Should Cert Cards be for life? My cert cards seem to be worthless!

[AdivingBel]

I don’t understand, what else is there? I’m not in the training business so these are sincere questions. To me abbreviated standards include duration and instructor face time, real swim tests without gear, time in the water to habituate, some minor level of harassment to evolve skills and for instructors to assess temperament, and the level of academic training typical in old-school classes.

You are always going to get a variation in instructor communications skills, which probably haven’t changed. The presentation quality has to be a lot better now… have you ever looked at the 1963 US Navy Diving Manual or New Science of Skin and Scuba Diving? Kind’a primitive.

I guess the legal climate is MUCH different, but that “should” be improving the quality of training rather than dumbing it down (ASSumption here). Are students worse now in terms of watermanship skills, science and math, or motivation?

I mean no disrespect to the obviously experienced divers who have voiced their views in this thread, but after reading this and several other similar threads these are my thoughts (bearing in mind opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one).

What is the ultimate goal? I don't want to "dumb it down" either, but for blue water vacation divers (which is the bulk, I know not all, of a lot of these new "under trained" divers) isn't the goal to safely do a "vacation" dive. There are plenty of training opportunities if you want to progress beyond OW, so why cut these people out, which is in effect what you would be doing if you went back to LA County YMCA standards? Are there statistics showing it's currently less safe to dive? Is it an aesthetics thing that these divers don't look "pretty" underwater? It seems to me if a diver can assemble their gear in a reasonable time frame, exit and enter the boat or surf, swim around enjoying the reef without undo damage, and arrive back at the boat/entrance point safely (following a DM if required), and most of all HAVE FUN...what's the harm?? Considering the number of certifications and the number of dives performed, that seems to be the overwhelming case.

I'm not seeing reports of a high percentage of "under trained" divers losing their lives (compared to the shear number of dives performed each year) and with our current media it would be shouted from the roof tops if that was the case. Are the reefs being dramatically impacted by these "under trained" bumbling divers more so than maybe just the increased diving pressure overall aside from a myriad other reasons our reef systems are under pressure? For every story of the cattle boat pulling up and dropping divers that hit the bottom like "wet bags of cement," I can anecdotally give you a story about the new OW diver almost in tears because they accidentally kicked the reef or the experienced diver/photog laying on the reef to get the perfect shot. In my PADI cert courses, one thing they spent a lot of time stressing was how fragile our underwater environment is and above all to be carefull while experiencing it. Does that always stick? No...but that is as much attitude as training.


I don't really get all this windmill tilting about degrading cert standards. These "vacation divers," while sometimes not pretty, pump a lot of money into the system that keeps LDS, dive OPs, equipment manufactures, etc. alive. They might be one and dones, or only dive once a year, or they might be the the ones that try it young and come back as the 50+ crowd and make it a lifestyle after they can afford it (with all the kids out of the house). If it's not about safety, not about the environment, or not about I want to sell my more expensive 9 week diving course (which seems rather cynical to me since we can always choose more training if we desire it) then it just sounds like YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN. IMHO

 

[Akimbo]

I mean no disrespect to the obviously experienced divers who have voiced their views in this thread, but after reading this and several other similar threads these are my thoughts (bearing in mind opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one).

What is the ultimate goal? …

Simple really, to reduce accidents and the dropout rate. Talk to any liveaboard or day boat captain and ask about the frequency and nature of close calls and actual accidents (not necessarily fatal) they see. Be prepared for a long conversation. That level of drama was very rare when training was much longer… in fact I never witnessed a close call, panicked diver, or actual incident in recreational diving during my first 25-30 years. Agreed, it is a minute sample but is consistent with observations from recreational dive professionals I know.

I have personally seen two people on different dive boats in Monterey that scared themselves enough to give up diving… and I usually go out of my way to avoid newbies. What precipitated both events would have been inconsequential with adequate training. Taking more classes is fine but a very significant majority of fatalities are newly trained divers. That in itself is a fair indicator that they aren’t getting the time, academic, or practical training they need. Separate classes lack the continuity of a single class, if they take additional classes at all.

A longer and more complete course does not exclude anybody unless they aren’t that interested to start with. In that case perhaps they are better served by avoiding a pastime that can easily kill them.

These articles explain it better than I can:
Dive Training Today, A Perspective by Bret Gilliam, Diver Magazine

Should Diver Certification Be Forever? by Bret Gilliam, Diver Magazine

This isn’t an elitist thing at all. It is about knowing enough about the environment and your skills to avoid panic, which is the real killer. That’s hard to get in a handful of pool and ocean dives. I also don’t have a problem if the basic C-card only allowed closely supervised dives in benign conditions. That might be implied, but doesn’t work that way in the real world.

 

[NAM001]

You make a good point. risky is in the mind of the observer. no one doubts that jumping out of a plane is risky. Those who dont unserstand how that risk is managed will say it is dangerous. Those that jump say no biggy. Likewise last summer a crotch rocket passed me on the highway at over 70 with a little buffy on the back in not much more than sandles. Call me crazy but i think that is dangerous. Who has the misguided mindset the biker me or the cutie on the back. Once again i would ask... would you trust your little buffy to go ride with that guy? As far as diving solo goes ... there are those that solo is better for them. mlike the photo buffs. They are not the majority however,,, in my opiniion. I got into solo cause i could not trust those who were down there with me. Skilled perhaps but when they take off you have no backup. Solo skilled me to be my own backkup. So solo was not a means to protest buddy system it was something to protect me from the buddy system. Solo, cert renewal is like many other topics. There are those who discuss with an all or none aspect. Political correctness and personal intrest never saved anyone. There are those that will pick any statement apart to discredit an opinion. "I know new divers that are better than decade old divers". No one can argue with those positions. However if one thinks in the mentality of who is more vulnerable to a bad outcome, STATISTICALLY a new diver or an old salt? The commpn person would say It would be unanimously the new guy. Face it old divers are not old divers because they failed to learn from thier mistakes. The are old because THEY HAVE MADE MISTAKES and have dealt delt with them adn or stopped pushing the bar. New divers,, mostly,,, have not learned to deal with problems because they have not been at it long enough to have gone through the growing pains of diving experience. As long as training and experience is so varied, there is just no fix for it. Depending on who impliments the fix, the fix will probably not be effective so long as the fixers have a fiscal consequence to thier decision. So it leaves it back to would you trust your little buffy to an inexperienced (fill in the blank). If yes would you trust yourself to an inexperienced (fill in the blank). One thing for certain is that the worst the economy gets the more shops shut down and the more new divers that will have really large SI's between dives. Those from major diving non tourist areas will probably never see it but the rest of the areas will.
Ther are people lke BOB that will probably never have to deal with a diving incident. It will be that way because that is the way BOB is, that(I am assuming) is the way Bob dives, and that is,, most likely,, the way those bob dives with are like also. That group, ( I call the 30% of active divers) does not reflect the rest of the community that CARRIES but dont use thier cards. In the nave there is a saying about submarines . all that counts is that the number of surfaces equal the number of dives. In relity the count is just an indicator. what really counts is why the count matches. After 21 years my count is 1 for 1. That is not to say that there were not some close calls. It is to say that the training and experience/ drilling was largely responsible for that 1 to 1 count.

True, but then again, who's to say or judge just what is 'risky business'. That is just what is happening in another thread about solo diving. Some people tend to judge solo diving and other practices as risky because they feel that it is so and don't really understand the behavior. They ask questions but many never truly listen to or understand the answers.

 

[redacted]

You make a good point. risky is in the mind of the observer. no one doubts that jumping out of a plane is risky. Those who dont unserstand how that risk is managed will say it is dangerous. Those that jump say no biggy. Likewise last summer a crotch rocket passed me on the highway at over 70 with a little buffy on the back in not much more than sandles. Call me crazy but i think that is dangerous. Who has the misguided mindset the biker me or the cutie on the back.

That depends. How long did it take you to catch up and get a better look?

Perhaps the training agencies and dive shops could use more scuba review/refresher type courses, but I doubt if they could get away with placing an expiration date on current c-cards. The cost of the recall or the cost of the class action suit would be quite severe.

 

[NAM001]

I never lost my mindset on diving. all those skills transfered over to my navy job in one for m or another. an hour with the bcd and i was set to go. I moved weights during the dive and got trimmed again. but that was because of the navy. If you can buoyancy and trim a LA class sub then you can do it for a 200# diver. The skills and methods are surprising similar. They could do the expiration thing with out suit all the OW card needs is a valid to date stamped on it. The clugie is that you have to make going to AOW a step tht needs more than 10 dives to foster some time for ow SKILLS PERFECTING. In some areas if you present an OW card,, books are reviewed and if too ling since diving regular you take a refresher class. So it is being done , just not in a global sence, or with a dated card.

That depends. How long did it take you to catch up and get a better look?

Perhaps the training agencies and dive shops could use more scuba review/refresher type courses, but I doubt if they could get away with placing an expiration date on current c-cards. The cost of the recall or the cost of the class action suit would be quite severe.

 

[scagrotto]

... she will always have enough to get them both to the surface. ... Without a way of knowing how much she has in her tank,

Never mind how much she has when he runs out. Do they know what they're starting with?

I've seen AL 80's filled to at least 3300 and I've seen them at least as low as 2700, though I suppose that the norm is that any two tanks grabbed at the same time will tend to be close, with the wide spreads occurring over time or distance (as in to a different fill station). I haven't seen it, but once in a while somebody has to get a tank that wasn't even filled. If they aren't checking before the dive I'd think that statistics will eventually catch up to them and offer up a nasty surprise.

OTOH, if they check before the dive and he always takes the lighter fill it's probably a suitably workable plan, especially if they make a point of being shallow after a period of time.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Never mind how much she has when he runs out. Do they know what they're starting with?

When I was certified you did not need to know what you are starting with (air fills were assumed to be full at the shop) - you were very in tune with your regulator - when it felt like it was hard to draw from you pulled your reserve J valve - if you did not have a reserve you headed to the surface or to your buddy and then to the surface. You still had a few mins of air when you started to get the feel of the a heavy draw - no need to panic because you were not completely out of air. As well we did not have depth gauges - we tied knots every 10 feet on the flag - single knot 10 feet - double knot 20 feet and so on... Eventually I bought a Timex watch that you could use for how long you had but it was not a science then - but we were only shore diving - 70 foot was the max dive and you knew about how much time you had at depth - otherwise you came up when you ran out of air.

Back then you paid attention because you had to in order to come back up breathing - diving was a sport and you either got it or you quit...

 

[CT-Rich]

let's assume that this couple decided to take a OW, AOW, Nitrox, Deco, Cave etc. and when they went out on the reef that they have been diving for 50 years with their vintage gear, they followed the same routine they have used successfully for 50 years. Are they safe divers? If they have chosen to dive the way they do, what difference does a C-card make? It sounds like they have the experience and competency to make their own decisions about diving.

I have known plenty of reckless drivers, they have a poor understanding of physics and self inflated sense of self. Not understanding the limits of stopping distance relative to the mass of the car, they follow to close, drive aggressively and after a couple of close calls continue to drive like idiots, despite what the insurance company charges. Divers can be the same. All the idiots that die in caves because they don't think it will happen to me, get bent or whatever, sat through the same gory driver's ed movies I did. New cards won't make idiots smart (that's why they are called idiots), experience teaches, you just have to be willing to learn.

I have a 14 y.o. that wants to dive. My little Buffy doesn't suffer fools, and god help the dip-stick who calls her "Buffy."

 

[NAM001]

Isnt the goal to do a vacation dive?? YES imediately after training while they still remember things. Not a year or so after training. Also safely completing a dive is not measured by if you get back to the boat.

You mentiong goals. So what are the goals. Sell a course, sell a trip, every one makes a lot of money off of daddy's credit card.
We are not one body of divers. We are several bodies. Clearly there are very experienced ones that are of no concern. There are those that are so so experienced and on thier own realalize thier shortcomings and make sure they can do the dives they are planning by getting gear checked taking a refresher ect. Then there are those as you put it Vacation divers. And they are not all created equal so you cant put them in one basket. Every one is commenting on all asepcts of diving and age ect. Age is not the issue untill it comes to common sence it is being familiar and confident with diving that raises the flags. There is just something about hearing "air to the hair" to remind you which way the tank goes, that says this is not an every day thing for some. Basic cards and no books is another flag raiser. There are a number of things. One can go on and on. every one has an oldtimers moment on something. Then there are those that have so many that it cant be ignored. There is , to me, someting about 70% dropout. that bothers me. I would guess that 20% just quit on thier own for various reasons. Then there are perhaps the 50% that cet a cert for no other reason than to do a 2 tank dive in coz on spring break to impress the babe that is going with them. A couple of years later they find themselves in coz again and say why not, i got a card. You are probably correct that even the vacatons divers are not on the fatality list's and as such there is not a problem. To that i would say that you must also look at how many times crews have to fix things for them to keep them off the fatality list. over weighted , air not turned on, no fns, bcd not connected or aired up, and my favorite one ,,,,what is this little hose for...ect ect. The kind of problem things that are most common umongst new infrequent divers. It is my belief that if it were not for the dm's and crew on the boats the fatality #s would be much much higher than they are,,, and our sport would not be what we enjoy today without them.

I mean no disrespect to the obviously experienced divers who have voiced their views in this thread, but after reading this and several other similar threads these are my thoughts (bearing in mind opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one).

What is the ultimate goal? I don't want to "dumb it down" either, but for blue water vacation divers (which is the bulk, I know not all, of a lot of these new "under trained" divers) isn't the goal to safely do a "vacation" dive. There are plenty of training opportunities if you want to progress beyond OW, so why cut these people out, which is in effect what you would be doing if you went back to LA County YMCA standards? Are there statistics showing it's currently less safe to dive? Is it an aesthetics thing that these divers don't look "pretty" underwater? It seems to me if a diver can assemble their gear in a reasonable time frame, exit and enter the boat or surf, swim around enjoying the reef without undo damage, and arrive back at the boat/entrance point safely (following a DM if required), and most of all HAVE FUN...what's the harm?? Considering the number of certifications and the number of dives performed, that seems to be the overwhelming case.

I'm not seeing reports of a high percentage of "under trained" divers losing their lives (compared to the shear number of dives performed each year) and with our current media it would be shouted from the roof tops if that was the case. Are the reefs being dramatically impacted by these "under trained" bumbling divers more so than maybe just the increased diving pressure overall aside from a myriad other reasons our reef systems are under pressure? For every story of the cattle boat pulling up and dropping divers that hit the bottom like "wet bags of cement," I can anecdotally give you a story about the new OW diver almost in tears because they accidentally kicked the reef or the experienced diver/photog laying on the reef to get the perfect shot. In my PADI cert courses, one thing they spent a lot of time stressing was how fragile our underwater environment is and above all to be carefull while experiencing it. Does that always stick? No...but that is as much attitude as training.


I don't really get all this windmill tilting about degrading cert standards. These "vacation divers," while sometimes not pretty, pump a lot of money into the system that keeps LDS, dive OPs, equipment manufactures, etc. alive. They might be one and dones, or only dive once a year, or they might be the the ones that try it young and come back as the 50+ crowd and make it a lifestyle after they can afford it (with all the kids out of the house). If it's not about safety, not about the environment, or not about I want to sell my more expensive 9 week diving course (which seems rather cynical to me since we can always choose more training if we desire it) then it just sounds like YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN. IMHO

 

[daniel1948]

It seems to me they do have a sort of re-certification, in the form of the refresher course, which may be required or may be optional, depending on place and circumstance.

I am a recreational vacation diver. I may make two dive trips in a year or I may go a few years without diving. I will request (and pay for!) a refresher after an extended absence from diving. I enjoy diving, but it's not my life. I have no intention of dropping out of diving while my health lasts, but I also have no intention of diving more often than I do. My cert card means that I took the course at some time in the past, and my log book shows whether or not I need a refresher.

And I agree with the posters who point out that the reviews on this site will help people choose dive operators who will treat them well and provide the level of service they want. Whether you want a hands-on operation that will set up your gear for you and hold your hand through the dive, or an operation that will just take you to the dive site and let you dive, odds are good you can find what you want if you read the reviews.

Should cert cards be for life? Only if you keep up your diving. Otherwise there should be re-certification courses, as indeed there are.