd get with OW + AOW + some of the Rescue diver course, and so many think PADI's basic course requirements are inadequate.
2.) PADI is seen as having a number of instructors who don't train to mastery, but as long as you can do all the skills once, even if kneeling on the bottom, they'll pass you so even the minimum basic requirements aren't consistently put in.
3.) A number of instructors (at least 2 I know of) seem to clearly resent that PADI doesn't give them 2 things: 1.) The power to refuse certification even if the student met all the requirements of the OW course, on the grounds that in their subjective judgment the diver isn't good enough to certify, and 2.) They aren't allowed to add their own content in addition to PADI's requirements and hold mastery of the added content as a requirement for certification. Think of an instructor who lives in a coastal region with rough shore dive conditions & doesn't want to issue a cert. to anybody who doesn't handle entries & exits to suit him.
So, the criticisms against PADI seem to be minimalist training, inconsistently administered, lacking much in the way of rescue skills at the basic OW level, and instructors who cannot mandate added content & require it be mastered for certification.
That's my summary of the anti-PADI criticism of some fellow forum members. I'm not endorsing or denying it, just giving you a quick & dirty guide to what you'll probably see on a lot of threads over time.
Richard.
Well now you are in a pickle I will say. Speaking only from my experiences in the court room here if anything were to happen to him on a dive and his family decided they wanted blood they could go after anyone (You included) who knew he was not certified and attempt to sue you. Now the arguement that would be made is you knew he was not certified but chose to dive with him anyway.
You of course would repeat what he said and then the argument would be "How do you know he was telling the truth?" You of course could only reply you took him for his word.
Would they win or not is up in the air the way our litigation has been these years but none the less I wanted to point it out to you as a possibility.
There are some agencies that offer "experienced" diver classes- basically a class for folks like your friend that have been diving for a while but never got certified. Assuming he knows what he's doing it is an accelerated class that first tries to identify any problem areas by testing and in water observation and then spends the class time just on correcting those issues. I know NAUI offers this program, not sure on the other agencies.
Something like this might be an easier sell to your friend than sitting through a class with first timers.
Something like this might be an easier sell to your friend than sitting through a class with first timers.
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