Actually I disagree with the boat specialty being trivial. It may well be as taught by some instructors, but if you drill down there is an optional section with gives a comprehensive overview of small boats and outboards etc, which who be a useful insight to new boat owners.
The issue as always is money and time with the base courses. How much time are people willing to give up on vacation to learn to Scuba dive, and how much are they prepared to pay for a course? I have sympathy with the commercial organisations.
I only enter BSAC after being PADI qualified. The BSAC OW course is quite comprehensive. On top of the 5 OW dives there are a further 6 or 8 specialty dives (in PADI parlance) experience diver in BSAC speak, which give the students exposure to different situations and dive types. Good as it is, the course if charged at commercial rates would never be a success (needing 10 days to complete)
Everyone is guilty of forgetting a good amount of theory for their OW course. Pretty much everyone learns enough to pass the exam and nothing more. If we are interested in progressing we generally need the information refreshed.
My one disagreement with the commercials, it that these extra cards are sold as a qualification, when they're just a taster. My Drysuit course was 2 dives and a pool session. enough to acquaint myself with the basics, but it needed further divers (10 in my case) to be comfortable) - I could list any other number of examples.
That said there are a good proportion of people who dive just on vacation and want these experience dives to try something new, and that's fine as long as they are marketed as an experience rather than a qualification of competency.
The issue as always is money and time with the base courses. How much time are people willing to give up on vacation to learn to Scuba dive, and how much are they prepared to pay for a course? I have sympathy with the commercial organisations.
I only enter BSAC after being PADI qualified. The BSAC OW course is quite comprehensive. On top of the 5 OW dives there are a further 6 or 8 specialty dives (in PADI parlance) experience diver in BSAC speak, which give the students exposure to different situations and dive types. Good as it is, the course if charged at commercial rates would never be a success (needing 10 days to complete)
Everyone is guilty of forgetting a good amount of theory for their OW course. Pretty much everyone learns enough to pass the exam and nothing more. If we are interested in progressing we generally need the information refreshed.
My one disagreement with the commercials, it that these extra cards are sold as a qualification, when they're just a taster. My Drysuit course was 2 dives and a pool session. enough to acquaint myself with the basics, but it needed further divers (10 in my case) to be comfortable) - I could list any other number of examples.
That said there are a good proportion of people who dive just on vacation and want these experience dives to try something new, and that's fine as long as they are marketed as an experience rather than a qualification of competency.