Diving without Certification (A RANT)

[TSandM]

There really is not very much required to do a Discover Scuba, even in open water. You have to teach someone to clear their mask, do a reg recovery, and inflate their BCD -- and of course, talk about equalizing ears and not holding your breath. And, at the risk of sounding jaded and cynical, I suspect there are a lot of technical divers out there with better abilities to monitor AND control students than some certified instructors.

I do think that taking a certification class is a good idea if one is going to continue to dive, but I don't have a distressed reaction to the idea of a good tech diver taking a friend for a quick swim somewhere on scuba. As a bit of an aside, the fellow whose name is on my OW card dove for three years before getting certified, and survived it

 

[NE_SSI_Diver]

Yes, but they have taken the class and have learned the dangers of diving and how to avoid them. Without taking the class a diver might disregard the 30ft per minute accent rule and contract the bends.

 

[HowardE]

Yes, but they have taken the class and have learned the dangers of diving and how to avoid them. Without taking the class a diver might disregard the 30ft per minute accent rule and contract the bends.

But the OP stated the tech diver was supervising the dive, so I doubt (an assumption) the supervisor would let the diver just bolt for the surface, and probably mentioned that bolting to the surface is bad.

 

[redacted]

Yes, but they have taken the class and have learned the dangers of diving and how to avoid them. Without taking the class a diver might disregard the 30ft per minute accent rule and contract the bends.

Have you ever wondered why children can be home schooled but scuba diver can't

 

[Peter Guy]

Without taking the class a diver might disregard the 30ft per minute accent rule and contract the bends.

This IS a joke, right?

To the OP -- Another one on the side of, "What's the big deal?" Especially if it was done under pretty controlled conditions.

 

[ianr33]

Yes, but they have taken the class and have learned the dangers of diving and how to avoid them. Without taking the class a diver might disregard the 30ft per minute accent rule and contract the bends.

Not sure where to start with that.
The 30 ft per minute "rule" used to be 60 feet. Before that was probably no faster than your smallest bubbles rule. (before my time!) Doing a 30 foot dive I suspect it's essentially impossible to get bent no matter how fast you ascend (provided you don't hold your breath)
A diver that has done the course might well disregard the 30 ft/minute rule. I'm sure that happens every day!

I took a non certified friend diving maybe 15 years ago. She read all the books first. It went fine but I wouldn't do it again simply due to liability considerations.

Some Instructors are great. Some suck.

 

[Tfast78]

Depending on the person acting as the dive guide, what was covered in the pre-dive, and the location. There are some guys at work that are avid spear fishing divers (open water certs only) and they are taking someone new every weekend to "teach" them how to dive. What I don't like about they way they are doing it is that they take them spear fishing in 140 feet of water. They don't take them down to 140 feet, they stay above 80 feet as if that's a lot better. From what the new guys tell me they get a 5 minute talk and demo on the gear and 20 minutes on spear fishing prior to getting in the water. The "guides" don't stay close because they are spear fishing while on these dives. One guy even told me he was stalking a fish and ended up at 125 feet without knowing. Then when he was back to the boat he told the guys that his regulator was getting hard to breath out of, he had less than 100 psi in his tank. I don't like the way they compose these intros to diving at all. If they would bring them somewhere that the max depth is 60 feet and didn't let them spear fish I don't think it would be the end of the world (unless it is the end of someone's world). I dove a few time in "controlled environment" before I went for my certification. Like I said, it all depends on the people involved. I think if you are going to dive you should be certified by an agency. I've told them stuff a few times but apparently their dad has been doing it this way all their lives and they will too. Neither of them are rescue or CPR certified. SPOOKY!

 

[supergaijin]

It really really really depends on the diver(s) in question.

IMO a 'tech diver' with over 250 dives! isn't much to be teaching beginners, but it sounds like I'm in the minority here. A freshly minted instructor with PADI OTOH has a minimum of 100 dives...... and specific training in how to handle beginners. Which is better? Safer? Again, it really depends on the diver(s).

BTW, my first dozen dives were all with my uncle when I was 15 or so. I grew up near the beach, had been in water surfing, snorkeling and fishing often. He'd been diving for donkey's (so I thought then). That is still often the case in NZ where people dive for crayfish and scallops often without 'professional 'training. Most survive, some don't.

 

[JTH2711]

It was on the coast. Apparently a shore dive of some sort. Again it just seems like a heck of a risk. It leaves me scratching my head. Yeah nothing happened, but it could have. I thought that, as divers, we needed to mitigate risk and call things out that don't seem quite right. Which is what I'm doing here. If I'm wrong, so be it and I'll shut-up. However, I feel I have a point.

 

[HowardE]

It was on the coast. Apparently a shore dive of some sort. Again it just seems like a heck of a risk. It leaves me scratching my head. Yeah nothing happened, but it could have. I thought that, as divers, we needed to mitigate risk and call things out that don't seem quite right. Which is what I'm doing here. If I'm wrong, so be it and I'll shut-up. However, I feel I have a point.

You shouldn't shut up... By all means, share your opinion, and your experience.

As divers we do have a responsibility to mitigate risk, and call things out. However... This probably isn't one of them.

There isn't anything patently unsafe about taking an uncertified person on a shallow shore dive: given that the guide explains the basics of scuba diving, much like the DSD class as others (including myself) have stated. There ARE clear risks to letting someone without certification dive alone, with no instruction whatsoever, or the like.

As you can see from this thread... the vast majority of experienced divers here agree that it wasn't necessarily unsafe. There are mitigating factors, which are still not totally clear.

As a certified diver, perhaps you should have observed what was being explained to the people who were being guided to ensure the dives were being guided in a safe manner. This would be a better way to mitigate the risk, instead of just calling foul, when no foul may have occurred.