Three dives in one day against the rules?

[H2Andy]

the "rules" is to be safe and not get bent

if you can manage that and do ten dives in a day, more power to you

but you need to understand how (slow ascents and lots of time above 33 feet are your friends)

 

[IceIce]

My favorite dive day is when I made 5 dives a day!

 

[Cacia]

Like somebody said, clubs sometimes make rules.

I know of this one club where they all hang out in strip bars plastered M-Thursday, and eat ****burgers for every meal. THEN they have this rule that you must go through DT's in time to dive the "tech" dives and you must log that you exercised and what you did. They make stuff up like Ping Pong...and I went boogie boarding. Then the pound their flabby chests and snuff out their clove cigarettes, hop in their ininsured cars with bald tires and "do it right." You should try that club, Mislav.

Beware of clubs and sugary beverages, but you already know that, being a Buddhist aficiando and all.
Have the healthy lifestyle and skip the rules.

Anyway, that wasn't the question was it?

I go on three tank three deep wreck days and choose two of the three because I get paranoid about 3 dives over 120ft....playing it too close even if the tables say it's okay.

Sounds like your club might tell you what time it's nighty night and maybe they just want everybody to be on their best game?

Curious if they were a fun group otherwise. I have a couple divers I dive with that have "their own rules" and I just go along because it's worth it and makes them feel in charge enough to help me with other things.

 

[mislav]

*Sigh* I found out as well.

Et tu, Lorens? Quo usque tandem CMAS abutere patientia nostra?

CMAS has a good reason for not considering PADI certs to be an equal. CMAS training has much greater rigor.

I don't want to bash CMAS here, I do think it's a good agency, but I do wish all this rigor would show in their diving.

As for if that's a rule or not -- I do not believe it is.

CMAS' standards are available here: http://www.oceanos.dk/CMAS STANDARDS.pdf

Here's what I find in that pdf on page 7 where they mention standards for their Advanced Open Water/Rescue Diver certification equivalent:

CMAS TWO STAR DIVER
b. Entry requirements
1. Must be at least 15 years old.
2. Should have a 1 Star CMAS Diver certificate or equivalent
3. No specified number of dives are necessary to start the course
4. Must have minimum 20 open water dives at time of certification, of which at least 10 should be in the 10-30
meter range.
A dive must be minimum 20 minutes and maximum 2 dives per day.

There you go! This limitation might be what they talk about. Can someone elaborate on this?

Why only 35-40 minutes. That's awfully short for the trouble.

Tell me about it. I've made those three dives using one 15L tank of air and still had some air left afterwards. Although I could have made all three dives on one tank, I did use two tanks as they gave my tank with plenty of air left after the first dive to someone else. I used one 12L tank for both my second and my third dive and still had 70 bar left. They told me to pay for three tanks later on because "I went on one extra dive".

Curious if they were a fun group otherwise.

Good question, Catherine. Tough one to answer, too. The jury is still out on that.

 

[Izze]

CMAS TWO STAR DIVER
b. Entry requirements
1. Must be at least 15 years old.
2. Should have a 1 Star CMAS Diver certificate or equivalent
3. No specified number of dives are necessary to start the course
4. Must have minimum 20 open water dives at time of certification, of which at least 10 should be in the 10-30
meter range.
A dive must be minimum 20 minutes and maximum 2 dives per day.

The way I read that paragraph is that logged dives used to qualify for the next training level must fit the above criteria. Ie you can't do several shallow dives a day to quickly jump up in ratings. A minimum of ten days diving and 400 minutes bottom time is a good thing imo.

 

[mislav]

The way I read that paragraph is that logged dives used to qualify for the next training level must fit the above criteria. Ie you can't do several shallow dives a day to quickly jump up in ratings. A minimum of ten days diving and 400 minutes bottom time is a good thing imo.

Yes, exactly how I understand it, too! If we could only get someone from CMAS to confirm this to us.

 

[beester]

Maybe I can give you some insight into CMAS/NELOS rules and training since I'm a member of the federation. However I'm no instructor... just a lowly CMAS diver.

On successive dives CMAS: The following rules apply
Recreational dives (up to 100 feet depth): Unlimited successive dives depending on N2 saturation level / tables.
Deep dives (between 100 and 187 feet depth): 1 successive dive allowed.
Extreme dives (deeper than 187 feet): No successive dives allowed.

If 2nd or successive dives becomes a deco-dive or because of circumstances ends up deeper then 100 feet then no more successive dives are allowed.

Next to these basic rules there are a couple of advices:
It's suggested for successive dives to be less deep then the first dive
It's suggested to keep as much time between dives as possible
It's suggested to take a day of rest after 5 dives of intensive diving

Since deco-dives / deep dives are in specific circumstances allowed under the CMAS rules the above makes sense and is not that strict, but just logical.

So under the above rules... you can fly to bonaire and dive balls out. Do 6 dives a day as long as you stay above 100 feet and adhere to the NDL. If you however do a deep dive or deco dive then you can do only 1 more dive that day (if dive 1 was deep or deco) or no more dives (if it was dive 2 that was deep or no deco). All the other things are suggestions asking to be sensible since there is an inherent danger in doing 2 week 5 dives a day holidays. (take a break, maximize time between dives, etc).

Next to this I have to state that CMAS is a confederation of mostly national diving federations. There are slight variations that result from interpretations of the CMAS rules, so there can be slight differences in rules between let's say Croatia and Belgian diving federations. But normaly the above rules should apply.

I of course do not know what the 'club' rules are that the OP states but this is certainly not the case where I come from. I do find it a bit sad that many people her post a reaction to a post stating something without checking the facts.

 

[Todd128]

The way I read that paragraph is that logged dives used to qualify for the next training level must fit the above criteria. Ie you can't do several shallow dives a day to quickly jump up in ratings. A minimum of ten days diving and 400 minutes bottom time is a good thing imo.

I agree with this interpretation--otherwise a 2-dive restriction doesn't make sense. Just doing recreational 40' shore dives with ~2-hour surface intervals, even adding 10' for cold water, will allow more than 2 dives safely and well within limits. On a 3-dive day last Saturday, I ended the day only in pressure group L. If I were in a "club" with this restriction, I would have had to miss the night dive...and the octopus.

 

[Meng_Tze]

Hmm,

CMAS can set any standard and try to 'enforce' them as much as they want to. That is their prerogative. If their standards say 'no more than x number of dives/day and they must be done in y sequence'..... then by this, one will comply with these rules and standards. Simple enough.

You have to make up your mind about whether you want to live by these rules and standards and be told by members of the affiliated clubs. This is not a legal/judicial debate, but rather a self imposed set of criteria someone can either live with or not.

I promise you, if you break the rules here, you will not go to jail. You may get hurt if you don't know what you are doing, but that will be taken on as personal accountability,........ right? If you can not live with that prospect, maybe having self imposed rules works best for you. It's decision time.....

 

[beester]

CMAS training is state of the art, and is a very influential aquatic training agency in Western Europe, South America and Mexico. What PADI, and NAUI consider certifications, they consider levels. Each level (includes instructors) has its restrictions. Also, as mentioned, certain dive clubs have their own restrictions.

One can be a CMAS 1-star diver, 2-star, 3-star, or 4-star. There are different levels of cave and technical instruction as well (similar to Cave 1, Tech 2, etc.)

And yes, CMAS despises PADI - won't recognise the card as equal. By the way, PADI does very well in all parts of Europe, except for the Latin countries (France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy).

http://www.cmas.org/comtec/standards.asp?cl=77&sub=77

The first part of your post is correct the second part is very harsh! :no

I can of course only speak from my experience (Belgium). It's true that the majority of Belgian dive clubs/groups are CMAS. BEFOS (belgian federation) is a founding member of CMAS. Between 1958 and the early 70's there was nothing else... so CMAS has had a very big head start over PADI in Belgium and other founding member countries. This has nothing to do with latin culture, look at the UK there are many more BSAC clubs then PADI clubs for the same reason (BSAC was there first).

CMAS does not despise PADI, people despise people. In my CMAS club there are quite alot of divers with double certification (cmas/padi). Many started out as PADI OW (on holiday) and got additional cmas certificates because they wanted to dive in Belgium/Holland, some have gotten padi certificates after their cmas.

Recognising cards as equal is always difficult, it depends on trust between organisation but also on training standards and systems. I know for a fact that CMAS 1 * diver is interchangeable with PADI OW. One on one no hassle. It gets more difficult with AOW, CMAS 2 * diver is much more elaborate then AOW (more of a combo o rescue and aow). So what most agencies do is interchange them at a lower certification and allow the training up to the next level. For example as PADI AOW you'll get a 1 * CMAS and allowed to train for 2 *. As 2 * CMAS you get a AOW certificate and can start training for Rescue.

Regardless of certification, if a new diver comes to our club, staff is going to do some check dives with the bloke. A card doesn't tell the whole story. Getting certified in balmy clear blue 100 vis Egyptian water is totally different from the cold, dark, deep, 10 feet (on a good day) vis that we frequent. This has nothing to do with certification agency but with common sense. If all checks out you can start training and diving with the club and appeal for a cert card or start working on the next level. No hassle.

Of course friendly rubbing goes on all the time but that's to be expected

Cheers all!