The Ethics of Promoting Cave Diving

[kierentec]

Jon, this petty and trivial, and greatly appreciate your representation for TDI,but I don't think you are in charge of mebership services. Sorry, not trying to pile on, just if you are going to have a title for an agency I am sure you want to get it right.

Thank you for pointing this out, the typo has been corrected. I would like to clarify, however, that I am not personally in charge of the department. I am one of several individuals who work in the Training and Membership Services department.

 

[Redshift]

The problem with promoting cave diving comes from who is going to be attracted to it and why.
I don't see a problem in having websites with information nor trying to show the qualities of philosophies behind a dive shop / instructor. Yes, it makes cave diving more visible, but is there a problem in showing that there are caves, people dive them and there is training available to do so? No.
The problem comes when dive shops / instructors try to engage divers and call them "Hey, what you should do now is cave diving!" What if they hadn't thought of that? Or are not suited for it? Are they going to say first "Come cave diving!" and then "Sorry, maybe you shouldn't."? Hardly...
How many of you have bought something you didn't need or want or even like that much because you were convinced to do it by someone or by an advert...? Do we want the same for cave divers? And peer pressure is something mentioned frequently! Some kinds of advertising and engaging potential divers are peer pressure.
I saw recently a dive shop advertising trimix courses and telling divers to "join the elite". Is that the way to attract divers and are those the divers with the correct attitude?

Another problem lies more with the agencies than instructors / shops and that has to do with the way they enforce standards. What's the point on having them and then not caring if they are followed? They should take very seriously any reports of wrong doing (yes, I know, the whole debate about how to know if something is wrong when some standards are not public) and be on top of their instructors.

 

[karstdvr]

Thank you for pointing this out, the typo has been corrected. I would like to clarify, however, that I am not personally in charge of the department. I am one of several individuals who work in the Training and Membership Services department.

My apologies, it was petty,but better said via a PM

 

[daniel f aleman]

Being certified as a TDI Cave Instructor over a "weekend or two" is impossible. So...

 

[boulderjohn]

Hmm, scary.

FYI, it took me a year to cross over from NAUI to TDI at the full cave instructor level. I had to:

1. Teach 3 TDI cavern courses
2. Intern with at least one intro course taught by a TDI instructor
3. Complete a TDI intro to cave IE.
4. Teach 3 TDI intro courses.
5. Intern with at least one complete full cave course taught by a TDI instructor, and receive a written recommendation to proceed onto the IE from that instructor.
6. Complete a full cave IE. The IT was not allowed to be the same instructor that recommended me to go on to the IE.

Pre-reqs to begin the process were full cave certified diver with 100 non-training cave dives (for cavern instructor), 150 non-training cave dives (for intro instructor), and 200 non-training cave dives (for full cave instructor), plus of course OW scuba instructor having taught a number of courses. I believe I had around 800 non-training cave dives when I started the process, but I stopped keeping a logbook back in 1998.

Now.. I've done quite a few more internships than was required for the minimum, and I guess it is possible to have progressed faster than a year. I believe I've now worked with a dozen different cave instructors with courses for all levels. But, I don't see how someone could have become a full cave instructor from nothing in the course of a weekend with TDI.

Now that you have crossed over, are you sure those are the TDI requirements and not what the person who handled that decided to require? TDI allows an instructor to go beyond the basic requirements.

When I started Tech training with TDI, my instructor told us flat out that he was going to go well beyond the TDI requirements. He did not tell us what the TDI requirements were, and he did not tell us what his requirements were. He only casually mentioned one day that we were well past the TDI requirements already. You will not believe how many months it took me to pass Intro to Tech. After a while I got a little miffed and wanted to get a cert card or two. I wrote to TDI and described what we were being required to do. Their reply was that it sure sounded like I was learning a lot, and I should be happy with it. Now that I am an instructor for those courses and know what is required, I am amazed at how much was added.

Now, it is also possible for an individual instructor to go the opposite direction and require less. It is not allowed by the rules, but how is one to know? A few years ago my niece became a NAUI certified diver by doing one 2-hour pool session and one OW dive to a maximum depth of 10 feet. I am pretty sure NAUI requires more than that, but she has a card.

 

[daniel f aleman]

A few years ago my niece became a NAUI certified diver by doing one 2-hour pool session and one OW dive to a maximum depth of 10 feet.

No she didn't.

 

[boulderjohn]

No she didn't.

I am not clear on your response. She has a NAUI card certifying her as a diver. That means she is certified. If she presents it to a dive operation, they will accept it. She will not do that because she says, rightly so, she has no real idea how to dive. So what do you mean?

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

No she didn't.

What do you mean Daniel?

I would agree she is not a "trained" diver, but she apparently is a 'certified" diver since they issued her a c-card.

 

[daniel f aleman]

Look you two. We know who you are, and your respected places in diving instruction.

Nobody has ever been certified as a scuba diver by NAUI in the manner described above. And nobody has become a TDI Cave Instructor after "one or two weekends" under an IT.

 

[The Chairman]

No she didn't.

It's beginning to sound like a Monty Python skit...

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