Scuba agencies

[Lorenzoid]

Question for the original poster; roughly where are you located? In many places you'll find PADI and SSI dominate in terms of local availability. How many GUE OW classes are widely available?

Richard.

Exactly. This was originally posted in the New Divers forum. Mentioning GUE and other niche agencies doesn't really help the OP. As already mentioned, the OP should get some recommendations for instructors in his local area, and those instructors are undoubtedly going to be affiliated with one or more of the major agencies. For the OP's purposes, the answer is "no"--it doesn't matter which of the major agencies your instructor is affiliated with. Just find an instructor that other people have felt did a good job.

 

[tbone1004]

yes it does help him, it answered his question which was very simple. The question that should have been asked is "I'm located in x-area and want to find the best instructor for my wife"

 

[Germie]

As long as there is no proof that some agencies make more accidents than other agencies, you cannot say that one agency is better than another in general. You have individual differences between instructors. And if the instructor does not fit your personality, even the best instructor will be bad for you. So go to some diveshops, talk to them and decide then. For a beginner a Padi is ok, CMAS is ok, SSI is ok, all is ok. In all courses you have to learn the basics.
Choosing the right divecenter is most difficult for a beginner. So talk with instructors and ask other divers about their experiences. The only thing I can advise is that there are some agencies that offer nitrox in their ow course (like iantd). I would choose for this, then you are directly nitrox certified too. Otherwise talk/ask about a combination course. And go to an instructor that does not do only 20 minute dives to 6m, but ask if they make longer dives (as long as there is enough gas in the cylinder including reserves so you can do after the skills some smaller fundive)

 

[TSandM]

The accident rate in scuba is so low, that unless some agency had a completely HORRIBLE approach, it would be very difficult to use accident rates to evaluate agencies.

What can we use? Well, we can look at the list of skills students are required to learn, which is very similar across agencies. We can look at the amount of required pool time and open water time -- I think most people would agree that more is better. We can look at the process required to become and remain an instructor, with the assumption that, the more dive experience you need to have, and the more hoops you have to jump through to become an instructor, the higher the likelihood that you will at least be a master of your material. (Talent as a teacher may or may not float to the top in such a process.). If you are required to recertify or be reevaluated as an instructor at intervals, then "calibration creep" will be minimized. In addition, if both the factors being evaluated and the criteria for evaluation are public, then the students can participate in the process of ensuring that their evaluation is done as it is supposed to be.

To my knowledge, GUE has the most rigorous process for creating instructors (among other things, you have to be spoken for by an existing instructor as being a reasonable instructor candidate). Instructors must recertify at regular intervals (I think it's 3 years) including passing a fitness test. Descriptions of GUE classes are available on line, with the skills to be evaluated, the factors considered, and a numerical scoring system for that evaluation available for general perusal. GUE has 100% QA, because the student cannot get his card until the QA is done (this may miss a few people who don't pass and don't bother to do the QA for that reason). The GUE OW class requires 40 hours of student contact and a total of 14 dives, although it is not specified how much of that is confined water and how much is open water. That is certainly more than our shop's PADI class, which is one of the longer classes in our area.

However, as I have said before, the class is not widely available, and you do not have to take a GUE OW class to get a reasonable introduction to diving. What really matters is a good instructor with a commitment to training divers well, and enough time in the water to develop a basis of skills.

 

[Simon-]

issue with that though comes back to a fundamental issue with the system where they train divers but they are dangerous to the environment and pretty fishes they are diving with. They don't care if they're perfectly neutral, but they should, same with danglies, etc. There is a reason it is a better way to dive, it truly is and no one can deny it. They might go a bit farther than they have to, but better to start there and let them regress a bit then start in a manner dangerous to the environment and try to fix it....

Guess what, you can be neutrally buoyant, streamlined with no dangly equipment without going the GUE route.

For some, GUE is right for them, for others it is not. I have never done a GUE course, and probably never will, despite diving regularly on the same boats as GUE guys. To be honest, with the whole group I generally dive with, other than kit configuration (which I still believe should be optimum for the individual, not a strict criteria), I see little difference in the skill sets between everyone.

 

[tbone1004]

ok look. The OP asked a stupid simple question, who is the best? There is a simple answer, GUE is the best. I don't know why people are arguing this point, it is a fact. Does that mean that you have to take their class? No, but that wasn't the question. Read the bloody original post and answer it. I don't understand why anyone is hung up on it, there is a simple fact in this industry, GUE offers the best training, bar none, whether you agree with their training philosophy or not. It is the ONLY agency where you can be guaranteed to receive the same quality instruction regardless of who your instructor is.

Every other agency doesn't matter, because not a single one of them can make that claim. You guys have proven that with your comments of "it's the instructor not the agency". Well guess what, that means the agencies don't matter, but GUE does because they can guarantee you the best training. I don't work for GUE, hell I don't even like GUE, but it is a cold hard fact. You can gripe and claim that you can be neutrally buoyant, streamlined, no dangly's, proper trim/propulsion without going GUE. Of course you can, the group that I work with certified about 50 divers/year through NAUI like that, but that doesn't mean NAUI is a good agency, they are on par with everyone else in the recreational world right now, but that wasn't the question.

 

[Oldbear]

What if you have an agency with a very highly comprehensive training program yet an instructor who teaches it just at the standards level vs. a truly exceptional instructor who teaches a widely marketed program with his own added curriculum that enhances the student diver's experience.

If you ask the student which agency is better I would venture and say it's the agency of the better instructor.

 

[drrich2]

...who is the best? There is a simple answer, GUE is the best. I don't know why people are arguing this point, it is a fact.

Let me paraphrase and see if this would provide more common ground (if I get it right). At the agency level, GUE is the most consistent and extensive program in terms of turning out a well-skilled diver at the beginner level? Is that a fair & accurate statement as a general trend, allowing that there will be exceptions?

I have no GUE training. Just trying to help.

Richard.

 

[tbone1004]

Richard, yes that is the point, Oldbear's is the point that doesn't matter because that has nothing to do with the agency. All of the agencies out there are capable of putting out good divers. PADI, NAUI, SSI, etc, every one of them is limited by their instructors. What does this mean?

So let's take this as a target. That they have a very large target and while that target is the standards, their instructors are all over the place. There is no accuracy. With GUE the target is very small and all of their instructors are in the same section. You may not agree with where that section lands on on the target, but all of their instructors are in the same spot. As an agency that makes them better. They are also the only agency with proper quality control on their instructors.

 

[Lorenzoid]

ok look. The OP asked a stupid simple question, who is the best? . . .

You insist on reading the OP's question literally instead of interpreting it the way most of us suspect the OP really intended it: "Might one agency be better than another for my wife who wants to get an OW certification so she can dive with me?"

GUE is almost certainly not going to be the answer to what the OP really wants to know.

Even if the OP's wife could find an instructor to teach the rare bird known as the GUE Rec 1 course, the obstacles include time (10 days or so, I believe), cost (more than any other OW course, I believe), the current lack of worldwide recognition of the GUE brand OW C-card, and the fact that it is quite possible not to pass the course on the first try. The last two should give prospective students pause. While the student's peers happily take and pass their PADI/NAUI/SSI/etc. courses and are now off diving on some tropical vacation and building up actual diving experience, the student who did not pass Rec 1 is back at home trying to schedule more time with the instructor. The bottom line is that the OP should probably just consider the whole mention of GUE in this thread as a red herring. I hate to discourage anyone from seeking the GUE path, but I have to believe Rec 1 would not likely fit the OP's wife's needs.