PADI vs NAUI

[261311]

Apologies, the minimum standards was in reply to the post I had quoted. Yes, I was referring to the no deviation policy. PADI instructors do teach to local conditions but that's pending authorization, the way it was explained to me by my dive shop. I was also told that they could only go so far because of the information provided in the books and any time I asked questions outside of the book I was given the answer but the instructor always reminded me to do additional research because the information may have since changed or been updated. There's reasonable, and then there's sticking to policy, which I get.

The differences are if someone doesn't meet the extended standards that a NAUI instructor probably has and fails because of that clause even though NAUI only wanted "x", they are supported by the agency and it moves straight to court. If a student who has met PADI standards, but not the instructors standards fails, they have that ability to go to PADI and complain, possibly earning their certification because they have met the standards and nowhere in PADI supplementary material or classes does it say that the standards have any sort of "extras" that you get tested on as per instructor. There are supplementary drills all over the PADI manuals, none of which deny you a certification if you fail.

Therein lies again where the court takes over about determining what is "reasonable" instead of the professional body. Have an issue with an instructor because you don't feel you're getting your monies worth? Take it to a governing body who knows nothing of diving instead of the professional organization which governs the instructors. It only takes a simple attorney to convince the client "Yeah, you deserve more! What do they know!? Why not sue them too! And a bunch of other uneducated people standing jury to go "yeah, they're right!".

You can always tell quite easily the separation between those concerned, and those for profit. I'll relate this to cars, most standards are set up for safety purposes. If they were super important but not "standard", the professional body would be lacking. Instead, anything overly important is already covered and all extra above those standards you pay more for. I don't even want to support PADI in their argument here, but from a business point of view, it's kind of what they do. They cover their own arse- not the instructors, and when they set out to make money I can hardly blame them.

 

[DCBC]

... I was referring to the no deviation policy. ...The differences are if someone doesn't meet the extended standards that a NAUI instructor probably has and fails because of that clause even though NAUI only wanted "x", they are supported by the agency and it moves straight to court. If a student who has met PADI standards, but not the instructors standards fails, they have that ability to go to PADI and complain, possibly earning their certification...

If the Student meets 'PADI Standards' they MUST be certified by the Instructor. If a Student meets 'NAUI Minimum Standards,' they MAY be certified (at the discretion of the Instructor). Any further requirements added by the NAUI Instructor become a requirement for certification.

I live in Nova Scotia. Diving here usually is off the coast (North Atlantic). The conditions can be hazardous. Today they're good: the water temperature is 35 degrees with waves of 4 1/2 feet. Surf is moderate and tidal current can be tricky in some locations (the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world). For me, the 'minimum swimming requirements' set by NAUI are insufficient (I don't think it's wise to put weak swimmers into rough water with or without SCUBA). I require a 400 Meter swim (and other in-water evaluations) to be completed before training starts. Not only does NAUI recognize this need, they would likely come to Court and state that under these circumstances they would consider their own minimum standards in this regard to be insufficient! Try living that down in Court... They expect the Instructor to act in the best interests of the Student and to train them to dive safely. Minimum Standards are exactly that, the minimum necessary under ideal circumstances. Conditions here are NEVER ideal.

 

[lowviz]

...//... Minimum Standards are exactly that, the minimum necessary under ideal circumstances. Conditions here are NEVER ideal.

And this is the point.

"Your C-card vouches for your training and qualifies you to obtain air fills or rental tanks, buy or rent scuba equipment, and engage in recreational open water diving in conditions similar to those under which you trained without further supervision."

​

You train divers to dive in a particular environment. Period. Been there on vacation, would love to train up there someday...

Newsflash: The diver needs to assess and take ownership of what constitutes suitable training for his or her purposes.

 

[DCBC]

Newsflash: The diver needs to assess and take ownership of what constitutes suitable training for his or her purposes.

I think that 99.9% (a guess) of OW Students have NO IDEA what "constitutes suitable training" for SCUBA. Once Certified, they are allegedly qualified to dive in "similar conditions or better" without supervision. It is the Instructors and Agencies that should be aware of what is required and make changes to their program/Standards accordingly.. From what I've seen, many PADI (and other) OW Divers, have no idea of projecting gas consumption, sub-surface rescue, good buoyancy control, or a number of other skill-sets. Obviously, this isn't considered a 'safety requirement' by Agencies that don't include them as required for certification...

According to DAN (DAN | News "The initial triggering event that began the sequence leading to death was most often insufficient gas (14 percent), followed by rough seas and strong current (10 percent), heart disease (9 percent), entrapment (9 percent), and equipment problems (8 percent)." One would hope that more emphasis would be given to in-water ability/fitness and gas consumption/projection, but that would take time, cost money and require changes to some Agency Standards...

As to: "Your C-card vouches for your training and qualifies you to obtain air fills or rental tanks, buy or rent scuba equipment, and engage in recreational open water diving in conditions similar to those under which you trained without further supervision."

PADI Instructors run courses here as well. The Standards are the same here as they are in Bonaire. I don't know about you, but I see a big difference in what's required to train a Diver to dive here, with a reasonable degree of safety. Some Agency "Standards" cannot be modified. Weak or non-swimmer? I think not.

 

[Quero]

... the extended standards that a NAUI instructor probably has...

I'm a NAUI-trained diver, and based on that training, I'd have to say that it's not the case that NAUI instructors "probably" have extended standards considering that I was trained to minimum standards and nothing was added to the curriculum. The idea that there's so much more theory in a NAUI course has also not been my experience. In fact, for my AOW course, I was given no NAUI learning materials--surprisingly to me, the textbook I was given was......a PADI Adventures in Diving manual! Furthermore, I can also say that my NAUI instructors certified me after having violated NAUI standards, for example taking me to 33 meters on my deep training dive for the AOW (and that's all we did in that dive--go deep--not a single other thing such as gas planning). I have absolutely nothing against NAUI, and perhaps if I worked in a part of the world where NAUI was more prominent I'd even be a NAUI instructor rather than a PADI instructor, but I can say with no hesitation that based on my personal experience there's nothing magical or extra-special about NAUI basic diver training, and in virtually every way that counts it's no better or worse than PADI basic diver training. Brand-new/inexperience NAUI divers I've taken on to coach are equally clued-in or clueless, proficient or clumsy as brand-new/inexperienced PADI divers.

 

[DCBC]

...I can also say that my NAUI instructors certified me after having violated NAUI standards, for example taking me to 33 meters on my deep training dive for the AOW.

To clarify, the NAUI Instructor was not in breach of NAUI Standards (as far as depth was concerned). Dives must be conducted less than 130 FSW or 40M (NAUI 2.36 rev 1-04). There are Instructors from all Agencies that breach training Standards. All Agencies try to police their Instructors and this is a constant process without end. There are poor Instructors from every Agency. I've seen some Instructors that I wouldn't even certify as a Basic Diver.

 

[Peter Guy]

So much BS here on the differences among/between agencies.

Yes, there are differences, but as Quero pointed out, the REALITY is that scuba instruction tends to be scuba instruction. IF the instructor from "X" agency actually follows the standards of that agency, then the end product will most likely be very similar -- and yes, even in Nova Scotia and its terrible conditions.

As long as the student actually is able to do the various skills to the standard (whatever that standard may be for that particular agency) under the conditions of where she is taught, it is likely that the student will be OK to dive in the same or similar conditions. Even a NAUI trained Bonaire diver on her sixth dive is likely to have significant issues diving in DCBC's back yard.

BTW, within PADI, local conditions are always to be taken into account when training.

 

[Quero]

To clarify, the NAUI Instructor was not in breach of NAUI Standards (as far as depth was concerned). Dives must be conducted less than 130 FSW or 40M (NAUI 2.36 rev 1-04). There are Instructors from all Agencies that breach training Standards. All Agencies try to police their Instructors and this is a constant process without end. There are poor Instructors from every Agency. I've seen some Instructors that I wouldn't even certify as a Basic Diver.

Understood, but it was my mistake--the depth was 43 meters (I've just double-checked my logbook). The mistake came because I only remembered that it was 3 meters deeper than standards permit. I merely mis-remembered the standard. So the instructor was, in fact, in breach of standards.

Again, my point is that there's nothing special about NAUI instructors that make them any better or more competent than PADI instructors, at least not the ones I've known. I do know some outstanding NAUI instructors, and I also know some outstanding PADI instructors. This is not a function of the agency they certify their students under. The only really substantive difference in my NAUI-based basic scuba training and what I currently do with my own students, as a PADI instructor, is that I was made to swim a triangle in the navigation dive. Other than that one detail, no, there was not a teaspoon's worth of difference in the actual training. And anyway, as a PADI instructor I am free to teach my students to swim a triangle, and I can task them with swimming a triangle if I so decide. The only thing I cannot do is withhold a certification if they can't perform a triangle navigation. There's really very, very little to distinguish the training between PADI and NAUI when it comes right down to the final product--the newly certified diver. The long and the short of it is that for a prospective diver selecting a course to follow, the choice of the instructor is much more important than the agency s/he teaches under. A prospective student should not select based primarily on agency. And this is directly in response to the opening post of the thread.

 

[261311]

I think that therein lies what I was trying to point out. The standards of NAUI are minimum where as the standards behind PADI are absolute. You can take the same instructor and have them teach under the two agencies and only one will back you up if you're outside those standards in denying someone a certification for something extremely important based on local conditions.

@DCBC you won't find PADI OW divers trained in sub-surface rescue, gas management or a huge focus on buoyancy, it's not part of the course. I think riding the divers coming out of those classes isn't fair because unless they take it upon themselves to learn these things they're in the dark until they take more training through PADI. Rescue, PPB, Nitrox and Tech classes. Though, in the defense of PADI I don't think there are many NAUI students who probably are able to do everything listed with exceptional prowess. At a certain point it comes down to giving a student tools but the rest is up to them to learn and practice. I think the same terrible PADI divers would be those same bad divers through NAUI- the only difference being the ability to deny certification. These are people who are fundamentally bad divers. They dive for fun on a vacation, will never use these skills on even a yearly basis and do not care about those around them or the environment. That's not something an organization can help someone with, that all comes from within. They're two different systems of learning and goals so I don't think comparing them too closely in a topic like this is fair. PADI is finite in its time and cost, it's run as a business. NAUI is run as an organization for dive safety.

 

[boulderjohn]

@DCBC you won't find PADI OW divers trained in sub-surface rescue, gas management or a huge focus on buoyancy, it's not part of the course.

It's amazing how the same BS gets repeated over and over and over and over again. It's not surprising that DCBC keeps repeating it--he has made his agenda clear in the past, and he is not embarrassed to keep repeating things he knows are not true because he is so dedicated to that agenda.

Did you read Quero's post immediately above this? Do you think all the PADI instructors who have said over and over and over again that they teach gas management and focus on buoyancy are lying?