How about this?? Nitrox c-card without a single checkout dive

[teknitroxdiver]

What is the exact difference? I would want to know that first...

 

[HowardE]

MB - you quoted me in your long response... I suppose even though you said that you look for certain skills (which I was supposing all along that perhaps PADI instructors are told to observe on the checkout dive) and you review or teach new OW skills that divers should have. However, I would say that the point of this thread is that you don't absolutely need to do a checkout dive for a nitrox card, and my point about nothing is learned (about diving with nitrox in a technical sense) on the nitrox checkout dive would still be vaild.

Let me also state for the record. I did the 2 required dives in my PADI Nitrox Cert.

 

[Land Locked]

My instruction in Nitrox was b*****ackwards.
I performed my 2 check out dives before ANY classwork, I just read the
manual. The instructor was not even there for the dives, I did the classwork
and test 1 week later. The instructor paired me with another diver that had
taken the classwork and exam, told us to go perform our 2 dives while he worked
on some o/w dive certifications. When we completed our dives, I asked the other
diver about his p02 and he had no idea.....I asked the instructor to review our dives
and he was too busy working on the o/w classes paper work.
When I did take the classwork and exam, I asked the instructor about the RGBM
tables, he said he had not studied them!
On a side note, I did find 2 miss-prints in the agencies training manual.

 

[JoeFL]

...I have read the manuals and watched the videos, yet every dive shop I have been to will not just give me the cert for passing an exam and it does not cost any more to do the dives. So the "milk you for more money" aguement is moot.

I've never heard of free dives from a dive shop before

 

[gjmmotors]

Personally I think the two dives are useless for learning nitrox. There is absoulately nothing I can teach you about basic nitrox while diving that you havent already learned in the book. However, if you are doing the dives with an experienced instructor whos to say you cant badger the instructor with questions or perhaps learn something other than what you went there to do. Maybe somethign that wasnt in the manual. Ask about deco, ask about other gasses, ask about dives you want to do that the instructor may have already done, any type of dive related question. The whole day isnt about nitrox, make the most of it. During my classes ill field any type of questions about diving. Use your instructor, thats what were here for.
-gm

 

[Rick Murchison]

If you believe that a "dive" is just that part of the process from the time you hit the water until the time you get out... then I suppose there is some reasoning in "no difference."
But to me a "dive" begins with the decision to go and doesn't end until completion of the debrief and logbook entries afterward - and to me there are enough differences and enough lessons to be learned by actually doing the dives to make them worthwhile.
I require two dives in my Nitrox course.
I make big bucks on those dives too! Why sometimes I almost break even But it hasn't happened yet.
Rick

 

[Land Locked]

Rick, wish you had been my instructor!
I have a personality that requires a by the book, and beyond the book
knowledge of what I'm doing. Some call it an obsessive nit picking. But
if I'm going to do something I want to do it right! I felt short changed
on the instruction I received!

 

[Don Burke]

If you believe that a "dive" is just that part of the process from the time you hit the water until the time you get out... then I suppose there is some reasoning in "no difference."
But to me a "dive" begins with the decision to go and doesn't end until completion of the debrief and logbook entries afterward - and to me there are enough differences and enough lessons to be learned by actually doing the dives to make them worthwhile.
I require two dives in my Nitrox course.
I make big bucks on those dives too! Why sometimes I almost break even But it hasn't happened yet.
Rick

It sounds like you could provide more value and make more money by having the students analyze ten cylinders and plan and log ten "paper" dives.

That would appear to be a "win-win".

 

[Land Locked]

It sounds like you could provide more value and make more money by having the students analyze ten cylinders and plan and log ten "paper" dives.

That would appear to be a "win-win".

That was the attitude of my ow/aow instructor, then do the dives.
He was a stickler for prefection, and I appreciated his instruction.
Above and beyond is the mark of a GOOD instructor, a teacher, not
just a go and do this attitude!

 

[MagnaRyder2]

http://www.coralspringsscuba.com/tdi_tech/tek_n2o2_door.htm

This is unbelievable

I took my Nitrox cert through our local SSI training center.
For $125, I got a two hour lecture, a review of the actual test,
(you can take notes as we review), a sales pitch for buying waterproof
Nitrox table cards, and a diet Coke.
I didn't have to take the test -- I turned in my notes from the review.
Got 100% right, too.

I got more out of reading the SSI manual before the class than I did
from the class.

I also questioned the lack of required dives, but I did also recognize that it is
mostly theory, and enforcement of the old "Plan the dive -- dive the plan"
attitude. But, to give me the answers to the test along with no dives makes
me feel more like I've been ripped off.