PADI Depth Restrictions

[TCDiver1]

My understanding was 60' was a recommendation for beginners right out of OW and that your comfort level for the dive dictates the depth you choose to go. But after doing a little research on another board I have read that any PADI instructor who goes on a dive with an OW diver deeper than 60' on any dive other than a training dive can be subject to reprimands from PADI if caught. Is this true? If true it sounds like PADI actually does try to be the dive police by attempting to restrict your diving unless you pay them for permission to go deeper.

Your understanding of max depth recommendations is correct. And the instructor comment you read on that "other board" is the craziest thing i've heard in a long time. No such "rule" exists for PADI instructors. Just another example of don't believe everything you hear or read.

Just wondering does anyone know if there is a place online to read exactly what PADI does say or how they word the 60' restriction/recommendation and how they explain it?

It is in the manual/CD/tests/quizes used for the OW course. If you have futher questions please feel free to PM me. Be glad to help out if i can.

 

[garyfotodiver]

Who says they don't. AOW isn't designed to provide additional training.

Mine was. That's why I took it.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

I arrived at my dive destination in Honduras with all my gear and after a short talk with the operation ( we had been talking for weeks on line before) and it's head guy, he informed me I would not be able to dive deeper than 60ft. since I was only O/W, I thought he was joking at first, but he was not, I went home that night and looked over my log books going back to early Australia days, it amazed me how many of my dives were over 60 ft. (far the majority) and at how many dive operations did not ever even 'blink an eye'. Well long story short, I ended up taking his AOW course, and it was a breeze, what did I learn, well not a whole lot more!!! But I guess when it comes to diving anything learned or re-learned is beneficial. But can you imagine the frustration I felt when I first arrived at this resort and learned I could not dive deeper than 60ft. while others around me were doing there DM course with less than 100 dives and some doing there AOW course after only 15 dives or so. Nothing replaces experience when it comes to diving, and what an experience I had there!!!!!

LOL, well first hand experience that the design of the system as it stands now is primarily one of extracting the greatest amount of money from you at any cost.

As mentioned, your experience should have been enough, but that doesn't make the poor sod enough money, and your away on vacation, you want to dive, so you're a*$ is his.......arguing with him probably would have done zero good either.

Quite the joke isn't it?

To me the agencies represent themselves only. Everyone else does their bidding....whether they make a buck or not is of little consequence. Actual dive training is even further down the list of importance to them.

 

[in_cavediver]

So why do the major agencies NOT provide the level of basic training that will allow a OW diver to dive deeper than, well, 60ft? Is it so they can charge more money for additional "advanced" courses? This benefits the dive shop owners.

Perhaps the real question to ask is this: Who do the agencies REALLY represent, divers or shop owners?

First without sparking the is the OW class standards good enough debate, look at why the depth recommendation is there. Its there primarly as a means to give a newly minted diver a clue as to their lack of expierence. Most new divers don't yet know enough to know they don't know enough. If you stay above 60', you have more options in the case of problems. You don't get into narcosis and air consumption rates are lower. Once a diver has more expierence and control in thier diving, then going deeper progressively shouldn't be an issue.

So, where does this fall apart. Easy, how do you gauge expierence in a sue happy environment. Expierence is subjective, possession of the cert is objective. Its a lot easier to defend the objective constriant even if it is meaningless in some cases. I finished my AOW at dive 10. At that time, I didn't have any buisness diving to 100'. My wife still hasn't done hers but instead did her full cave class (and actually probably never will take AOW).

To answer your question who benefits, its the insurance companies.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

To answer your question who benefits, its the insurance companies.

LOL, is this called feeding yourself work then?

http://www.diveinsurance.com/

ROFLMAO dang I am funny.

 

[DiveBandit]

I think PADI guidelines are a good frame work to work within. My 14 y/o is Rescue Diver cert. but PADI says 70 foot max for him. I'm perfectly ok with that. I'm not sure I'd want him much deeper than that at 14. Lines need to be drawn somewhere, the ones we have were drawn by people with a whole lot more experiance and knowledge than I have on the subject. wether you use the lines as guides, or take them to heart is up to you.

 

[garyfotodiver]

First without sparking the is the OW class standards good enough debate, look at why the depth recommendation is there. Its there primarly as a means to give a newly minted diver a clue as to their lack of expierence. Most new divers don't yet know enough to know they don't know enough. If you stay above 60', you have more options in the case of problems. You don't get into narcosis and air consumption rates are lower. Once a diver has more expierence and control in thier diving, then going deeper progressively shouldn't be an issue.

So, where does this fall apart. Easy, how do you gauge expierence in a sue happy environment. Expierence is subjective, possession of the cert is objective. Its a lot easier to defend the objective constriant even if it is meaningless in some cases. I finished my AOW at dive 10. At that time, I didn't have any buisness diving to 100'. My wife still hasn't done hers but instead did her full cave class (and actually probably never will take AOW).

To answer your question who benefits, its the insurance companies.

If you are worried about legal liabilities, then don't dive or have anything to do with the dive industry.

When I first trained, I knew enough to make night dives, cold-water dives (my $55 Voit Polaris II regulator never froze), dives in current, &c. So, then, if I have 200+ dives, I should know enough to do all the "advanced" dived and Do It Right, right? But what if all my dives were in 15fsw or less? Warm water, very good viz?

No, it takes time to learn to be a good diver, and simply doing 5 more supervised dives isn't the answer. All this does is allow the dive shop to charge for two courses when it should all be taught in one.

 

[LavaSurfer]

I just got mine, but view it as purely a stepping stone to Rescue where I assume I *will* learn something. That said, my skills did improve during the 5 advanced dives and probably more than just during 5 ordinary dives.

Yep AOW was a joke. More reading than anything and the skills were silly.
Rescue is a great course. I had a blast with it.

Its interesting because PADI requires AOW for Rescue but TDI and SDI don’t.
I have a friend doing Rescue with TDI and will not have his AOW but will have more usable knowledge than an AOW diver yet will he be restricted from advanced dives?

The “Invade the Keys” trip, for example (Just an example, I am not picking on anyone here) requires AOW to do most of the dives such as the Spiegel yet my friend will only be TDI rescue certified and not have his AOW. Can he dive on dives like these?

I use this example of how silly this can be. Here I am training as a dive master with PADI and I am putting down the AOW course. Oh No, They are going to get me now. Argh!

As far as depth goes, My 7th dive including the 4 checkout dives for OW was to 110' FSW. It was towards my AOW.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

SDI's flow chart from OW to rescue show that you require an AOW to take it.

Either you're mistaken, or their chart is very misleading.

I would assume as all rec agencies are the same, that this basic name calling of courses are pretty standard so my guess is the former.

If in fact this isn't the case, I'd bet telling the boat crew that you have rescue, as it's standard that this is done after AOW, that they wouldn't bat an eye on letting him on.

Please note TDI doesn't have a rec rescue course, it is properly termed SDI's course.

 

[Tollie]

Hey Lava,

If you are PADI o/w trained then all four of your 110-foot training dives were violations of PADI training standards. This you know from your DM course is really a stupid practice for the instructor and represents a major hazard for the student. Your heirs would have had a field day with the instructor and the shop if there had been an incident.

Instructors are role models. If you encountered instructors who showed real disdain for safe diving practices and the safety of students you may not have formed this ethic for yourself and for your future students and those divers who you will lead on tours.

There has been a ton of crap in this thread about the virtue of experience over training. Dive training is a much better way to be introduced to the joys and hazards of more challenging dive environments and the use of varied dive tools than is finding yourself well beyond your comfort zone with out a paddle.

Its strong training that saves lives.

We teach what we know and we do what we have learned.