Taboo

[tursiops]

I suspect 2 factors were in play....

1.) PADI had a rep. for historically being anti-solo.

2.) SDI, an agency many hadn't heard of or had paid little attention to, came out with a solo diver course that found demand. More divers started taking notice of SDI, and taking that course. While they were there, they got introduced to an alternative to PADI for a range of other courses.

It's not unlike if Wal-mart discovered they didn't carry something a lot of customers wanted, but found at Target...and some took a liking to Target.

If PADI didn't want to 'eat crow' or lose more business to SDI, options were limited. Coming up with 'self-reliant diver' is surprisingly inventive under the circumstances.

I agree with this 100%. But, as with many things, PADI either ignored or didn't care about the unintended consequences....i.e., their Self-Reliant card, which is equal to or better than the SDI Solo card, not being accepted because it does not explicitly say Solo. All they have to do is announce in the Training Bulletin that, henceforth, and retroactively, the Self-Reliant Diver certification is renamed as the Self-Reliant and Solo Diver certification. Then it is even better than the Solo-only card from SDI.

 

[Wibble]

I agree with this 100%. But, as with many things, PADI either ignored or didn't care about the unintended consequences....i.e., their Self-Reliant card, which is equal to or better than the SDI Solo card, not being accepted because it does not explicitly say Solo. All they have to do is announce in the Training Bulletin that, henceforth, and retroactively, the Self-Reliant Diver certification is renamed as the Self-Reliant and Solo Diver certification. Then it is even better than the Solo-only card from SDI.

And still wouldn’t be acceptable as the alumni were trained as buddyless buddy system divers.

 

[tursiops]

And still wouldn’t be acceptable as the alumni were trained as buddyless buddy system divers.

Continuing to say this does not make it true.
If you compare the content and standards of the training, the PADI course is slightly better than the SDI course for solo diving.

 

[tursiops]

Of course, PADI never mentions the word "solo" in the 27 years they have published their quarterly Training Bulletin.
The only current mention I know of for PADI professionals explicitly regarding "solo" is in a posting buried on the PADIPro website under Curriculum>References>Topics-of-Interest>Diving-Without-a-Partner. It is attached here. I do not know its publication date.

 

[TMHeimer]

I agree with this 100%. But, as with many things, PADI either ignored or didn't care about the unintended consequences....i.e., their Self-Reliant card, which is equal to or better than the SDI Solo card, not being accepted because it does not explicitly say Solo. All they have to do is announce in the Training Bulletin that, henceforth, and retroactively, the Self-Reliant Diver certification is renamed as the Self-Reliant and Solo Diver certification. Then it is even better than the Solo-only card from SDI.

Yes, that's the answer. Wonder if it has been proposed?

 

[yle]

Beg to differ. Self-reliant means someone who can handle being alone for part of the dive; lost buddy, setting the shot, continuing if the buddy's surfaced early.

Solo means exactly that: solo. Nobody else to help. Rock up, dive, get out, go home -- nobody else around. There's nobody to help, nobody to do a 'buddy check', nobody to carry your kit, etc.

I stated that solo divers are a subset of self-reliant divers. This is not a matter of opinion, it's fact... by definition of a "subset": all solo divers are self-reliant, but not all self-reliant divers are solo.

It's like saying "dogs are a subset of mammals", i.e. all dogs are mammals, but not all mammals are dogs. You can choose to disagree, but the statement is still a fact.

 

[yle]

And still wouldn’t be acceptable as the alumni were trained as buddyless buddy system divers.

Can we just agree that the UK is different than the rest of the world? So if we accept that all your statements on this topic are true in the UK, will you accept that it's possible they are not so outside of the UK?

Just trying to find something we can agree on.

 

[yle]

To be honest, SRD ought to be a pre-requisite to the Rescue Diver course, certainly when searching for a lost diver.

All right, we can agree on this! Although some would argue that Rescue should be a pre-req to SRD or Solo. It's a "chicken and egg" situation.

Taking the two courses concurrently, like nitrox & deep together, might be the best.

 

[Wibble]

Can we just agree that the UK is different than the rest of the world? So if we accept that all your statements on this topic are true in the UK, will you accept that it's possible they are not so outside of the UK?

Just trying to find something we can agree on.

Quite frankly the only thing that matters are the skills and kit to go solo diving. One of the biggest skills is being hard on oneself for high standards and not attempting to dive when it's "not right". What's not right is for you to determine, getting it wrong may result in death.

Who taught the course is more important that the 'course' -- which IMHO is primarily an assessment of your skills you bring to the 'workshop'. Instructor's skills are critical here as you're paying for experience and not a freshly minted recreational dive instructor who does nothing other than teach courses.


As an aside, I'm rapidly learning that PADI's a lot more prevalent in the US than the UK!

 

[Compressor]

Interesting thread as usual as many people saying the same thing but in different words.