Is certification necessary for shallow water diving?

[Miyaru]

Hi @Miyaru

Very interesting automated self-pay fill station. Air only or stock nitrox fills? Do you designate fill pressure 200/232/300 bar? How much does it cost?

Thanks

The fill whips have DIN connectors, which prevents filling a 232bar tank with a 300bar whip. Most stations only do 232bar, only a couple do also 300bar. The bank inside the container is 300bar, you can check the bank pressure on a gauge near the fill whip.
Filling aluminum tanks (hardly used by recreational divers, 99% is steel) means stopping at 207bar - you have to keep an eye on it yourself.

The payment mechanism works with euro coins - 50 cents, 1 euro and 2 euro coins.
Each coin opens a solenoid for a preset amount of time. I'm not sure what the cost is now, 3 years ago filling a 12 liter cylinder was around 2 to 3 euro.

It's an excellent service at dive sites that are far away from a dive center. On busy summerdays, there's often a queue of divers filling their cylinders in between dives. On really busy days you might have to be patient while the banks are filling.

All of these stations have electronics that report the status back to the owners. Once a filter has reached the amount of hours, or the humidity goes above a setpoint, the station shuts down.

 

[34109411]

very interesting. i wonder if anyone knows of anything similar in canada or the usa? i would be shocked if there was.

i am diving in a popular diving area in Ontario never saw that.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

If certification is necessary to go diving, then how did so many folks on this thread and on this board go diving prior to certification?

It's because certification is not necessary to go diving.....

 

[34109411]

View attachment 831569

1. connect cylinder
2. open whip, open valve
3. insert coins

don't show this to GUE they will freak out

 

[Billg68bg]

@ballsie I tired golf once and it wasnt for me. I will stick to scuba. Welcome to the board!

I like golf. I suck at it, but I like it.

 

[USdiver1]

Back in the 1980s I was living in Honduras and due to the commercial harvesting of fish, lobster, conch and crabs there was a huge population of untrained, uncertified divers [especially in the Mosquitia]. Several of these divers were getting paralyzing DCS hits every year. As a public service I and a friend would read chapters of diving training manuals [The New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving as well as the PADI Open Water Manual] in both Spanish and English on a public access radio station on Sunday evenings. I think that the topics on diving physics and physiology were the really necessary aspects of our program. Whether or not it helped reduce DCS I don't know.

That said, have I dived with uncertified individuals? Yes, some were strokes and some were excellent divers. However, that was then, and now 40 years later, I really can't find an excuse for someone diving without receiving at the minimum, basic training/certification.

 

[34109411]

Back in the 1980s I was living in Honduras and due to the commercial harvesting of fish, lobster, conch and crabs there was a huge population of untrained, uncertified divers [especially in the Mosquitia]. Several of these divers were getting paralyzing DCS hits every year. As a public service I and a friend would read chapters of diving training manuals [The New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving as well as the PADI Open Water Manual] in both Spanish and English on a public access radio station on Sunday evenings. I think that the topics on diving physics and physiology were the really necessary aspects of our program. Whether or not it helped reduce DCS I don't know.

That said, have I dived with uncertified individuals? Yes, some were strokes and some were excellent divers. However, that was then, and now 40 years later, I really can't find an excuse for someone diving without receiving at the minimum, basic training/certification.

wow great experience you had in honduras, i totally agree with you for the last part.

 

[OMyMyOHellYes]

Back in the 1980s I was living in Honduras and due to the commercial harvesting of fish, lobster, conch and crabs there was a huge population of untrained, uncertified divers [especially in the Mosquitia]. Several of these divers were getting paralyzing DCS hits every year. As a public service I and a friend would read chapters of diving training manuals [The New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving as well as the PADI Open Water Manual] in both Spanish and English on a public access radio station on Sunday evenings. I think that the topics on diving physics and physiology were the really necessary aspects of our program. Whether or not it helped reduce DCS I don't know.

Last year, was told by knowledgable, local, long-time dive training professional on RTB that lopster divers are still very much at it: dive all day, going really deep as the bugs aren't at the surface, with the same results.

 

[rick00001967]

If you didn't read the instructions, it's not the fill-station owner's fault.
If you didn't follow the instructions, it's not the fill-station owner's fault.

So theoretically, a diver breaks these rules and fills a dodgy cylinder. The valve bursts out of the cylinder, damaging the fill station and the cylinder shoots away, going through a parked car, and killing an innocent bystander as a bonus.

How is the operator of that fill station responsible? The guilty person is the idiot who broke the rules.

hey i am on your side. i agree.
i am just sayin that in my world, if some uncertified diver was given access to breathing gas, and something goes wrong, they will find a way to sue the person or company that gave them access to that gas.
they might win, they might not win, but they will def get sued.

 

[Bigbella]

@tursiops Yes I totally get that, but does someone need to go through training and pay someone to tell them, “Don’t hold your breath.”?

Considering that the mammalian diving reflex / autonomic nervous system kicks in and "encourages" breath-holding upon immersion, through bradycardia and even involuntary apnea in cooler water (below only about 20˚ C and an odd safety issue for FFM use); that regular breathing on scuba, is not in the least bit intuitive to a newcomer; and that a fatal embolism is possible in just over two meters of water, the answer is yes . . .