Even I Cringed A Little

[Eric Sedletzky]

There's nothing wrong with PADI as long as the instructor does everything they're supposed to and you make sure you get all the info and continue to practice the skills.
All the skills are there as good as any other standard open water agency like SSI or SDI or NAUI.
PADI gets bashed because they are considered big diving similar to big oil or big banks. People think they are corrupt somehow because they are the biggest


About the uncertified diver. There is no law the says you cannot dive without a cert. If someone has all the knowledge and understands the physiology, etc. and basically has gone (unofficially) through a dive course, lets say through a friend, or read a book like 'The new science of skin and scuba diving' and did all the excercises and didn't cheat, then I see no difference other than not being able to get fills or get on a charter.
I've known hard core commercial urchin divers that have been diving urchins for 30 years and don't have any certification of any kind.
In my town you do not need a cert to get a fill because hobbyists, paint ballers, and friends filling tanks for certified friends can get fills without a cert card.

 

[Searcaigh]

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

The key is a good instructor irrespective which agency he or she is with.

 

[Bombay High]

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

Don't worry about it Danny, it is very instructor dependent. There are some great PADI instructors out there, just like any other agency.
This is the internet ...

---------- Post Merged at 10:36 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 10:30 AM ----------

Talking to a longtime friend, I found out that he has dove, but is not certified. This friend has dove several times over the years in Florida. He has never had a problem getting an air fill. We have never dove together.

While I have no love for PADI (my cert agency), there are other great cert agencies out there. I made the suggestion to him to get certified, but he brushed it off as not necessary. Doing the type of "fair weather diving" he described, I found it difficult to disagree with his argument about not needing a cert. The "founders" of the sport were not certified, after all. And no, this is not some young kid. We are talking about a guy pushing 60.

The industry polices itself, or does it?

Any thoughts?

This is a guy who is 60, been diving for a longtime, and who you have known for a long time ... why would he need certification ?

For years my only Cert card said HSE Part 2, which was greek to any charter operator. It got to the point of being more of a pain in the ass trying to explain my Sat ticket than the dive was worth, so I got OW certified by a PADI instructor, after I had been diving for 20 years.

 

[DevonDiver]

Having skill/training/experience is one thing. Being able to prove it is another.

Many/most prudent dive operations will require proof of skills/training/experience before offering diving services to a customer. Production of a c-card, demonstrating qualification/certification satisfies that burden of proof 'over-the-counter'.

Certification courses exist to provide skills/training and a foundation of relevant experience. The c-card/qualification that come with a course provide demonstrable evidence that the diver concerned has a baseline of competence and knowledge, agreed by the scuba industry and often in-line with some type of international standard (i.e. ISO).

Ensuring that customers possess a certification/qualification also provides some level of liability protection for the dive operation. Scuba agencies retain responsibility for providing a minimum standard of training, applicable to an activity - whilst certifying instructors retain responsibility for ensuring that those standards of training are met by the student. The dive operation, receiving customers, can reasonably expect a minimum standard of skill/training/experience from a certified diver and can match their provision of service to that standard (i.e. take OW divers to 60'/18m, take cave qualified divers into caves etc)

This is especially important for diving charters/trips, where the operation will retain a 'duty of care' for their customers. It is less important for 'air-fills' or 'equipment sales', where no such duty of care exists.

If a diver cannot produce a proof of certification, then they cannot provide definitive proof of skill/training/experience in advance of diving activities. Thus, they are often rejected by dive operations.

A diver might have a personal relationship, or otherwise be known by, a dive operation - so proof of skill/training/experience might be known. That's ok for local diving, but not when travelling away from your local connections.

A diver might have a comprehensive log-book, detailing their experience (and possibly skills/experience), but this is easily forged and any training/skill practice mentioned within it is not necessarily compliant with training/performance standards. Doubt will always exist - and that is sufficient for most dive operations not to accept a log-book alone as evidence.

A diver might be prepared to demonstrate their skills/training/experience by way of an informal assessment prior to undertaking dives. However, most dive operations are not prepared to conduct personal evaluations on customers before offering them services. Availability of staff and resources at a dive operation would typically make 'pre-diving personal assessments' a non-starter... or at the least, expensive.

I suppose that something like a 'Scuba Review' could be conducted as a pre-dive assessment in lieu of qualification. However, unlike with qualified divers, it would not be a remedial session - but rather a pass/fail assessment. The cost of doing a 'Scuba Review' at every new dive operation you visit would swiftly become more expensive (let alone time consuming) than just paying to complete an OW course.

Again, neither an informal or formal (scuba review) assessment would provide the liability protect that a scuba operation may demand. Put simply, they wouldn't be willing to risk making an exception or make special effort/provisions, simply because an occasional customer didn't want to pay for a certification course.

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

you know the funny thing about this debate, this guy has been diving 20 years and has apparently has never needed a C-card, for any reason whether it be dive boat, dive resort, or air fill. So what is the problem? If you need one for where you want to dive, then get one, if not then what's the problem? Is this guy a good buddy should be the question! People compare it to driving w/o a licence and other things that are against the law. Is that what we want from the dive industry? Because you know what will come next, regulations, and insurance cost! And I see it going that way, just the other day I saw an ad for dive lawyer ambulance chasers! Just what we need someone filing frivolous lawsuits for every mishap regardless of who's at fault.


One thing I learned from diving very early is that you should do shallow test dives whenever possible regardless of what someones C-card says!!

 

[HowardE]

Having skill/training/experience is one thing. Being able to prove it is another.

If there's nobody to prove it to... then what's the difference?

 

[HowardE]

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?

The key word here is "NEED A CERT"

There is no obligation on the part of the person diving to have a certification. It's something that certification agencies WANT you to have, as well as other divers WANT you to have one.

I think you can also see from reading this, that some dive shops, and many dive operators WANT you to have one, and I'd even say REQUIRE you to have one.

But if you're looking at the word, "NEED" - I'd have to say the straight answer to that would be "No"

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

The key word here is "NEED A CERT"

There is no obligation on the part of the person diving to have a certification. It's something that certification agencies WANT you to have, as well as other divers WANT you to have one.

I can understand the certification agency wanting you to have one, but why would another diver want you to have one? As stated in several threads, it proves nothing of your diving ability!

I think you can also see from reading this, that some dive shops, and many dive operators WANT you to have one, and I'd even say REQUIRE you to have one.

But if you're looking at the word, "NEED" - I'd have to say the straight answer to that would be "No"

From my previous post, if the diver has never had a problem diving without one, why should I have a problem with him not having it? If I had a long time friend that was in a military diver, I wouldn't have a problem diving with him because I know his training was far superior to mine! Now diving with someone I just meet would be a different thing, I would trust that just like I would trust his cert card, we still would have to do shallow checkout dives when possible before doing anything else, or I wouldn't dive with them.

 

[HowardE]

I can understand the certification agency wanting you to have one, but why would another diver want you to have one? As stated in several threads, it proves nothing of your diving ability!

And??

This is what I said in other posts

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

And??

This is what I said in other posts

Sorry was just replying to your reply :-D