Is dive certification really necessary?

[TMHeimer]

My buoyancy was all messed up when I started diving a wetsuit. All of my dives had been warm water and my first wetsuit dive was a 7mm and I was overweighted. I don't think I got decent at diving a wetsuit until about the 4th or 5th dive with it. Based on my first dive with the wetsuit I wouldn't have passed me. And by then I already had a dozen under my belt.

Yes. Once you are properly weighted with good trim, improving buoyancy isn't rocket science. It was probably 4-5 dives for me too, when I wound up hovering to look at something and didn't realize I was doing so. I was taught "on my knees"-- not saying that that was a good thing at all, but for me no big deal since I immediately started diving regularly. In the first year (and later on) you pick up all sorts of other things that just can't fit into a "2 day in the pool" OW course.

 

[60plus]

It depends how intelligent and how much natural aptitude for diving a person has. Some could quite easily teach themselves and go on to be good safe divers. On the other hand there are quite a number with plenty of training and experience who manage to kill themselves.

 

[Celt]

It depends how intelligent and how much natural aptitude for diving a person has. Some could quite easily teach themselves and go on to be good safe divers. On the other hand there are quite a number with plenty of training and experience who manage to kill themselves.

Experience won’t kill you but complacency sure will. My grandmother told me “ if you bring the jug to the well sooner or later you will break it “

 

[AfterDark]

I have to run 22 miles on Saturday morning, wanna come?

MD orders no running 2 fake knees. Who's chasing you?
A 22 mile swim would be an accomplishment also, probably with less wear and tear.

 

[BRT]

Of course impossible to determine. Obviously there is probably a large % of those you see diving in the tropics who dive once or twice a year on dive vacations and don't dive much or at all locally (so I read). Probably you are right in that many of those couldn't do what you mention. A would assume also that close to 100% of those who dive locally and regularly could what you say a year after certification (or whenever they dive).

Agreed.

 

[shoredivr]

My grandmother told me “ if you bring the jug to the well sooner or later you will break it “

Or in the words of Reggae legend Bob Marley “evvery day de bucket go a well, one day de bottom will drop out, yeah”.

Interesting to me how far this concept has travelled.

(Though Eric Clapton gets the most recognition in North America for his cover of the song “I Shot the Sheriff” it was written and performed by Bob Marley and the Wailers years before.)

 

[boulderjohn]

Or in the words of Reggae legend Bob Marley “evvery day de bucket go a well, one day de bottom will drop out, yeah”.

Interesting to me how far this concept has travelled.

(Though Eric Clapton gets the most recognition in North America for his cover of the song “I Shot the Sheriff” it was written and performed by Bob Marley and the Wailers years before.)

IMO, nobody really knows what Bob Marley meant with that line about the bucket.

I just finished watching a 3-hour documentary of Eric Clapton in the 1970s. It was a "warts and all" documentary, covering the good and the bad. After Clapton had the big hit with "I shot the Sheriff," on a following album, one of the band members had the idea of writing a follow-up song that explained all the baffling lines in the original. He wrote the song, creating a backstory, even though he had no idea what it all meant himself. He did not contact any of the Wailers for an explanation. That followup song (the name of which I cannot remember), explained that the bucket in the well was where the Ganja was hidden, and the speaker had no problem with the deputy because the deputy knew that and let it go. The sheriff, on the other hand... The band member (second guitarist) gave Clapton the lyrics, and Clapton wrote the music.

That explanation is a complete fabrication, indicating that no one in Clapton's band, including Clapton, had any idea what any of it meant.

 

[Celt]

Or in the words of Reggae legend Bob Marley “evvery day de bucket go a well, one day de bottom will drop out, yeah”.

Interesting to me how far this concept has travelled.

(Though Eric Clapton gets the most recognition in North America for his cover of the song “I Shot the Sheriff” it was written and performed by Bob Marley and the Wailers years before.)

The careless person brought the jug instead of the bucket and risked breaking it.

 

[Cdncoldwater]

I have mixed feelings on this. I have taken a few (less than 12) courses and have had some very good instructors. I’ve dove with people (dive trip) who had 3 times the dives I had but half the skills/ability my newly certified son (10 dives) did. I definitely think the instructor makes a difference and the conditions you learn in; we have cold water and low visibility so maybe we “learn” differently. My son didn’t take a dry suit course, I gave him my book and ran him through the skills in a controlled area followed by open water. Do you need to be certified, I don’t know but self taught gives no opportunity for a critic.

 

[lermontov]

IMO, nobody really knows what Bob Marley meant with that line about the bucket.

I just finished watching a 3-hour documentary of Eric Clapton in the 1970s. It was a "warts and all" documentary, covering the good and the bad. After Clapton had the big hit with "I shot the Sheriff," on a following album, one of the band members had the idea of writing a follow-up song that explained all the baffling lines in the original. He wrote the song, creating a backstory, even though he had no idea what it all meant himself. He did not contact any of the Wailers for an explanation. That followup song (the name of which I cannot remember), explained that the bucket in the well was where the Ganja was hidden, and the speaker had no problem with the deputy because the deputy knew that and let it go. The sheriff, on the other hand... The band member (second guitarist) gave Clapton the lyrics, and Clapton wrote the music.

That explanation is a complete fabrication, indicating that no one in Clapton's band, including Clapton, had any idea what any of it meant.

all threads eventually lead to the pub