What is the fundamental reason that prevents scuba diving from becoming popular?

[Blackcrusader]

You are supposed to do an actual CESA vertically, but when they are in a swimming pool, they can't, so they do it horizontally. That is what is wrong with it. A fundamental concept in all performance instruction is that you do not have the students practice differently from the way it is done for real. In athletics, it is called making the practice gamelike.

Well when I was in the BSAC training in 86 - 88 what training that needed to be done in deeper water we did shore dives and did a lot of that extra training at depth of 15m or so. 20 years later on when I did my PADI rescue cert that was done in open ocean water as the dive center was right on the shore line so we started from the house reef.

If you advised new divers to join a BSAC club where the courses takes a lot longer and have more materials to learn and train I think less people would choose that over hey I can do an PADI OW Nitrox and AOW in several days.

I've seen plenty of new divers do the OW & AOW and Nitrox in a week. When new divers also look a the cost of buying a complete setup including wetsuit and DC it is a large outlay if you are not going to be really doing a lot of diving.
So renting equipment is the way to go. Makes entry into diving a lot cheaper.

When people also read about US$1000 plus diving computers that may also put them off.

Also is the cost of dives. In Indonesia / Philippines you might pay between US$20 - US$25 per dive. Not too expensive for vacation divers.

One dive center I dive with any student who returns to dive there never needs to pay for rental equipment except they don't rent DC's as they are for students in training. I do not enjoy the diving in Taiwan so much it is mediocre at best and I do not feel like I have gone on vacation when diving here.

So all my diving requires flying to other countries. I am fortunate that I can afford to do so several times a year

 

[Blackcrusader]

This post isn't what I'd think of as overly professional. More like that of a stalker!

What's with this buddy fetish? Fine for those who want one and a good idea for novice diving, but not necessary in challenging conditions where self-sufficiency and good skills resolve your problems.

Nothing wrong with a professional stalker looking at my video's. Just makes them wish they could dive in the places I dive.

As for not seeing many buddies in my dive videos those divers have the courtesy not to wander in front of my gear when I take a video.
I'm not one for taking videos of myself but have a few one of my buddies takes using my camera.
A lot of the videos I take I have given to local schools to show their students about diving and marine life.

Finally in Taiwan people are pushing the government to change the laws where fishing boats can operate as many places were overfished.

In December every year Taiwan has hundreds of hammerhead sharks that come this way to breed.

 

[Cthippo]

Also is the cost of dives. In Indonesia / Philippines you might pay between US$20 - US$25 per dive. Not too expensive for vacation divers.

That must be nice. Here for just tank, regs and computer it's about $75 in rentals, plus 3 or 4 hours driving total to go get the stuff and return it the next day.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Actually an emergency Buoyant Ascent is the last resort. A CESA is made at no more than 60 fpm (the controlled part), a buoyant ascent is as fast as the air bubble in your BC takes you up. The first will help you avoid DCS, the latter won't.

Yes embolism or explosive decompression a problem. BCD purge valves would release air if the bladder is over pressurized but by that time your ascent rate especially near the surface could give you an embolism

Not ascending faster than your bubbles is written in training manuals but people can easily forget that if they panic.
So a controlled buoyant ascent as well as a free ascent were both taught in my sports diving classes. In my BSAC sport diving manual DCS is considered more of an issue when you are deeper then 30m Again these are last resort situations. This was covered in my deep diver training courses with dives deeper than 30m.

Using a BCD for an buoyant ascent yes you could lose control of your ascent speed and monitoring your DC as well as having a hand on a purge valve release not easy. I wear my DC on my right hand and my right shoulder purge valve release cord is long enough I can see my DC

BSAC Sports diving deeper dives to 50m are also taught and there is a difference for cold water and warm water diver training. I have not had dry suit training as I was taught in tropical warm waters. I did not train to 50m
DCS is treatable and not an immediate life threatening medical issue, preferable to drowning.

 

[Blackcrusader]

That must be nice. Here for just tank, regs and computer it's about $75 in rentals, plus 3 or 4 hours driving total to go get the stuff and return it the next day.

Extremely nice. Also if you do 9 dives the tenth dive free in most places. So when I do a 40 dive vacation my dives might cost me around
US$770 - US$850 as I may take some longer day trips to outer islands where we BBQ on the boat after the two morning dives. Most dives are shorter boat dives that are less than 20 - 30 mins from the dive center as well as what they call the house reef shore dives.
Lodgings and airfares not included but many resorts especially might only cost you US$35 - US$50 a night.

I'm already in Asia so don't have long flying times.

 

[Cthippo]

That world is totally foreign to me.

I got certified planning (hoping) to find a regular buddy to dive with and do either shore dives locally or off my boat. The idea of going in a group or hiring a guide just seems weird to me. To each their own, I guess.

 

[Julius SCHMIDT]

The devil is back again ha ha ha ha ha! Hello the devil. That user name is taken mate, when are you leaving

 

[Blackcrusader]

That world is totally foreign to me.

I got certified planning (hoping) to find a regular buddy to dive with and do either shore dives locally or off my boat. The idea of going in a group or hiring a guide just seems weird to me. To each their own, I guess.

Well I live in a remote area in the mountains. Most of the divers I could dive with can only dive on weekends whereas I work weekends and they are several hours away from me. Almost faster to fly overseas really.

So for me vacation diving where I can stay at a resort or at a nice place close to dive ops where I am only a few minutes away is good for me. I want my dives to be my vacations and they are just that.

 

[Searcaigh]

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[ZamaTim]

According to this History of NAUI, there was a club atmosphere in the USA in the early days of scuba. In the mid to late 1960s, the new agencies providing instruction had to come up with a way of meeting students to certify. They tried 3 different approaches.

1. NAUI, under the leadership of a college professor, decided to focus on teaching through colleges. Students had to sign up for classes and pay the tuition for them every semester, so getting scuba certification would be unhurried and essentially free to them. While that was true, the authors admitted that in the long term it was a bad idea because of the limited potential for students.
2. The YMCA decided to focus on dive clubs for their students. As dive clubs fizzled, so did their pool of students. They eventually stopped teaching scuba.
3. NASDS and the NAUI offshoot PADI decided to reach students through dive shops. People buying gear would want to learn how to use it. That turned out to be the winning idea.

So why did dive clubs fizzle in the USA? There are indeed dive clubs in the USA today--just not very many, and they do not focus on instruction. I certainly don't have any definitive proof, but I have a theory.

Years ago I met some people in a dive club, and they told me that they used to be associated with a specific sponsoring dive shop, but that dive shop withdrew its sponsorship and posted a permanent sign saying they had no relationship with the club, even though they actually continued an unofficial relationship. That was done on advice of an attorney, who worried that the shop could be sued for something done by a club member over whom they had no control.

That fear is very legitimate. One of the most important scuba lawsuits ever was the case of drifting Dan Carlock. Dan surfaced from a dive to find his boat was gone. The two DMs who took the roll after the dive had missed him. He was eventually picked up by another boat, and the lawsuit got him many millions of dollars. One of the parties successfully sued was PADI. The argument was that because PADI had certified the DMs, they were acting as agents of PADI. (That is why liability waivers today specifically state that you understand that the professionals are not agents of the agency.) The DMs were, however, agents of the dive club that had chartered the boat, and they were acting on behalf of the dive club when they took the roll. I never heard about how the dive club made out in the suit, but I suspect it hurt them.

I couldn't find anything about PADI being named and sued as such. And it wasn't "many millions of dollars, it was $1.68 million. Good story, but a little more accrete information would have been better. Perhaps you could post the case # or transcript.