Problems with Certified to 130 feet in one course, circa 1975-1980

[Marie13]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marie 13
Long ago with is was a pre teen I had the opportunity to determine the course of my life
1) I could be handsome, charming, wealthy, living in a big house with an incredible social life
2) I could have a life of adventure underwater , travel explore, write, photograph and live a life little boys want to live and old men whished they had lived

I chose number two and have never regretted my decision

I suspect you are also well on the road to choosing a number two as your life style

SAM

I have to ask, just how old are you, Sam?

I do have a number of old women living vicariously through me...

 

[NAM001]

This discussion comes up often.

One of the points we haven't considered as much is that it would be helpful if c cards actually stated (in summary form) what skills they are supposed to reflect, since these change over time and by agency.

My Nitrox card doesn't say I'm good to 40%, for example, nor do my OW or AOW cards mention any particular depth.

I agree. The nitrox I believe is all 40% unless it is an advanced nitrox card. Your point is valid though. I don't know how one would denote the skills trainined in. And just because they were trained in doesn't mean they were observed. However I do think that agencies need to clearly define things such as depth on the card. Experience is a non meaningful thing. perhaps one day we will all be on one system and we will have cards that will read OW60. and when you do AOW you get a ow100 AND WITH A DEEP COURSE YOU GET A ow130. Or someone generate a central certification agency where your certs are combined into one card. You swipe it and all your levels are shown. If you can use your phone for a credit card reader you can certainly read a dive card strip.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I do not know what agency authorized your 1969 course but in SoCal I suspect it was NAUI. (In 1969 PADI had not been established )

Actually both times it was a NAUI instructor and a NAUI certification, even though the second instructor used the LA County manual. I don't recall the title of the manual but it was illustrated with cartoon-like images.

 

[NAM001]

I've been interested in when the 130' recreational limit happened. Did the the class actually use the number.

In '62 I was initially trained, the training was for no decompression limit diving. The only limit was how deep you could dive under NDL (technically 190'). That being said, a larger focus of training was on the skills and mindset to extend your personal limit safely. Of course, back then, diving was dangerous and treated as such.


Bob

I remember that from the YMCA course I took in 68. One ting I allways chuckle at is the instructor statements about course requirenments being no training to e done below 60 feet in the course. My ymca was all dives had to be 40 or 45 feet min dives. I finished my cert got the paperwork done and then went to a 100 ft nght dive.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

There are a couple of reasons courses are shorter today.

One is that they decided that much of the material covered in the course does not need to be covered in the course. Education theory says that learning material that is not important for the course adds nothing of value and detracts from the ability to learn what is important. If you want people to learn and remember 10 numbers, don't give them 100.

A second reason is that much of that time years ago was spent listening to instructor lectures on diving. Listening to lectures is the worst way to gain information. This has been largely replaced by home study (either using a text or eLearning) followed by a review and supplemental discussions with the instructor.

1981 - DEMA designs and tests its GEM program of streamlined diver training in cooperation with NAUI, PADI, and a group of diving retailers. The program suggests a kinder, gentler philosophy of dive instruction along with courses that require less pool and classroom time. The certification programs that follow in GEM's wake make diving more accessible to busy professionals, entire families, and other new participants.

I can't remember when the 130' limit became standard in recreational diving but scientific and commercial diving used it prior to that because you couldn't get much work done any deeper without going into deco.

 

[KeithG]

Thank-you for the offer and the welcome back. I continue to be curious about the changed landscape. Now I have the money and the time to take whatever courses I want, but I'm not sure I would have pursued diving in my twenties under the current regimen. I wonder if other folks that were certified back in the seventies and eighties will chime in on this.

boulderjohn gave a great explanation at the start of the thread.

To make it easy for my brain to understand I break this situation down into simpler concepts
- training courses: there are now more of them
- actual diving: some ops need complicated rules

As already indicated in the thread, the old training has been split into multiple courses and additional courses covering other topics have been created. your c card is a training diploma. not a diving license. it does not license you to dive. it simply reflects that you passed a course. no one can undo history (well, we all forget parts of it...). You took a course, you passed, you were trained.

When it comes to real dives, it is now standard practise for an operator to require you to provide some proof of competency (unlike the old old days). But unlike driving, flying, doing lawyer or doctor stuff, there is no such thing as a divers license. And (in most places) there are no diving laws. So what to do? Make something up! Since there are no laws, each dive op is left to make up their own totally arbitrary rules.

All of the dive ops we use in the Caribbean have some very simple rules: produce any c card and you are good to go and dive as you wish with your divebuddy. There is no distinction made between OW, AOW, etc...

It is my understanding that many dive ops in some places in the US have made up a complex set of rules that do distinguish between OW, AOW, etc. We have never encountered these rules.

 

[rhwestfall]

It is my understanding that many dive ops in some places in the US have made up a complex set of rules that do distinguish between OW, AOW, etc. We have never encountered these rules.

I have in Tobermory, and the charter I use from Alvinston, Ontario on Huron and Ontario....

 

[Sam Miller III]

Deleted by author - too historical and no interest

sdm

 

[boulderjohn]

"Aqua LUNG for underwater swimming"

SPACO
2-49 (aka February 1949)
Paper back
26 pages
Page 22
"refrain from ascending to depths of over 130 feet"
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Self Contained Diving

US Divers
Rene Bussoz
Paper back
26 pages
1954
Nautilus press
Los Angeles California
page 15 :
"this can e be avoided by refraining to depths of over 130 feet"

Page 16
Although record dives have ben made to over 300 feet amateur divers should not exceed 130 feet
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Diving with the Aqua Lung

Emile Gagnon & Captain JY Cousteau
US Divers Co
Pico Blvd. Los Angeles
Paper back
40 pages
1959
Page 15
"this can e be avoided by refraining to depths of over 130 feet"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Diving with safety

Bev Morgan
US Divers
Pico Blvd Los Angeles, California
Paper back
72 Pages
No publication date

Page 54
Although record dives have ben made to over 300 feet amateur divers should not exceed 130 feet
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Lets go diving

Bill Barada
US Divers
Santa Ana, California
Paper back
66 pages
1970
Page 56
130 feet is the MAXIMUM safe limit for diving with air. Going deeper is risky
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copyright 2017 Dr. Samuel Miller, 111 Dr. Samuel Miller IV may not reproduced or published in any format with out the expressed permission of the authors SDM

Looks to me like there was some plagiarism going on in those early days.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am going from memories of a long time ago when I had to read the Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving in order to become a DM, but IIRC, they did not specify the origin of that depth limit, but they said that the likelihood of narcosis was the primary reason for it.