Padi/ Bsac

[Custer]

Custer once bubbled...

sheck33 once bubbled...

quote:

'Conversely I could say that if it took 3 months of pool sessions for you to become proficient in what the vast majority of the world's divers do in far less time, I'm sure I wouldn't want to dive with you, either'

the vast majority of divers rushing through the 2 day class are not proficient. and if someone takes months to become proficient you dont dive with them you only dive with the proficient divers that learned fast?
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You could train a monkey to dive if he could clear his ears. It's just not that hard. For most of us, that is.

sheck33 once bubbled...

quote:

'But no statistics come close to bearing you out. PADI alone certified two. hundred. thousand. divers last year, and only thirty divers died in the U.S. and Canada, of ALL causes and agencies, in their first year of diving.
This simply proves that whatever practices in place at this time must be sufficiently safe for the average diver.
Optimum? Premium? No. But sufficient.

this doesnt prove anything. do your statistics take into account the fact that from the 1000's of divers certified by PADI a great many never dive again after certification? i personally know at least 10 people that havent been in the water since they got certified. how about all the incidents or to use the term 'near accidents' go unreported? or is your definition of sufficiently safe equivalent to 'a diver is a safe diver as long as they dont actually kill themselves?
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It doesn't take into account all the divers PADI doesn't train, or that die in their tenth year of diving, either.

The numbers just don't bear out your anecdotal opinion.

And yes, my definition of "sufficiently safe" is a diver who survives.

If today's training standards were unsafe, you'd have evidence of it.

And you don't.

 

[diverbrian]

I am not a three day wonder. I took a five week course for my pool (one session per week) and burnt up quite a bit of my vacation at work doing that. Then my open water weekend was a different course.

Sorry, Dr. Steve, with due respect to your, if you feel that divers need to be Dive Control Specialists to dive on their own, that is fine. Most United States based divers do not believe that way. The regimen that you describe and that the Navy puts their divers through kept me out of diving for about fifteen years because I thought (In my rookie mind) that THOSE WERE the standards to think about calling yourself even close to a diver.

I discovered that like, some of the people here have said, I don't care who trained you. You need bottom time to be a good diver. There is no comparison to the diver that I was out of open water last July and now. I have the C-Cards and have never had to flash them (except when I need to read my C-Card numbers for air fills). Charter captains see me set up my gear and don't ask about my experience. They watch me in the water for five minutes or less and leave me alone.

That would have happened a year ago, too. Why? I dove within my experience at the time. I have terrible buoyancy control during open water training, but it magically improved on my very first open water dive after training. The LDS owner was watching me because he had heard the horror stories and laughed because he thought that his instructor was lying to him. But, I knew that I had to start diving with more experienced buddies and learn from them. I could function in an emergency even during the horror stories of my OW weekend, but I "learned the ropes" from more experienced buddies. Then, I extended my limits based on what they and instructors/ DiveCons thought of my diving ability. I have passed more than a few of those buddies by simply diving 100 or more times a year while they get in about twenty dives/year.

Bottom line, to each their own. If you seek out a course that wants you to be a cave diver, Dive leader, or Navy diver prior to trusting you in the open water, that is certainly safer. The problem is that most of us aren't going to spend the time to take that kind of course and will look for the C-Card that best suits us. That may be a "quickie" PADI course, a moderate length course like mine, a slightly more intensive course like Mike F. teaches, or a BSAC course like Dr. Steve seems to prefer. They are all out there, and nothing will change that. Let's all meet under the water and at least we can't argue without using inappropriate hand signals down there.

 

[bermudaskink]

I am not sure how someone can do a PADI OW in just 2 days. There are 5 confined water sessions to do (each take a couple of hours depending on how many students you have), and 4 OW dives, knowledge reviews to complete, manual to read, videos to watch, exams and quizzes to take and lunch to eat ). I have not seen a dive center offering the OW course in less that 4 days!

But anyway, this is still a lot faster than BSAC's novice diver course. However, BSAC don't teach every day on a 9-5 basis. You go once or twice a week usually for 2-4 hours after work or on the weekends. You don't really have the option to do it all in one big chunk like you can PADI as far as I know. But for some people that suits them better than the PADI course so that's cool.

My main disagreement with sheck33 and others is what kind of diving is the PADI OW "NOT" proficient for?

I think for going diving in tropical waters, in good conditions. PADI OW is absolutely fine. With or without being guided and supervised by an instructor or divemaster.

How many times do I need bring up "personal limitations" ??

I don't like the idea of driving a car and crashing into someone else being similar to our discussion on this topic. How can you seriuously endanger anyone else while diving unless you do so on purpose. Everyone is taught to number 1) look after themselves 2) watch out for their buddy. A novice diver can't smash into you and get you sent off to hospital like they could if they drove a car into you.

So we come right back to what's been said already. It depends what you want from your certification and what you intend to do diving wise after you are certified. But you just can't say that PADI courses suck and expect me to let that go.

It took me a while to figure out what I thought about PADI before I chose to become an instructor, I was concerned about the reputation they had. I didn't want to get too wrapped up in the "put another dollar in" scheme, but at the end of the day I realised that it's not PADI that are charging outrageous prices for courses it's dive centers. The courses themsleves are great for most novice divers needs, and if taught by good instructors are just as proficient as any other course if not more so, because the teaching materials PADI offer are second to none.

Many people I have spoken to or taught PADI courses to, originally dropped out of the BSAC course because they were sick and tired of sitting in a pool for so long and just wanted to get out there and dive. Many people I know complain about BSAC being overly restrictive for the type of diving they want to do.

so... IMO, For MOST diving - you don't need a BSAC (or other rigourous type) certification to proficiently dive. For MOST diving, PADI (or other similar type i.e Naui) is fine. It's up to the individual diver to get more training and experience if he or she thinks they need it.

That's all from me - I'm going to go start a new thread somewhere soon cos I am sick of this one - we just keep going round and round.


Maybe I'll start a poll asking if anyone has ever fallen asleep while diving or had sex while diving?

 

[Custer]

bermudaskink once bubbled...
I am not sure how someone can do a PADI OW in just 2 days. There are 5 confined water sessions to do (each take a couple of hours depending on how many students you have), and 4 OW dives, knowledge reviews to complete, manual to read, videos to watch, exams and quizzes to take and lunch to eat ). I have not seen a dive center offering the OW course in less that 4 days!

I was talking 2 days of pool sessions, and one of the exited turned that into 2 days of certification. I learned to dive on a Friday night, Sat, Sun, Mon.

bermudaskink once bubbled...
Maybe I'll start a poll asking if anyone has ever fallen asleep while diving or had sex while diving?

Oughta start a poll on how many people have fallen asleep during BSAC pool sessions.

From what I gather, all BSAC divers "have sex" while getting trained...

 

[bermudaskink]

thanks to everyone though for this debate - I have thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot

Custer, diverbrian and divemed06 - you rock!

Catch you on some other threads maybe............:mean:

 

[DrSteve]

Custer mumbled:
Conversely I could say that if it took 3 months of pool sessions for you to become proficient in what the vast majority of the world's divers do in far less time, I'm sure I wouldn't want to dive with you, either.

Ah! You think BSAC training is just clearing your mask? Here's the syllabus for a novice diver - this qualification allows you the chance to dive in open water with a dive leader (dive con/dive master etc.,):
The class room time:
intro to branch training and dive traiing
basic equipment
signals
causes and effects of pressure
theory of aqualung
Human life support
Buoyancy devices
Diver rescue
Safe Diving
Diving suits
equipment care and storage
dry suit diving
planning a dive

Pool time:
swim check (100m any stroke with 4lb weight)
snorkelling
aqualung skills I-III (breathing, clearing etc.,)
breath hold diving
BC skills
Rescue skills 1

For the sports diver this includes:
Diver rescue in open water from at least 30 feet assuming completely unconscious diver
underwater navigation
N2 absorption, gas toxicity
decompression tables and deco diving
air requirements

To further qualify for SD you need 10 open water dives from 5 different sites each lasting no less than 15 minutes, with total for the 10 dives not to be less than 3 hours. Dives should show skills from 5 of the following areas: shore dive/small boat dive/fresh water/moving water (greater than 1 knott current)/sea water/visibility less than 6 feet/cold water less than 10C/dive to 75 feet or deeper.

Wow...imagine doing all of that in 2 days! Oh and medicals are required as well to include a chest X-ray every 5 years for divers under 30 and more frequently for older divers.

And no I still wouldn't dive with you. In fact as of now I won't even comment on your responses. Eventually I lose interest in people like you.

 

[Custer]

DrSteve once bubbled...
Custer mumbled:
Conversely I could say that if it took 3 months of pool sessions for you to become proficient in what the vast majority of the world's divers do in far less time, I'm sure I wouldn't want to dive with you, either.

Ah! You think BSAC training is just clearing your mask? Here's the syllabus for a novice diver - this qualification allows you the chance to dive in open water with a dive leader (dive con/dive master etc.,):
The class room time:
intro to branch training and dive traiing
basic equipment
signals
causes and effects of pressure
theory of aqualung
Human life support
Buoyancy devices
Diver rescue
Safe Diving
Diving suits
equipment care and storage
dry suit diving
planning a dive

Pool time:
swim check (100m any stroke with 4lb weight)
snorkelling
aqualung skills I-III (breathing, clearing etc.,)
breath hold diving
BC skills
Rescue skills 1

For the sports diver this includes:
Diver rescue in open water from at least 30 feet assuming completely unconscious diver
underwater navigation
N2 absorption, gas toxicity
decompression tables and deco diving
air requirements

To further qualify for SD you need 10 open water dives from 5 different sites each lasting no less than 15 minutes, with total for the 10 dives not to be less than 3 hours. Dives should show skills from 5 of the following areas: shore dive/small boat dive/fresh water/moving water (greater than 1 knott current)/sea water/visibility less than 6 feet/cold water less than 10C/dive to 75 feet or deeper.

Wow...imagine doing all of that in 2 days! Oh and medicals are required as well to include a chest X-ray every 5 years for divers under 30 and more frequently for older divers.

And no I still wouldn't dive with you. In fact as of now I won't even comment on your responses. Eventually I lose interest in people like you.

I can see why, when each post you make furthers my point by an order of magnitude.

I'll try not to be all broken up because you won't dive with me, but I may have to kick the dogs.

Any PADI or NAUI instructors wanna guess how many thousands of dollars the above list would cost a student diver?

;-)

 

[DrSteve]

Custer:
Any PADI or NAUI instructors wanna guess how many thousands of dollars the above list would cost a student diver?

That's the first thing I think we can both really agree on. It won't happen because the system here is not geared for it.

Someone also asked how you being unsafe can harm someone else. There was a thread about getting narced and how one diver swam down to 200+ feet to rescue a narced buddy. We all know O2 toxicity could be a real problem, plus of course sucking more air presumably at the end of a dive when your air is already getting low. That is an example of how you can put someone else at risk.

 

[Custer]

DrSteve once bubbled...
Custer:
Any PADI or NAUI instructors wanna guess how many thousands of dollars the above list would cost a student diver?

That's the first thing I think we can both really agree on. It won't happen because the system here is not geared for it.

Someone also asked how you being unsafe can harm someone else. There was a thread about getting narced and how one diver swam down to 200+ feet to rescue a narced buddy. We all know O2 toxicity could be a real problem, plus of course sucking more air presumably at the end of a dive when your air is already getting low. That is an example of how you can put someone else at risk.

It's not that the system isn't geared for it, it's because it's unnecessarily restrictive and Americans wouldn't stand for it.

And an OW diver has no business doing rescues at 200 ft. While I didn't read that thread to assess it's accuracy, it's still an example of you offering anecdotes that statistics prove invalid.

 

[DrSteve]

That kind of answer is why I would never dive with you Custer. What started out as a serious discussion as degenerated. I am fed up of you calling into question every "anecdote" I relate. The information is out there and if you use the search function of scubaboard I am sure you will find it. The very diver who did the rescue at 200 feet is on this scuba board. I forget the exact thread but it was within the last 2 weeks and was either basic scuba discussions or deco discussing narcs. You search for it.

So what would you do? You lose track of your buddy and watch them swimming down a wall. What do you do? This isn't a "more than my jobs worth" situation it is a life or death situation. You can let them sink and know they will die (going deeper won't help your narcing buddy), surface and get the DM, (xcept by that point poor buddy is dead of O2 poisoning but was mercifully unaware due to being narced off his gourd) or try and rescue them yourself until such point as you deem that you are putting yourself at too greater risk.