Not allowed on a boat because of your dive agency card?

[Jaydubya]

It's nothing to do with boats but PADI (and perhaps some other recreational agency) Cavern cards are not always accepted for cavern diving or to meet the prereqs for some Intro to Cave courses.

 

[azchipka]

I have been denied at a few locations due to the agency that issued the card. This occurs most commonly when the person checking the card have not heard of the agency.

I have also denied cards myself due to the agency that issued the card being one i never heard of.

If the card is laminated and looks like it was made at home I will deny it unless I can contact the certification agency for verification.
If the agency has no website and no contact information for verification I will deny it.
If the picture on the card does not match what you look like and you have no other photo ID I will deny it.

A instructor friend of mine actually made his own cards at home with absolutely insane certification titles like Underwater Manatee Hunter just to see how many shops would take it. He has only been denied a couple of times.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Some agencies do not put pictures on cards. My YMCA, SEI, CMAS, and NAUI cards do not have pictures. If it's a card I do not recognize it's easy enough to just ask a few questions and see them in the water once -even if it;s a swimming pool - to know if they are a diver. When I was sending out emails to familiarize the dive world with SEI I received a number of comments about strange cards - especially from Europe - showing up. A few of those comments came from shops in the Keys. All they did was a short interview and checkout dive. Verifying via website is also not always possible with some CMAS certs, SEI also does not yet have it, and just the time differences when a phone call would find no one in the office. I'd say that most agencies also do not have online verification of individual divers. Some of the bigger ones do but that also does not mean the person just verified as having a card knows how to dive.

Best thing to do when you run into this is find another op, boat, or shop. If they are not able to determine if someone is a diver within 15 minutes of questioning or in the water observation you don't want to use them anyway.

 

[Thalassamania]

Jim understands reality and azchipka would do well to learn from his approach. Actually, I have been using my cardboard, laminated, University of California Research Diver card (expired on 1 November 1974 to boot) since I received it and have never had a single problem with boat access, tank fills, etc.

 

[fisheater]

I have been using my cardboard, laminated, University of California Research Diver card (expired on 1 November 1974 to boot) since I received it and have never had a single problem with boat access, tank fills, etc.

Naturally. Who's gonna mess with a grizzly ole Bear?

 

[Akimbo]

Some agencies do not put pictures on cards. My YMCA, SEI, CMAS, and NAUI cards do not have pictures. ....

NAUI will now put photos on replacement cards. I am not sure if it is normal for newly issued cards.

https://www.naui.org/replace_lost_card.aspx

 

[Vassilis Vlachopoulos]

I carry my trimix card. Had a guy in Bonaire question whether or not it was good for a nitrox fill, so I told him to just give me trimix without any helium in it. He thought about it for about a second and busted up laughing ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I've got a good one too : Once on a liveaboard in the Red Sea my tec (TDI Deco procedures) card was refused. They wanted an AOW. I suggested, as an alternative, my Advanced Nitrox (IANTD). It was accepted, on one condition : I should / could ONLY dive with Nitrox, throughout the liveaboard (plain air was not good enough for me ...). Luckily, all dives were shallow !

 

[Gilldiver]

Naui Scuba Diver is equal to Padi OW Diver. PADI Scuba diver is equal to Naui passport diver. So yes, Mr Johnson will be able to dive anywhere, and I'm sure he did in over 30 years of being a diver.

I only have 4 certs, my original "SCUBA Diver" from 1979, A NITROX card from January or February 1993 (it was the first NITROX class held in CT, perhaps in New England), My Advanced Diver from 1995, and My TDI tri-mix from 2008. I did my first tri-mix dives in the summer of 93. I just was in a place and time where there was a lot of advancement in the first use of non-air gasses and the groups of wreck divers I dove with were doing this stuff before there was certification for it. It was only many years later when, as a traveling diver, I was having problems getting fills etc. in an area that I did not know or didn't know me. On just about all of these occasions It was a quick talk, and perhaps a reference to some other diver that was a mutual acquaintance got me the dive, but sooner or later I figured I just had to spend the $$ to get the card.

Oh, I do have a 5th card, my DAN card that says I joined in 1986 with a member number under 1200. Dan Orr got me to sign up at about 2AM in the Sea Rovers party suite after god knows how many beers, at the time DAN stood for Divers Accident Network, not Diver Alert Network.

 

[drbill]

The first time I used SCUBA (winter of 1961-62) NAUI was just a few months old and PADI wouldn't be formed for another 4-5 years. We didn't realize anyone had to be certified to dive. If we did, where would we go in the depths of the Midwest? It wasn't until 1969 when I moved to Catalina that I discovered I had to be certified and went with L.A. County because it had the best program in SoCal. If you really want good training, try the ADP (Advanced Diver Program). Since my original LAC c-card was paper, I only carry a color xerox copy of it when I travel.

 

[MDJ]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I would tend to think that the main advantage to having the same cert from different agencies would be gaining exposure to the different teaching methods from different agencies. I believe, but can't swear to it, that when I finished my OW cert in MX, the folks I was diving with would let you get two cert cards at the same time if you passed the tests for both agencies, I.E. SSI and a PADI cert. I didn't do it, but in retrospect, if it really was an option and not something I made up in my own little head, I probably would have, just for the heck of it.

Kristopher

I originally went throught the Y boot camp course in college but the OW dives got postponed a semester and I never got my certification. Later I went through the PADi course and the shop manager was a NAUI instructor. At the end we took both tests and got both certifications. I'm still more proud of my Y accomplishments though.