Al Mialkovsky:
Pay And Dive Instantly right?
No, that's not what I meant... I'm actually defending PADI here...
What I meant was, if you boil it down, is there a bottom-line requirement that a person go through classroom and pool instruction (and have proof of that), in order to get certified? Say for instance an old-time diver had been diving his whole life without a C-card... learned on his own how to do it right (doh, did I just say that?)... was getting air fills, etc... and now wanted a C-card for whatever reason. Could he walk into an agency (say, to you at SSI), just do the exam and the OW dives, and get certified?
Or, in our case, could a new student diligently do their classroom and pool work with SSI, and just show up out of the blue at a PADI facility... and get certified by just passing the exam and the OW dives?
Al Mialkovsky:
I just did a UR for 2 Naui students, they are getting Naui cards as they should. It would be so easy to just send in for SSI cards wouldn't it? But I'm not shady
OK, but NAUI and SSI are "founding members" of the URP, and the reciprocity is I'm sure much better. That's what "should" happen, because those agencies have agreed from the beginning to do that.
It's different with PADI... PADI has only agreed to join URP sort of halfway... they
allow (don't require) their instructors to conduct URP OW dives, and apparently
allow (don't require) those instructors to issue temporary cards -- even if the PADI instructor isn't certifying the diver.
I agree with you (I'm sure) that PADI's allowance of the URP is probably a smart marketing move on their part... their instructors get the opportunity to make money on the OW dives, and also the opportunity to try to cross a student over to PADI. But, hey, they're the Big Dog, and they're taking advantage of that. I'm not sure there's anything evil or dishonest about that.
Look, if all
we needed were the OW certification dives, it would be very easy for us (
very easy!) to save the hassle of taking the PADI exam and the 50-Euro PADI certification fee by having our SSI facility do the cert when we get home. And the PADI facility in Egypt would let me do that. But I certainly understand their position, not wanting to issue a temporary card when they're not certifying our daughter. Would you?
So tell me... I obviously don't understand the inner-workings of instructing... what loss is it to you if PADI "steals" the certification away from you? You still get paid for the instruction. How significant is chalking up the actual cert? And why couldn't a student come back to you even with their PADI cert, and get an SSI cert from you? They will have already paid for it... or not?
--Marek