PADI Courses In Bonaire

[agilulfo]

Hello Robint,

Thank you for the input. Yet more confusing information since this is exactly the opposite of what another instructor told me.

 

[robint]

Hello Robint,

Thank you for the input. Yet more confusing information since this is exactly the opposite of what another instructor told me.

I think that instructor wasn't understanding what he was saying. He as well as my husband are required to teach the materials according to their certifying agency, but they are not told which courses they must teach (in fact they have to PAY a fee to teach them). Becoming an instructor gives them the right to teach according to the requirements of the agency only. Never are they told who to teach to or not.

My husband teaches only when he is available around his "real" job, and if he has students not ready in his opinion he sends them on their way. He is never obligated to take a student. The dive shop he is an instructor for pays him to teach but he can turn down any class or any student he wants as he is an independent instructor. With all the membership fees for instructors, liability insurance fees for instructors, and required materials which constantly change for instructors, there is no money in teaching - instructors do it for the love of teaching diving.

That instructor who told you differently may work for dive shop on salary - maybe he has to take every student because of the dive shop job obligation, not PADI or SSI or whatever agency he is certified with. NO dive shop or instructor is required to do a referral, they can do it if they want, but they don't have to do any.

Does that make any sense?

 

[DiveMaven]

When we did our rescue class on Maui, the shop sent us the books which we were required to read and complete prior to arriving. We met for a couple of hours to go over the knowledge reviews, talk about stuff, and take the test on one evening (we took the DVD back to our room and watched it that night too). The next day we spent most of the day going over the "confined" portions of the skills and learning about oxygen administration. The final day we spent nearly the entire day doing our "open water" skills and emergency drills.

We found it was an excellent way to do rescue as we spent quite a bit of our time prior to the trip reading and learning, then were able to apply the reading in a practical manner. We had an excellent instructor whose style was to spend more time doing rather than sitting in a classroom, and we feel strongly we benefitted from her style greatly.

I'm not sure if you'd call that a "referral" or not, but it might be something to consider finding out if you could structure the class similarly.

 

[agilulfo]

DiveMaven,

Thank you for the information. This is also what Carib Inn suggested and it is probably the route we we are going to take. It seems to make the most sense. It's don't think this is really a referral but it will achieve our objective to minimize study time on vacation.

Robint,

Let me be a little more clear. The person who told me about PADI referrals was not just an instructor but also a dive shop owner here in NJ. She said that if someone has passed the academic portion of any PADI course at one dive shop, another dive shop cannot refuse the referral. Once again, I know nothing about this other that what I've been told and this is why I was trying to clarify this aspect.