I'm currently enrolled in a PADI Open Water course, and we are about to do our 4th or 5th confined water dive (I forget which XD).
I don't mean to push any buttons here, but you are joking about this swimming ability stuff, right?
I'll be the first to admit that I love diving but that I'm much worse than a noobie (I'm currently getting my open water certification, and I'm still having trouble equalizing! There's not much lower than that!). But it seems to me that scuba diving has transformed into a self regulated sport, driven by a community that loves what it does. And the number one thing I read in practically every chapter of the PADI book is that no matter how much training you have, you should never dive beyond your experience level.
We are training a generation (or several, really) of divers to be responsible, to do what's right, and to self regulate themselves and the diving community as a whole. New divers are taught to learn their limits, and to protect themselves by knowing what their experience level can and cannot do, and what they individually can and cannot do.
I have never read anything so dumb on this forum as when I read this post. Swimming ability for scuba doesn't matter. I know this and I haven't even dived outside of a pool. How do I know? I know because my confined water dives were actually scuba dives, no matter how boring or basic. Did I breath underwater? Yes. Did I need to swim a marathon? No. Now, will I need to swim more in my open water dives? Of course. But what if I'm happy just diving in swimming pools? Is that not "real" scuba? Am I no longer accepted in the scuba community? Can I no longer encourage others to enter into our community and to find a lifelong enjoyable hobby?
There is no reason anyone needs to be able to swim very well to scuba dive. Even disabled individuals are scuba diving with great success. How base it is to berate such individuals as poor divers because they can't swim a marathon!
Every person decides how/when/where they scuba. Some may never leave a pool, some may love chilling that 10 minutes allowed at 130 feet in the ocean. But no one should ever dive and surpass their physical limits. If you're not a great swimmer, then don't dive in a location where you'll need to swim well. There is no single scuba diving profile; otherwise, why would we need tables or computers?
Scuba diving is a broad sport, with so many different locations and scenarios, with so many different conditions and challenges, and with so many different people and skill levels. To me, this is what makes Scuba so great. I will never experience the same thing twice, and I will always be able to learn something from the diver next to me, whether I'm a newbie or a divemaster, or whether they are a newbie or a divemaster. I'm sorry that I had to step in and see such shallow minded veteran divers who don't realize that confined pool diving is just as much a part of the Scuba community as ocean diving is, even if it is not as thrilling. It's still "scuba".