Open water cert in a pool?

[RJP]

Qualifying someone to dive in a non moving high visibility 5m pool would turn out open water divers only safe to dive in that swimming pool.

Quite right, particularly if you followed the prudent direction to "always dive within the limits of your experience and training."

If your experience and training is limited to pools - even large ones - by definition you couldn't be an "open water" diver.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm not suggesting anything just giving an opinion. With no nearby dive sites how many times a year on average does the average Colorado diver dive and where. Where are "open water" checkouts done?
I would guess not as often as those who live in coastal states or near the Great Lakes.
The the thread is about certification without an "open water" dive. The definition of "open water" is different to different people on this thread. Some feel "open water" should be the ocean, other say a quarry or a river or a pond is "open water". Until the industry has a definition of what "open water" is comprised of such as depth, visibility, temperature, current, marine life, surface conditions, etc than a pool is as good as anything.

In states like Colorado, we have the following options for OW checkout dives:

1. In the summer, you can go to a handul of lakes with very poor visibility. This is true "open water," but I am not sure if it has any advantage over a large pool setting.

2. Drive a number of hours year-round to either of the two pool-like sites mentioned earlier. Vast numbers of new divers are trained that way--I am schedule to take a group to one of them in a couple of weeks.

3. Go on a short LDS-sponsored trip to complete the training. Our LDS goes to Key Largo a number of times per year. This is a very good option, but it is more expensive than the other choices because of flight costs.

4. Do a referral. Do the class and CW portions of the class with the LDS and then do the OW while on vacation at some resort somewhere. I don't have the figures, but I suspect that is the most popular choice.

Where do Colorado divers go for their diving? I can only speak for myself. It's in my profile.

 

[JessH]

Here in central Texas a lot of shops don't want to go to the lakes for the open water dives when the lake temp gets down into the 50s and 60s. Instead they go to the training area at Aquarene Springs. It is only about 20ft deep and the water is crystal clear (it is a naturally fed spring). Only thing really open water about it is that it has fish My girlfriend just got certified in these conditions(PADI). I do think that more should be required, but she will be getting plenty of open water experience on our upcoming trip to cozumel, and she will have her very own dive master(me) so I am okay with it. It is going to be interesting in the summer when I finally get her into our lakes. It will be a totally different experience to say the least.

On the other end of the spectrum I know of one local dive shop that doesn't have a pool so they do their pool dives out at the lake. This shop is SSI, don't know what their standards are but doing your pool dives in a cold lake with very low vis sounds like a bad idea to me.

~Jess

 

[captain]

In states like Colorado, we have the following options for OW checkout dives:

1. In the summer, you can go to a handul of lakes with very poor visibility. This is true "open water," but I am not sure if it has any advantage over a large pool setting.

2. Drive a number of hours year-round to either of the two pool-like sites mentioned earlier. Vast numbers of new divers are trained that way--I am schedule to take a group to one of them in a couple of weeks.

3. Go on a short LDS-sponsored trip to complete the training. Our LDS goes to Key Largo a number of times per year. This is a very good option, but it is more expensive than the other choices because of flight costs.

4. Do a referral. Do the class and CW portions of the class with the LDS and then do the OW while on vacation at some resort somewhere. I don't have the figures, but I suspect that is the most popular choice.

Where do Colorado divers go for their diving? I can only speak for myself. It's in my profile.

It's obvious from your profile that you have the freedom both time wise and monertary to dive often and in varied places but many may not be in that situation. I myself with over 40 years of diving have not been to a quarter of the places you have dived. The solution may be similar to #4. Have the certification restricted to similar waters until signed off by an instructor for different waters as the FAA does with pilots who switch aircraft types.

 

[JohnW]

Even being able to do confined water Dives at WEM would be cool(No Pun intended). It would be great exposure for Scuba in General.

I wonder what the water temp is inside the lagoon(without heating it).

 

[boulderjohn]

It's obvious from your profile that you have the freedom both time wise and monertary to dive often and in varied places but many may not be in that situation. I myself with over 40 years of diving have not been to a quarter of the places you have dived. The solution may be similar to #4. Have the certification restricted to similar waters until signed off by an instructor for different waters as the FAA does with pilots who switch aircraft types.

The third and fourth options on my list are clearly the best for the student's learning, but they are also the most expensive. That is why these other far less desirable places exist. That is why dive agencies approve sites that are less than ideal.

 

[boulderjohn]

It's obvious from your profile that you have the freedom both time wise and monertary to dive often and in varied places but many may not be in that situation. I myself with over 40 years of diving have not been to a quarter of the places you have dived. The solution may be similar to #4. Have the certification restricted to similar waters until signed off by an instructor for different waters as the FAA does with pilots who switch aircraft types.

With all the dives I have done and all the places I have been, I have never dived the Pacific Northwest, the California kelp areas, or anywhere on the east coast north of Florida. I have never dived in a river. I have never dived in a quarry. Each of those offers experiences and conditions different from what I have done in the past. Were I to go to these sites, I would certainly make sure that I was diving with someone who knows the ropes and can show me what to do--exactly what the OW instructions tell students to do.

Are you saying that if I wanted to dive in those areas I should instead have to be certified in diving under each of those conditions? Would I get a new card for each certification?

 

[JeffG]

I wonder what the water temp is inside the lagoon(without heating it).

IIRC it was in the mid 60's

 

[captain]

With all the dives I have done and all the places I have been, I have never dived the Pacific Northwest, the California kelp areas, or anywhere on the east coast north of Florida. I have never dived in a river. I have never dived in a quarry. Each of those offers experiences and conditions different from what I have done in the past. Were I to go to these sites, I would certainly make sure that I was diving with someone who knows the ropes and can show me what to do--exactly what the OW instructions tell students to do.

Are you saying that if I wanted to dive in those areas I should instead have to be certified in diving under each of those conditions? Would I get a new card for each certification?

Not a certification just a sign off that you dived a particular type of conditions with an instructor or DM. It would not keep a person from making a dive it would just be signed off in a log of some sort that you did it in those conditions such as limited vis, cold, open ocean. I don't think you would need more catagories than that. Everything else the diver needs to just dive and get experience.

 

[boulderjohn]

Not a certification just a sign off that you dived a particular type of conditions with an instructor or DM. It would not keep a person from making a dive it would just be signed off in a log of some sort that you did it in those conditions such as limited vis, cold, open ocean. I don't think you would need more catagories than that. Everything else the diver needs to just dive and get experience.

Interesting idea. Let me see if I am understanding this right.

It could be a log book page with a list of conditions and a place for an instructor or DM to sign off on next to it. It would have no official, legal status, but would serve primarily as a reminder to the student that all conditions are not created equal.

Some logbooks have pages similar to this in which the diver periodically provides the total experiences for certain kinds of dives, although I have not seen one for this sort of thing. Perhaps in lieu of a signature, which really wouldn't mean much, the diver could occasionally summarize the total experience in each category.