Do You Approve Of Quickie Certifications?

[Al Mialkovsky]

She was given a video on monday evenieng along with the book work. On day two she did 2 OW dives and on day 3 she did 3 OW dives. She was given her "learners" permit and in all honesty she really didn't need anything else in order to get started. All she needed was experience at that point time.

Plus her next 100 or so dives were with me and I'm very experienced.

As I said earlier I don't really think time is the big issue. It was more about the student and instructor in her situation. I've seen people do a dozen pool dives and they still weren't ready for open water.

 

[ScubaCrossing]

Speaking from a PADI Instructor stand point, the student, completes the self paced home study. Meaning completes all 5 modules and answers all the knowledge reviews at the end of each chapeter. Once that is done, we meet at the pool, we go over Mod's 1-3 class room, Quiz 1&2 If all is well there we go to pool, pool dives 1-3 If student masters those skills, off to the Ocean for Dives 1&2 Mind you class starts at 8:00. Day 2 Go over Mod's 4&5, Quiz 4. then Final exam. If all is good into the Pool Dives 4&5, if all is good, off to the Ocean for Dives 3&4. Like I said before, my students are mostly white collar college back ground, they study well and are not slackers. They pick up the skills pretty quickly. BUT if they do not make the grade in the pool, NO Ocean.

Jeff Moore
PADI MSDT

 

[CuriousMe]

Al Mialkovsky once bubbled...
She was given a video on monday evenieng along with the book work. On day two she did 2 OW dives and on day 3 she did 3 OW dives. She was given her "learners" permit and in all honesty she really didn't need anything else in order to get started. All she needed was experience at that point time.

Plus her next 100 or so dives were with me and I'm very experienced.

As I said earlier I don't really think time is the big issue. It was more about the student and instructor in her situation. I've seen people do a dozen pool dives and they still weren't ready for open water.

With this time schedule, when did she do her confine water/pool dives?

Peace,
Cathie

 

[devilfish]

These quickie courses used to be called resort courses, now they give out "c" cards for that. No wonder that the instructor insurance is going up every year. The insurance companies don't care how fast people learn or do not learn. All they see is how many claims they pay each year. It's unsure how many active divers there are but according to some statistics there are between 1,000,000 and 5,000,000 divers. The sport is safe, it is reported incident rate of approximatly 2 1/2%, that's pretty good. But the way the insurance companies see it, 2 1/2 % of 1,000,000 is 25,000 law suits paid each year. Now lets throw in some little kids that can't even lift their own tank but do have a "c" card, insurance soon will be $1000 per year. Let's be fair about it, we can't have the cake and eat it too. There is always a few exeptions but we cant base the whole training process on the few and applied it everybody. Either we support quicky courses producing underwater tourists or we should not complain of the high insurance rates.

 

[ZoCrowes255]

Al Mialkovsky once bubbled...
While I've been diving since the late 60's my wife only got certified two years ago. Her OW class only took two days. While she did great, as she's very comfortable in the water, I personally know many people who would not have been ready so quickly. What do you guys think about this sort of thing. I know my LDS insists you can't be ready for a month. But then again they don't charge 150 bucks either.

The shop I work for has three different types of classes. The shortest is done on a single weekend (18 hours pool time) and it is not recomended for anyone who is apprehensive or has never done any type of diving or snorkeling. If they don't perform well in that course then they are asked to go a day or two more with an instructor for no extra charge.

Our most popular is a 3 week class and that is the one I prefer for the average diver. There are always exceptions and if a person does not peform well in any course they are going to need more than the minimum amount of time.

 

[PaulB]

You cannot rush something like that.

 

[PinkPADIgal]

While you can teach and certify someone in 2 days, it does require the student to be prepared. It sounds like everyone mentioned had completed all the bookwork and studied the material before ever setting foot in the classroom. It requires a lot of dedication from the student and if they are motivated to complete in 2 days, then it can be done.

But, why? Time, typically. However, safety is more important. I think students should be taught that spending 1 weekend in a class doesn't mean they are ready to tackle the ocean alone. I only hope instructors who certify students in 2 days let students know this.

IMHO, I believe skills should be perfected in the pool before heading out to open water. I require a minimum of 4 pool sessions before doing open water. If there are problems in open water, the student doesn't get certified. I also teach in pretty hard conditions (48 degree waters of the Puget Sound). Would my training be different if I was certifying students in the Caymans? Possibly but probably not because while conditions are much easier for diving, nothing takes the place of practice and experience.

I also believe anyone who has been out of the water for more than 3 months should go thru a scuba review of skills. You would be surprised what you forget when an emergency happens. I remember going thru OW as a divemaster candidate for the first time. I think I learned more the 2nd time around and it made me a better diver.

Near accidents will happen. Training and experience is the difference between "almost" and "reality"

Dive safe everyone.

Amy

 

[Scubabaer]

This is my first post. I thought I'd come out from lurking onto this thread becouse I completed my OW just today. Two weeks ago our schedule was: Friday night Pool - 3hrs, Saturday AM 2hrs class, 3hrs pool, 2hrs class, including final, Sunday 2hrs pool. This weekend 2hrs OW on Saturday and 2hrs today. All though I did pretty well with all the tasks, and my instructor signed me off, I have a couple issues. I think Scuba_Vixon hit one right on the money. We did our OW in a quarry in northeast Wisconsin. Water temp around 50-55. I'm very buoyent. Yesterday I wore 7mm farmer john with top, boots and hood, about 38# of weights. Still had trouble getting to depth and even staying vertical at the surface. Got tired just trying to stay vertical at the surface, constantly moving my arms to stay up. Today wore just top, boots, hood with about 25# of weights. Surface was much better, more relaxed. We went down to a ledge to go through some tasks, I couldn't stay down so the instructor handed me a rock. It was nice being with the rest of the class for a change.

My point to all this is, I wish we would have spent much more time on achieving and maintaining neutral bouyancy. Clearing my mask, sharing air, doffing/donning gear underwater all the other tasks would have been much easier if I wasn't "fighting" to hold my position. It was all much different in OW then in CW. Ya, I got "signed off" but I don't feel certified. My girlfriend and I took the classroom and pool together. Just I went for OW. When she goes for her OW, I plan to be right there going through all the tasks again.

Sorry for being so long winded.

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

CuriousMe once bubbled...


With this time schedule, when did she do her confine water/pool dives?

Peace,
Cathie

The "confined" water dive was the first dive, in the ocean of course.

I've thought this over since I began this thread. I do look at the ow cert as a learners permit. My wife was able to this quickly and well. Could she attain neutral bouyancy? Of course not. That takes practice and most won't get that for dozens of dives. I don't think you need an instructor to do that, you just need to goof around with it. These days she can hover above a reef as well as anyone.

I think getting your OW cert quickly isn't such a bad thing. But I think instructors need to encourage (push?) students into getting an advanced card. I think the advanced card should be a bit more difficult than it currently is.

What about after getting your OW card you are encouraged to dive with divers who have the advanced cert at the very least? A couple of newbies going out together isn't always the best idea.

But again, as stated before, I've seen many students do a month long course and not even be close to being ready to head off into open water. My wife was very capable after two days.

 

[kelpmermaid]

For this rude question, but how old is your wife? Was it local diving for her? To put this in perspective, I'm a middle-aged woman (gasp!) and muscle-wise, I can well imagine that a two day course of diving with lots of lead and beach as well as boat dives would require a lot of epsom salt soaks.