Rangiroa and Fakarava PADI Certification Requirements

[blkscuba]

I was planning a trip to Rangiroa and Fakarava in the near future so I spent a few hours doing my research on the forum. (Thanks Everyone!)
Fortunately I found out about the "discrepancies" between PADI certification and the French certification that regulates the area. I have a PADI Advance Open Water and don't want to get to French Polynesia and be told I can't do the "better" dives. From what I gathered from reading multiple posts I will need to get Rescue Diver Cert. in order to access the "best sites".
Is this correct?
I have contacted Fakarava Dive Centre, Dive Spirit and 6 Passengers asking them this question but I'm not getting a clear definitive answer.

One of the responses said:
"In Polynesia it is better to have a advdeep level or rescue that used to go a little deeper to be up to the sharks. A Fakarava between 25 and 35 meters"

"Better" is not the same as "Mandatory"
and 35 meters = 115 ft so where is the problem ?

Not trying to be the exception to the rule just trying to understand so that I can make an educated decision. I real don't want to delay my trip and get Rescue Diver first but I will if I have to.

Thanks

 

[Wingy]

CMAS is the french certification agency which FP follows. PADI OW divers are strictly kept to 18m AOW to 30m. This is by law as the Gendarmerie/Police regulated the diving industry there. I basically had to solo dive in Rangi as one of the other pair of divers there was PADI OW so the DM had to stay at 18m with him (I am CMAS certified so able to go a lot deeper). Having said that you will not find a shortage of sharks anywhere in Rangi or Fakarava but the canyon down around 45m at tipuata is like a shark parking lot. I believe there are others here who have dived FP with PADI AOW with 6 passengers but if you could get a Rescue Cert before hand you wont have any problems.
The Better V Mandatory doesnt really have the same freeplay as it does in FP - as before, the diving is controlled by the Gendarmes. IF there is a dive incident/accident you will find them waiting at the dock or the clinic and they will and do impound all gear from all divers then all divers must give statements.
So the laws there are mandatory. Hope this helps.

There are no exceptions to the rule in FP or you could get CMAS certification where you will have no problem at all but that would take a lot longer than a Padi Rescue.

 

[Mike]

Get Rescue Diver cert before you go to ensure full access to all the recreational diving you will want to do. The French like to dive deep, deeper than US divers on a whole. 50 meters in Rangiroa gets you to the bottom of the pass to see it all.

 

[Shasta_man]

50 meters?!

 

[mbs]

When I was in Rangiroa I had aow. We dove the tiputa pass in the 90-100ish' depth and I did not feel limited or that I missed anything. Towards the end of the week the group of French divers wanted to do a bounce dive to the bottom of the pass - 200'. The dm asked if we wanted to go. We passed and dove with the 14 year old from their group who was not allowed to go to that depth As it turned out the sharks were not down there that day! We had a better dive at our depth I have a question though... How exactly does padi rescue prepare you for a deep dive? I don't recall going much below 15 feet in the pond I trained in! Isn't the rec limit 130 for AOW?

 

[blkscuba]

One of the operators in Fakarava is telling me they dive shallower (90ft) than in Rangiroa. That there is no need to go deeper in Fakarava but yes in Rangiora.
Any thoughts?
On that note if I have one week available should i do Rangiroa or Fakarava (North/South?) or split my time between both?
Thx.

 

[Wingy]

French like doing 50m air bounce dives - its a common theme ive noticed with French ops. There is no reason you cant split your time between the two as the planes fly very low.

 

[Mike]

50 meters?!

yes

If you look on six passengers web site they discuss certs and part of the verbiage you will see will be about 197 feet.

The french like to dive deep

---------- Post added December 18th, 2013 at 06:50 PM ----------

One of the operators in Fakarava is telling me they dive shallower (90ft) than in Rangiroa. That there is no need to go deeper in Fakarava but yes in Rangiora.
Any thoughts?
On that note if I have one week available should i do Rangiroa or Fakarava (North/South?) or split my time between both?
Thx.

There is no need to go deeper than 130 ft in Rangiroa unless you want to get to the bottom of the pass and see it. You won't die if you don't do it and the diving is so good, so what if you don't. There was a great hammer head at the bottom of the pass on one dive we did, I saw it, that's that. Had I not seen it, it would not have ruined my vacation. Rangiroa = wild dolphins, you don't have to go deep to dive with them. We heard them on 3/4 of the dives we saw them on 3 and got an nice encounter on 1.

As for 1 week, personally I'd spend it at Rangiroa or Fakarava and not split between the two, and plan on going back some other time to dive the other place. If this is the only chance you'll ever get to be there, then you gotta do what you think is right. But I think a week is a great time to spend diving one or the other, as every day brings a different version of the dives at the passes. The passes are all about which way is the water flowing in or out of the lagoon, different times of day mean the water is flowing in or out, different weather conditions means its flowing in or out... a big rain in the lagoon will mean the lagoon has more water and its flowing out, a windy storm pushes water into the lagoon and then it tries to flow out the pass, the tides etc... basically the dive ops read the pass and can tell what it's doing, often they will peek at it in the morning before your dive and tell everybody the plan, then you might dive the plan or more than likely by the time they get to the pass, it's changed directions or speeds and the dive plan changes again...

 

[Cali_diver]

I have been to Rangi 3 times and Fakarava once. It is my experience that they will take you out to the outer reef first to check your skills regardless of your certification level or experience. They want to see exactly what kind of diver you are before they take you through the pass. We went to 126 ft. for the deepest in Fakarava where there were lots of sharks but only stayed for a couple minutes before we went through the pass which was much shallower.

I think Fakarava is way better than Rangi….

 

[KD8NPB]

With depths like that, I would strongly consider getting your PADI Tec Basic or Tec 40 certification done. That is pretty damn deep!