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Cruisin Home
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I have never had problem with fills given my experience/ log book. It must be up to LDS what their policy is.
Exotic Gas Certs: What agencies recognized or not?
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I agree TDI Nitrox will be head and shoulders over PADI Nitrox in terms of depth of material covered.
However having taken both TDI and IANTD trimix courses, my feeling is that IANTD offers much more thorough courses with higher in water standards and a larger number of skills that are taught and assessed.
That said, it also comes down to the instructor and what he or she adds to the course. I have also noted that some TDI instructors will augment the course with some IANTD materials and many instructors (the good ones) regardless of agency affiliation will (and I think should) teach beyond the minimum standards and expect more than just minimum performance.
I am pretty biased given a technical diving back ground, but as a diver originlly certed by PADI in 1985, my impression is that PADI started seriously dumbing down the OW and AOW courses in the late 1980's and 1990's to make diving more accessible to a much larger potential market to support what has primarily become a travel based dive industry. A shift that also occurred with this move was more reliance on dive masters. To the credit of the dive industry they have kept accident rates low, but it has come at the expense of OW and AOW divers no longer being truly independent and capable of planning and conducting divers to the limits of their certs without a DM being around.
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As for nitrox being "safer" that really depends on the profiles, the gas consumption and to some extent the responsibility of the diver.
If a diver is gas limited where they run out of available gas before they run out of time remaining on the NDL, then yes, nitrox will have them surfacing with their tissues less saturated and it is arguably safer in terms of DCS risk.
However, if the limit is bottom time, and nitrox just extends that bottom time with the diver surfacing with a longer NDL but with similarly saturated tissues after the longer bottom time, then it is at best a wash.
And nitrox does carry with it increased risk of oxygen toxicity and it requires discipline in terms of respecting the MOD, monitoring depth, analyzing the gas, etc.
However having taken both TDI and IANTD trimix courses, my feeling is that IANTD offers much more thorough courses with higher in water standards and a larger number of skills that are taught and assessed.
That said, it also comes down to the instructor and what he or she adds to the course. I have also noted that some TDI instructors will augment the course with some IANTD materials and many instructors (the good ones) regardless of agency affiliation will (and I think should) teach beyond the minimum standards and expect more than just minimum performance.
I am pretty biased given a technical diving back ground, but as a diver originlly certed by PADI in 1985, my impression is that PADI started seriously dumbing down the OW and AOW courses in the late 1980's and 1990's to make diving more accessible to a much larger potential market to support what has primarily become a travel based dive industry. A shift that also occurred with this move was more reliance on dive masters. To the credit of the dive industry they have kept accident rates low, but it has come at the expense of OW and AOW divers no longer being truly independent and capable of planning and conducting divers to the limits of their certs without a DM being around.
-----
As for nitrox being "safer" that really depends on the profiles, the gas consumption and to some extent the responsibility of the diver.
If a diver is gas limited where they run out of available gas before they run out of time remaining on the NDL, then yes, nitrox will have them surfacing with their tissues less saturated and it is arguably safer in terms of DCS risk.
However, if the limit is bottom time, and nitrox just extends that bottom time with the diver surfacing with a longer NDL but with similarly saturated tissues after the longer bottom time, then it is at best a wash.
And nitrox does carry with it increased risk of oxygen toxicity and it requires discipline in terms of respecting the MOD, monitoring depth, analyzing the gas, etc.
Both as a diver and an Instructor I was impressed with SSI Tech Courses. It was nice to see both dive software and the manual calculations both taught.
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I have both the TDI and Padi courses (nitrox and trimix), both are good (and in true Padi fashion, Padi’s come with fancy video's....). I haven’t reviewed IANTD's or Naui's course or material but I suspect they too are put together ok.
All this doesn’t mean anything however unless you have a good instructor. Any one of the organisations listed above are only as good as the individual teaching the course. Tec instruction in comparison to basic diving instruction is still comparatively in its infancy, and is still developing all the time (see my post on ratio deco... this is relatively cutting edge stuff that’s fairly new to us all and the jury is still out on some of it). Finding an instructor who is up to date with the industry, goes the extra mile with all the latest developments, and who has a lot of first hand tech experience is what makes the difference. (DA Aquamaster- you hit the nail on the head with this in finding instructors “who will teach beyond the minimum standard”, this is so important).
Ask around in your area. And if you can’t find one... well you’ll have to do as I do.... Suck up the cost, ship all your gear, jump on a plane and go to where the best instructors are.
Personally, I’m a firm believer that there is no better way to keep yourself safe than too have a firm foundation in tech diving from the beginning and build on those skills over time.
It’s the whole “train hard, dive easy” mentality. (a good instructor and organisation should encourage this).
All this doesn’t mean anything however unless you have a good instructor. Any one of the organisations listed above are only as good as the individual teaching the course. Tec instruction in comparison to basic diving instruction is still comparatively in its infancy, and is still developing all the time (see my post on ratio deco... this is relatively cutting edge stuff that’s fairly new to us all and the jury is still out on some of it). Finding an instructor who is up to date with the industry, goes the extra mile with all the latest developments, and who has a lot of first hand tech experience is what makes the difference. (DA Aquamaster- you hit the nail on the head with this in finding instructors “who will teach beyond the minimum standard”, this is so important).
Ask around in your area. And if you can’t find one... well you’ll have to do as I do.... Suck up the cost, ship all your gear, jump on a plane and go to where the best instructors are.
Personally, I’m a firm believer that there is no better way to keep yourself safe than too have a firm foundation in tech diving from the beginning and build on those skills over time.
It’s the whole “train hard, dive easy” mentality. (a good instructor and organisation should encourage this).
Here is a short list of some agencies that provide real and reputable certification, for the most part:
Proffesional Asociation of Diving Instructors (PADI)
National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI)
Association of Nitrox Divers International (ANDI)
Technical Diving International (TDI) / Scuba Diving International (SDI)
Scuba Educator International (SEI)
International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD)
Find a shop with one of these agencies and you should be ok.
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