That was somewhat the point. All can present an ow card but in no way does the card relay what the holder can do. There are OW holders that can clearly out preform long time AOW's. So the thing is,,, just what standard is the card conveying other than absolute minimum required standard. Because the holder of a PNW OW card is not the same diver as the midwest OW diver or the FLA OW diver. I have never been on any recreational dive that required more than a AOW.
What is the point of certifications?
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I had the same thoughts myself.
One day i was sitting comfortable on my brown old rocking chair on my porch and looking to the stars sipping slowly, very slowly my russian hot tea.No sugar no honey,no milk.Just pure black russian tea.
And as everything was quiet, suddenly i see on the sky a big flash, a very constant big flash with a tremendous, a horrendous sound ssssvvvrrrrrrooouuuuuuuum and boom....... was a comet that landed on my head.
Then my eyes was clear open and i saw this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q
ferris213
Contributor
Rock climbing is a sport that shares many similarities with diving. It's as easy or as hard as you want to make it, and it can be very safe or very dangerous. We have a local cliff here that has a large number of beginners. They require no certifications to buy gear and go and have a go.
Serious accidents are an alarmingly common occurrence. Fractured sculls probably once every two or three months. Without basic training people seem unable to even recognise the dangers.
It seems that when people moved away from the 'apprenticeship' that was once served under experienced climbers, beginners have no guidance, with occasional very bad results.
I think diving would be similar, no training or guidance and injuries and deaths would increase a lot.
Serious accidents are an alarmingly common occurrence. Fractured sculls probably once every two or three months. Without basic training people seem unable to even recognise the dangers.
It seems that when people moved away from the 'apprenticeship' that was once served under experienced climbers, beginners have no guidance, with occasional very bad results.
I think diving would be similar, no training or guidance and injuries and deaths would increase a lot.
We dove for years without certification back in the 60s. The only instruction I received before my first descent was "Don't hold your breath." However, when I moved from the Midwest to the West Coast I was very glad to take a very thorough certification course (L.A. County). It was required for my employment (teaching marine biology on SCUBA) and to get air fills (until we got our own compressor). Seeing some of the OW certified divers today, I wonder if some certifications are of any value in preparing them. However, I've also seen divers with no formal certs who were very proficient.
My first scuba trip abroad (c. 1991, to the late, lamented Cayman Diving Lodge, East End, Grand Cayman Island) gave me a new perspective regarding scuba "certification." In my rush to finish grading exams and travel from Michigan to rendezvous with Missouri friends at CDL, I forgot my C-card. The morning of the first dive, the CDL staff were unable to get through to PADI to verify my certification. They allowed me to dive nevertheless, but scrutinized me extremely closely during my first dive which, per the standard "Cayman profile," was to a max depth of 105 fsw. After watching me prepare for what was to be a 55 fsw repetitive dive (I wrote about this on an old SB post #29 here: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...e-limit-bottom-time-45-min-3.html#post6424811), I no longer had their special attention whatsoever for the rest of the week, and they didn't again attempt to verify my PADI certification.
It's great to be competent—regardless of certification.
Safe Diving,
rx7diver
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I learned to weld on my own(for years), and one good welding class at the community college opened my eyes to how you are supposed to weld. Diving is similar, in that the certification will help streamline the learning process and minimize the trial and error methods. It is still up to the student to learn and practice. The kids like certifications because it gives them goals. Nothing wrong with that. I like the classes just because it reinforces some things and clarifies others. An instructor can observe and critique if they see something not ideal. When I started , my NAUI instructor was there to tell me I looked like a seahorse in a rodeo.
I actually proud of my c-card.
I actually proud of my c-card.
GrumpyOldGuy
Contributor
I suspect there were enough informal barriers even in the 60's to keep the clueless safe. Gear was hard to get, no internet / online options and even mail order was not much of an option. I am betting most divers learned by having a mentor, not totally on their own. If you wanted to dive, you had to work it it to gather the gear and find good location. The diver then were on the edge and knew it, not just some middle aged person with whipping out his credit card and splashing.
A "certification" is not a bad thing. I know quite a few divers who never got a certification and dove their entire lives and some are still diving. The problem with the SCUBA certifications is that they do not really mean anything. There are no uniformly applied standards and the standards are insufficient.
Example, Padi teaching basic skills keeling on the bottom and Padi instructors who cannot swim a lick and who also kneel on the bottom to do a mask clear.
I do not want the guberment involved for sure but I think there should be one cross industry agreement on standards. An advanced divers should be exactly that, not somebody with a few dives and a credit line to pay for the course.
On the other hand, I like it fine as it is, except for divers crawling on the reef, that bugs me to no end.
N
Example, Padi teaching basic skills keeling on the bottom and Padi instructors who cannot swim a lick and who also kneel on the bottom to do a mask clear.
I do not want the guberment involved for sure but I think there should be one cross industry agreement on standards. An advanced divers should be exactly that, not somebody with a few dives and a credit line to pay for the course.
On the other hand, I like it fine as it is, except for divers crawling on the reef, that bugs me to no end.
N
You really have to examine the evolution to understand how we got here. Around the late 1950s to early 60s the sport was starting to grow quickly. There’s relatively a lot to know in this sport to prevent people from hurting themselves. A host of forces worked together to organize training and later to begin to standardize it.
There were frequent editorials in Skin Diver Magazine, the leading publication of the time, promoting self-regulation before the government came in and did it for/to us. Diving fatalities were, and still are, very newsworthy and hyperbaric medicine was little known in the general medical community. The concern was that the media and lawyers would soon learn all the different ways an ill-informed diver could kill or injure themselves.
Several enterprising people also saw an opportunity to profit — not only by standardizing diver training but selling dive shops other services like sales training, insurance, inventory management, etc.
The vast majority of dive shops in the US were very responsible and sold customers very good classes, even though internationally recognized standards didn’t exist. Manuals published by Navies all over the world spelled out the majority of what people needed to know if they were interested enough to slog through them. The big problem came from the fledgling dive resort business, mostly outside the US.
People would go on vacation to someplace with warm clear water and want to experience diving. Obviously a six-week course wasn’t going to work so they gave them a quick list of rules, like never stop breathing and follow the guide. The “show-me” dive was invented. It worked out OK in warm shallow water with a baby-sitter… err dive guide.
Unfortunately some of these people would return home where sea-state nasty and cold was the norm and insisted on buying gear so they could go diving on their own. Their “experience” in the Caribbean (among other places) made some of these cocky SOBs think they knew it all. It didn’t take advanced degrees and computer models to see that a lot of really bad press and government bureaucrats were in the future.
So several certification agencies sprang up, some focused on the overall “good” of the sport and some much more profit-centric. Competitive forces slowly drove the relative cost and time commitment down to what we see today. To make up for reducing Scuba 101 (OW) to something closer to the “resort courses” than those of the 1960s, they figured out that selling more merit badges was a profit center and would eventually produce competent divers. This article in Diver Magazine by Bret Gilliam explains a lot:
Dive Training Today A Perspective | DIVER magazine
There were frequent editorials in Skin Diver Magazine, the leading publication of the time, promoting self-regulation before the government came in and did it for/to us. Diving fatalities were, and still are, very newsworthy and hyperbaric medicine was little known in the general medical community. The concern was that the media and lawyers would soon learn all the different ways an ill-informed diver could kill or injure themselves.
Several enterprising people also saw an opportunity to profit — not only by standardizing diver training but selling dive shops other services like sales training, insurance, inventory management, etc.
The vast majority of dive shops in the US were very responsible and sold customers very good classes, even though internationally recognized standards didn’t exist. Manuals published by Navies all over the world spelled out the majority of what people needed to know if they were interested enough to slog through them. The big problem came from the fledgling dive resort business, mostly outside the US.
People would go on vacation to someplace with warm clear water and want to experience diving. Obviously a six-week course wasn’t going to work so they gave them a quick list of rules, like never stop breathing and follow the guide. The “show-me” dive was invented. It worked out OK in warm shallow water with a baby-sitter… err dive guide.
Unfortunately some of these people would return home where sea-state nasty and cold was the norm and insisted on buying gear so they could go diving on their own. Their “experience” in the Caribbean (among other places) made some of these cocky SOBs think they knew it all. It didn’t take advanced degrees and computer models to see that a lot of really bad press and government bureaucrats were in the future.
So several certification agencies sprang up, some focused on the overall “good” of the sport and some much more profit-centric. Competitive forces slowly drove the relative cost and time commitment down to what we see today. To make up for reducing Scuba 101 (OW) to something closer to the “resort courses” than those of the 1960s, they figured out that selling more merit badges was a profit center and would eventually produce competent divers. This article in Diver Magazine by Bret Gilliam explains a lot:
Dive Training Today A Perspective | DIVER magazine
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As many already said, the biggest real need is liability. The vast majority of divers can only dive with the assistance of a business that either fills their tank or takes transports them to a dive site, possibly even actively pairing one diver off with another as a diving budy (i.e. having a hand in one diver's safety having been tied to the other diver's capabilities) when no one involved has any prior aquaintance. No business could dare to do this without some means of demonstrating that they had good reason to believe the "diver" knew what he/she was doing.
I have no problem with your dad teaching you to dive and the two of you or your whole community of friends happily filling your own tanks and possibly diving for decades & all over the world. But if people who don't know each other need to have some assurance that they can at least try a checkout dive without their new buddy getting them hurt, we need certification cards.
Many of us might be able to picture taking responsability for ourselves, but God forbid I would ever have to let my kid get in the water with someone we don't know and not even a card to indicate they might know what they are doing.
I have no problem with your dad teaching you to dive and the two of you or your whole community of friends happily filling your own tanks and possibly diving for decades & all over the world. But if people who don't know each other need to have some assurance that they can at least try a checkout dive without their new buddy getting them hurt, we need certification cards.
Many of us might be able to picture taking responsability for ourselves, but God forbid I would ever have to let my kid get in the water with someone we don't know and not even a card to indicate they might know what they are doing.
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