Ok, let me ask this question..... I got certified in 1998, dove frequently the first few years, then not as much as I’d like after I got married. I’m getting back into it now and looking at expanding my skill set. Do I really need to pay for more classes for search & recovery when I can learn the knots online and the lift bag techniques in my local lake? My point is am I just paying for a new C card for skills I can be self taught?
Is dive certification really necessary?
- Thread starter Eric Sedletzky
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MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
What leads you to want to take search and recovery? Do you want to recover something? Is it part of an updated qualification card?
My experience with a search and recovery class was that it was fairly basic at a fun exercise level. A few useful skills and some task loading underwater for new divers.
Taking it from someone that teaches public service divers (police, fire, etc) would be interesting.
I live on a lake, I’ve been diving since 1998 and now have a sweet underwater metal detector. I’m finding stuff for my neighbours who know I dive and constantly drop stuff in the drink. I’d like to be the best at it and feel education is important, but I know the knots and am familiar with lift bags..... found my neighbours wedding ring, lost 4 years ago. I found it in 20 minutes
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There are 33 pages in this thread debating exactly this point... And there is no definite answer which applies to everyone!
What I can say, as a very old diver, is that all this stuff about "speciality courses" is "modern". I made all my career, up to becoming a 3-stars CMAS instructor, and working as a pro for 5 years in tourist resorts, without taking any speciality course. They simply did not exist. It was assumed that, beyond a certain level of training and experience, a diver was capable of diving by night, penetrating wrecks, doing deco dives with multiple deco stops, using CC rebreathers, diving in caves, making UW photos and videos, etc.
All these activities now have specific classes, which simply did not exist 30-40 years ago. This means that I did learn all this stuff outside a formal class. But when people approach very old instructors, as me, they know that we do not need a C-card for proofing our capabilities and previous experiences.
On the other side, current diving courses are much shorter and "light" than what was the standard in the seventies. Hence these additional classes become useful, as the basic training for OW or AOW certification is truly minimal, and further training is highly recommended.
So, while I think that there was no need of these additional classes when the first OW course was lasting 6 months, and was including deco diving, twin tanks, and CC rebreathers, nowadays, being the OW course done over a weekend, one should get as many of these "speciality" classes as he/she can afford, of course focusing on those topics of more interest for him/her.
That's me as of a month ago. I did not learn that much. I did however get a few dives that were nice that I'd have wanted to do anyway, and I did get some practice faffing with lift bags and search patterns that I would not have done by myself as a natural part of my diving. But I've been hanging around here for a long time and done a lot of extracurricular reading, so I'm perhaps not the typical student either.
After OW, you don't really need to pay for more classes ever. You can go out and dive to your heart's content and rack up experience, knowledge, skill, etc. perfectly well on your own and with your dive partners. Unfortunately in the litigious age that we exist in, any commercial type operation will typically not accept your experience without a certification card...
...but have no fear because, for recreational diving, there are very few certifications that you will find you will need:
1. Basic Open Water (named differently by different agencies) - This is the basic cert card that states one has been trained on basic scuba skills. Degree of proficiency upon obtaining the card is dependent on the standards the instructor demands.
2. Advanced Open Water (named differently by different agencies) - This is basically a crap certification as one can typically commence advanced certification training immediately following their basic open water training and while knowledge might increase, skill set development is still dependent on the standards the instructor demands to see prior to handing over the certification card. The thing that Advanced certification permits is for a diver, with a commercial operation, to dive below 18m (60ft)...this is basically the "get out of hassle free" card. Depending on the training agency there may be a depth limit (example: PADI = 30 meters; NAUI = 40 meters).
3. Nitrox - this is actually a good course to take as it offers good info about the gas we breath and the effects on the body. It is only necessary if one is planning to dive with O2 enriched air....if this is not in your plans then don't take the class...you will typically not be able to get a fill without a nitrox certification card....none of this means that you can't learn about this on your own or from a friend...there is nothing voodoo about that a dive instructor is going to share with you as it is completely science driven.
4. Drysuit - this is only necessary if you are going to rent a drysuit somewhere and even then I am not sure if it is necesary...iI would wager that if one were to walk into a dive shop and show a log book full of dives where you recorded that you were sporting a drysuit, what undergarments you wore, and the amount of weight you used, a shop would most likely consider renting one a drysuit...without that or a c-card they probably will not. I did not take a drysuit course, nor did my wife. I have had a read through the PADI course book for drysuit certification well after I started diving dry and there is nothing special in the book that I recall....I will say that if one is not going to take a drysuit course then one really should consider some pool or confined water sessions with someone who has a lot of experience with drysuit diving and can at least make sure you are imparted with basic knowledge of how to properly vent, how to recover from a feet-up buoyant ascent, etc, etc....I happen to have a dive partner who is a BSAC instructor and only dives dry, and he talked me through some drills in the pool to make sure I understood the things I mentioned above and then some. I did pool sessions until I felt my skills with the drysuit were solid enough that I would not kill myself diving outside....and then upon diving outside I made sure I was with folks with lots of experience diving dry to continue gleaning as much info as I could. Learning to dive dry is like learning to dive all over again...be smart about your approach or you can wind up getting seriously hurt/dead.
Other than that, all the other cert cards are optional....when it comes to a rescue situation, nobody gives a rats arse if the rescuer is certified or not...you can certainly learn rescue diving technique on your own....in fact the rescue course I took was a joke...I would report the instructor for some serious standards violations but 1) he does not seem to be teaching, 2) the course was a review of info that I had learned during NAUI Advanced Diver and Master Diver certifications. 3) If I reported him, it probably would have caused my rescue cert to be invalidated but I would probably not have gotten my money back and especially would not have gotten my time back.
One does not need to be UW photo certified to take pictures underwater. Learn how to take pictures well on land, and then read up about the differences that apply to UW photography and then go out and practice.....but seriously, learn to take really good pictures out of the water first. Not much sucks more than looking at someone's crappy UW photos or video because they have no clue what they are doing but they are just chuffed to bits about the fact that they snapped some shots of the underwater world...also nail down your buoyancy before diving with a camera so you are not a danger to yourself. I have a personal policy that I will not dive with anyone sporting a camera, as a client or otherwise until I have assessed their skills in the water....I have "suddenly fallen ill" while dressing out for a dive because one of the people in the group I was in insisted on bringing along a camera....on this particular occasion I happen to bump into some other folks from one of the clubs I am a member of after the group I arrived with entered the water...I miraculously recovered enough from "illness" that I was able to dive with the other group.
If one is going to go beyond recreational diving and start penetrating caves and wrecks, or wants to dive past no-decompression limits then perhaps one should strongly consider formal training. I am not advocating that it is not necessary but even this type of diving is something one can learn outside of formal training but will require some serious self-study...the problem here is that one does not know what they don't know and one can wind up dead very easily....so in my opinion, formal training for this type of diving is probably the way to go...but show up to the training knowledgeable... it is your responsibility to show up with enough knowledge for this type of training to at least evaluate the syllabus for the course against the type of diving you plan to do...if one cannot ascertain that the course contains/covers the correct material then one is probably not ready for this type of training.
Getting back to the original question...for the most part, no, one does not need to pay for more classes, one can definitely develop knowledge and skill outside of certification classes. Just take a look at what I highlighted as caveats above and if they apply to the type of diving you plan on doing then consider taking those classes....if not, then happy bubbles to you.
-Z
Julius SCHMIDT
Contributor
For $400 I did basic not with Padi over 4 days 2 weekends 2 boat dives 3 shore dives pool time accommodation provided at an ocean resort town 100 miles from my house where accom can be 200 per night and girls on the course that become less on the path to the completely boring male dominated deeper diving
I was going to do basic courses there for the rest of my life
I was going to do basic courses there for the rest of my life
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