Pending changes for certifications required for JDC dives

[Marie13]

Someone certified overseas or long ago almost certainly had more instruction than some 50 dive wunderkinder who theoretically is more qualified.

Maybe if you’re talking BSAC or something like that the training could be more extensive, but someone who got certified by a zero to hero OW instructor somewhere in the tropics?

 

[boulderjohn]

Maybe if you’re talking BSAC or something like that the training could be more extensive, but someone who got certified by a zero to hero OW instructor somewhere in the tropics?

Here are the only three experiences I have had remotely related to those programs.

1. The Director of Instruction for a shop where I worked was a Course Director who formerly ran one of the biggest dive operations in Florida. They hired a zero-to-hero instructor, and he was worried. He said the guy turned out to be excellent, one of the best on the staff, right from the start.
2. I was part of a team that certified a diver at the DM level, after which he went to one of those programs in Utila. He came back as a totally different diver. A month of high intensity training with multiple dives a day had done wonders for him.
3. Last fall I was on a liveaboard in Roatan, and we did some dives in Utila. We dived right next to a group training with the IDC company there. What I saw was outstanding. The instructor candidates exhibited beautiful trim and buoyancy as they worked.

 

[boulderjohn]

I never got the AOW as it wasn't required. I went OW, nitrox, tech nitrox, deep air , full trimix. Never got rescue either.
One of the reasons I always avoided cattle boats was silliness like this.
Someone certified overseas or long ago almost certainly had more instruction than some 50 dive wunderkinder who theoretically is more qualified.

1. The requirements call for AOW or above. When I show a trimix instructor card, no one has ever refused it and required me to produce an AOW card instead.

2. If your insurance company demands some sort of sign of advanced training for certain dives, you are going to want to make that sign something concrete and objective--not something an employee will have to make a decision on. To begin with, there usually isn't time to do so. On a typical morning dive at a dive shop, people are hustling about to get people and gear on the boat, signed up, paid, etc. No one is going to be checking your log book or telling you to head out for a checkout dive with them. If they do use something that requires employee judgment, that judgment can be challenged in court in case of an accident. An AOW (or above) card is easy to check and cannot be challenged.

3. Your use of the term "cattle boat" is pejorative and, frankly, offensive. These days pretty much all operations in areas like this will have such requirements, so you're calling every dive operation in this (and many other) areas a cattle boat. That means that you are likening every one of those divers to cattle, and such businesses and such divers are so far beneath you that you would not consider them. If you take your full trimix card there and do a technical dive off one of those boats, then you, too, will be on a cattle boat, joining the rest of us scum who are so very far beneath you.

 

[Cert1967]

Why not just make the classes free; wouldn't that be even better?

Why do you think that the training material and instructor time ought to be devalued even more than it is?
The problem is the classes already do not cost enough to pay their way, so the whole system is sliding toward mediocrity or worse.

Nitrox - likely the most profitable course for a LDS.

And an opportunity to sell a computer and maybe more

ABS, ABC

Let the shops make an easy buck.

 

[Skeptic14]

On top of that, Jupiter conditions are highly variable both above and below the surface and live boat diving adds another layer of complexity (at least when it comes to getting off and on the boat).

I don’t know many OW divers (unless they were trained here) who can safely free ascend from 70 feet, shoot an SMB from the safety stop and hang out on the surface for several minutes in rough seas without freaking out. That’s a common reality diving in Jupiter. An AOW requirement makes sense.

Playing devils advocate here, but someone can immediately follow up their OW cert with an AOW cert, perhaps even in some aquarium like tropical location such that the second cert card means very little. I think being capable of free ascending from deep, shooting a SMB at a safety stop is something learned with dives and time in the water, more so than an additional cert card with minimal real reps.

But I agree that logic has little to do with it, and it's most likely all about liability. The box is checked for both the insurance company and the dive op more simply with a cert card requirement vs a real assessement of a diver's readiness for a dive.

 

[CosbySweater]

Playing devils advocate here, but someone can immediately follow up their OW cert with an AOW cert, perhaps even in some aquarium like tropical location such that the second cert card means very little. I think being capable of free ascending from deep, shooting a SMB at a safety stop is something learned with dives and time in the water, more so than an additional cert card with minimal real reps.

But I agree that logic has little to do with it, and it's most likely all about liability. The box is checked for both the insurance company and the dive op more simply with a cert card requirement vs a real assessement of a diver's readiness for a dive.

I agree. That’s the difference between certified and qualified. Being certified for “advanced” dives doesn’t necessarily mean you’re qualified to execute a particular dive safely. It’s a combo of training and experience that will get you there. It’s easier to simply require a cert than it is to check everyone’s log books, though.

 

[boulderjohn]

It’s easier to simply require a cert than it is to check everyone’s log books, though.

Tell me what you require for a particular dive in a logbook and I can have it all there for you to see in no time. Are you going to check for buddy signatures and call those buddies to see if those dives were actually made and were not the figment of an active imagination?

EDIT for clarification: In the above paragraph, I am not talking about my current logbook. I am saying that any diver can create anything required for a logbook with a little creative writing.

 

[Johnoly]

... not the figment of an active imagination?

@boulderjohn ,,,You have been diving in all kinds of difficult conditions. If a diver on your charter boat has the cards and talks a big story,, so you just watch them setup their gear for this 125'ft deep ledge 4knot current, drop site. And you see this diver who then:
*) Has an AL80 yoke rental
*) Rental BC with pockets so big it traps air
*) He puts the reg on but the valve is backwards
*) He's still yapping stories, but asks you if you know how to set the nitrox on his 'puter
*) His mask is completely fogged because he's walking around the boat with it on.

I've seen DM's sit down a customer and tell them they are not ready to do this dive and sits them out. I've seen customers show up still drunk & smelling it from the night before & wanting to dive. None of us want to see another diver die, much less be on the boat when it happens.

 

[CosbySweater]

Tell me what you require for a particular dive in a logbook and I can have it all there for you to see in no time. Are you going to check for buddy signatures and call those buddies to see if those dives were actually made and were not the figment of an active imagination?

Well I’m not checking anything l. I’d never own a shop….too much liability for very little profit. An AOW requirement is just how JDC and others manage that liability.

TBH, all that is why I got out of instructing. The cost of my liability policy wasn’t worth the minuscule amount of money I was making doing it on this side.

Glad your log book is up to date. Not many divers keep a good log.

 

[scubadada]

Short of doing a dive with direct observation, there is no way that an operator can make a valid assessment of a diver's skill, not certification cards, generally, not with a log. Certification is the easiest way for the operator to raise the bar a little.

So, sometime in the future, maybe you will need an observed checkout dive with an operator to do their more challenging dives and have some kind of certificate to prove it, perhaps even time limited and at your expense. Be careful what you wish for.