What training agency

[oahu_diver]

Seems like just semantics to me. It could easily be said that PADI/NAUI/CMAS (and all the others) don't certify either. The instructor certifies and verifies the student's training to the agency who then sends a card.

PADI:
1. Instructor conducts the training
2. Instructor verifies training to PADI
3. Student receives card

AAUS:
1. DSO conducts training
2. DSO verifies training to AAUS
3. Student receives card

What's the difference other than calling it a certification, qualification or verification? Seems like lawyer talk to avoid some liabilities.

And if a scientific diver is longer affiliated with the institutions that "verified" the training, then those cards aren't valid and you are not considered an "active" scientific diver. Am I understanding that correctly? Can I assume you remain part of that national registry, but listed as inactive??

I hope this isn't frustrating you, I'm just trying to get a good understanding.

 

[Thalassamania]

If you are confused as to what the AAUS Verification Card represents I suggest that you take it up with the AAUS office at:

Dauphin Island Sea Lab

101 Bienville Boulevard

Dauphin Island, AL 36528

​

Phone: 251-591-3775



Email: aaus@disl.org

​

 

[oahu_diver]

Well, I have my own understanding and I know what AAUS says it represents. I'm trying to get an understanding of the what the dive community thinks it represents.

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't interpret for the dive community. I suspect that, like you, the "dive community" (whatever that is) would, at first blush, see the AAUS Verification Card as some sort of certification card, much as the shops and operators have seen my 1973 U.C. Berkeley card as a "certification" card. Frankly, I see it as a rather useless trapping that only serves to potentially weaken the institutional cards and reciprocity letter system that is currently in place.

 

[oahu_diver]

I don't interpret for the dive community. I suspect that, like you, the "dive community" (whatever that is) would, at first blush, see the AAUS Verification Card as some sort of certification card, much as the shops and operators have seen my 1973 U.C. Berkeley card as a "certification" card. Frankly, I see it as a rather useless trapping that only serves to potentially weaken the institutional cards and reciprocity letter system that is currently in place.

I wasn't saying you speak for the community. But as a diver, I would think that you are part of that community. You used quotation marks to talk about the dive community...and said, "whatever that is." Do you really not know what that means?

Call it what you want, but it seems to me that an AAUS card verifies training just as a PADI or NAUI card verifies training.

I will talk to some current and active AAUS divers to get their take on the issue. But it appears that it is all a game of semantics.

 

[oahu_diver]

I will add that a PADI or NAUI card doesn't really say much about the individual diver's actual ability to dive. Whereas, the AAUS card would imply much more thorough training. A PADI/NAUI card means that at some point in their life, the person took a class. But it is good to know that an active scientific diver has done at least 12 dives in the past 12 months with some of those done in the last 6 months. So that would imply actual active diver where the PADI/NAUI student maybe hasn't been in the water since they took the class 20 (just a random number as an example) years ago.

 

[Thalassamania]

I oppose reinvention of the wheel, the CMAS Scientific Diver Brevet has been out there for decades and is an accepted, internationally recognized plastic card, that (in addition) carries the cachet of meeting the CMAS Three-Star rating, which is not trivial.

 

[oahu_diver]

I'm not reinventing the wheel, but improvement is always good. Does the wheel look the same now as it did when it was first invented?

Are CMAS classes easily found in the U.S.?

 

[Thalassamania]

It is a recognition card, it does not require a course, like the AAUS card that required a certificate equal to the CMAS three star equivalency and a letter from your DSO. It is described in the forward of: http://nsgd.gso.uri.edu/flsgp/flsgpt90006/flsgpt90006_intro.pdf

 

[DiveWestOahu]

one little difference between the two agencys,
padi - the student must perform the skill
NAUI - the student must be "proficient" in doing the skill
then again a lot is up to the certifying instructor regardless of agency