That contradicts what virtually every other diver of 30 years or more experience would say, could you expand a bit?
Hey, Thal. I'll try. I still have my NASDS Safe Scuba Diver card. That course was the only training available, to me anyway. It was basic, AOW and everything else there was. After that, a person seeking more training had to teach themselves, or learn from others. Today we joke about the fifteen different PADI adventure cards. That is still a lot better than nothing.
A lot of our training was physical-fitness related. Over at the YMCA, my pal Whitey spent more time swimmimg laps than he sat in a classroom, getting instructon. The idea was physical fitness was the key to dive safety. I still kind of agree, but what he got was mostly not scuba instruction.
And... I still have a 1977 Skin Diver magazine where a person writes that "My instructor taught us fifteen ways to die under water, but no ways to have fun". That was my experience, too. My training was not particularly fun, it was rather military-style. Two years ago my daughter finished up the PADI CD and on-line training, and it was a lot more positive.
The biggest improvement I see is that training is more uniform. Maybe uniformly mediocre, but at least the same all over. I took the NASDS class from an instructor in South Baltimore, and my brother took the same thing from a guy on the other side of town. We shared our notes and found that each of us had learned things that the other hadn't.
So, are there divers being certified today that would fail the training I took? You bet. We were all young and swam a lot, anyway. In that regard, maybe the old timey certification is better, if harder = better. However, the content of course materials and the number of subjects available are superior today.
Thanks for asking, and Merry Christmas.
