How many dives should your really do b4 you start a course?

[paulwlee]

OK, there seems to be a lot of confusion on what the PADI standards are, so here is a list of prerequisites, straight out of the instructor manual.

1. Rescue diver: AOW or equivalent.
The equivalent is where 20 dives comes in. If you don't have AOW, you need 20 dives with night, deep, nav experience. But if you do have AOW, then you don't need 20 dives to take Rescue.

2. DM: 20 dives to enter training, 60 dives to be certified

3. OWSI: 60 dives to attend IDC, 100 dives to take the IE and be certified.

As you can see, with DM and OWSI, in order to be certified, you need 60 and 100 dives respectively. IMHO, the exit requirements are not unreasonable at all. As I stated before, there will be people who can't be trusted no matter how many dives they do, but there will also be people who are quite competent at those numbers. These numbers aren't set to assure that all people exceeding these numbers are qualified. It's set to filter out people who needn't bother try.

Remember, this is a MINIMUM. Fulfilling this requirement is only the beginning.

 

[Tekk Diver]

..20..60...100...500 dives..

..these are just numbers.

It's not how many times you dive, or how crammed your logbook is...it's how you go about each of your dives...the diversity of each dive you've made...and how much experience/practice you've allowed yourself to achieve.

If each of those 100..200.. dives you spent practicing.. to become a better diver...and you just didn't jump in and get wet at some resort.. you are obviously going to be more prepared to go Pro than others.

Dive, practice, learn...and have fun doing it!

...that's my 2 cents.

 

[CincyBengalsFan]

DiverBuoy once bubbled...


I also come from the bay area and have dove in MB, and I am an instructor. I am interested in an exact link or article or report that I can lookup (don't just reply DAN cause it wont verify what you claim). Please provide that direct information in a follow-up post.

Whoever made that comment is full of it. My father had lived in Monterey over the past 3 yrs. until recently. There hasn't been a Monterey Scuba Death in those 3 yrs.

 

[CincyBengalsFan]

Tekk Diver once bubbled...
..20..60...100...500 dives..

..these are just numbers.

It's not how many times you dive, or how crammed your logbook is...it's how you go about each of your dives...the diversity of each dive you've made...and how much experience/practice you've allowed yourself to achieve.

If each of those 100..200.. dives you spent practicing.. to become a better diver...and you just didn't jump in and get wet at some resort.. you are obviously going to be more prepared to go Pro than others.

Dive, practice, learn...and have fun doing it!

...that's my 2 cents.

Do really ever dive just to have fun? It doesn't sound like it. I dive to visit the underwater world, experience it, and treasure it and just looooooooooooooooooooook at it in amazement.

 

[the_dumper]

paulwlee once bubbled...
OK, there seems to be a lot of confusion on what the PADI standards are, so here is a list of prerequisites, straight out of the instructor manual.

1. Rescue diver: AOW or equivalent.
The equivalent is where 20 dives comes in. If you don't have AOW, you need 20 dives with night, deep, nav experience. But if you do have AOW, then you don't need 20 dives to take Rescue.

I was unaware of this I always thought that it was 20 dives to start the course, but having checked the manual you do appear to be right!!
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, obviously having rescue diver skills can only be a bonus for any diver who dives with others, but on the other hand aren't we just churning out course divers who forget why they took the sport up, you could in effect have a rescue diver or even DM candidate, who has taken part in three courses and never done a dive for pleasure, which is sad.
You have to wonder why anyone would want to be a DM having never done a real dive befor, is it just an ego trip?

 

[Tekk Diver]

CincyBengalsFan once bubbled...


Do really ever dive just to have fun? It doesn't sound like it. I dive to visit the underwater world, experience it, and treasure it and just looooooooooooooooooooook at it in amazement.

Ofcourse I dive "just to have fun". Personally, I have fun practicing my skills..while having fun. There are ways to cruise over a reef and "looooooooooooook" at all the pretty fishies, while practicing certain skills. I knew I wanted to go pro, early on in my dive experiences, so I started incorporating some practice..on each of my dives.
On every dive you make, you are "practicing" your skills to some degree..even though you may not consider it "practicing".

So yes, to answer your question.. I do dive to have fun. But I also dive to become a better diver.

Good day.

 

[RichLockyer]

Tekk Diver once bubbled...
So yes, to answer your question.. I do dive to have fun. But I also dive to become a better diver.

It takes all of what... about 30 seconds to go through the Basic-5, then another 30 or so for a full S-drill.

That still leaves 2 minutes to go at 15ft, or if you're holding strictly to GUE NDL stops, one more minute at 20 and one at 10.

Hmm... do the Basic-5 and an S-drill 3 times during each dive... makes the stops go quickly and you get better at them.

I like to work on backwards finning and helicopter turns too.

Nothing better to do... all the good stuff is 60ft below me, and I'm too deep to clean the props

 

[Diver0001]

dazle once bubbled...
Howdy

You can do your aow with 4 dives, your rescue anytime, start your DM on 20 and INST with 60 (that 1 might differ).

Now there's a lot in this, but let's stick with DM. The reason for my curiosity on this subject is that I was chatting to a girl last night that's done her OW, AOW, EFR and Rescue in the past 2 weeks. In 2 days she wants to go pro and is starting the DM. She's only got 14 logged dives and is gonna rack 6 up to make the start official.

Now, it's great for people to study and educate themselves in diving but the number of dives and the time between becoming cert seems a bit dodgy to me for pro level.

What do you think??? I know this thread ideally relates to DM/INST's but chip in your penny's worth if you can be arsed.

Vote on the poll if you think that 20 dives is ok/not ok for starting a DM course

I'm assuming you're asking this question for yourself. Go diving first. That's how I voted.

If I made the rules you'd need 200 dives in at least 50 different locations to start with a DM course and double that with atleast 100 as a CA for instructor. The thing with being a DM or an instructor is that you are expected to respond to all kinds of situations and you need to dive a lot before you have the "baggage" to deal with stuff proficiently. I really don't understand the hurry many people are in to "go pro". The reasoning for 400/100CA for instructor is that I personally believe that the system works better if a person is a competent CA before becoming an instructor. I have personally known more than one instructor who would be unable to produce even marginal students without a good CA by his side and there *should* be nothing more embarassing for a such an instructor than to essentially be learning the ropes from his assistant.

R..

 

[CincyBengalsFan]

Diver0001 once bubbled...


I'm assuming you're asking this question for yourself. Go diving first. That's how I voted.

If I made the rules you'd need 200 dives in at least 50 different locations to start with a DM course and double that with atleast 100 as a CA for instructor. The thing with being a DM or an instructor is that you are expected to respond to all kinds of situations and you need to dive a lot before you have the "baggage" to deal with stuff proficiently. I really don't understand the hurry many people are in to "go pro". The reasoning for 400/100CA for instructor is that I personally believe that the system works better if a person is a competent CA before becoming an instructor. I have personally known more than one instructor who would be unable to produce even marginal students without a good CA by his side and there *should* be nothing more embarassing for a such an instructor than to essentially be learning the ropes from his assistant.

R..

Well put... I also think during the IDC's or IE's for whichever agency, they need to stiff'N up the surface swims a little. Right now a poor, VERY POOR swimmer can become an instructor. With all the "indirect" supervision the agencies allow, what if a rescue has to take place? I also think that an instructor should have lifeguard training. But that's just me.

 

[paulwlee]

CincyBengalsFan once bubbled...


Whoever made that comment is full of it. My father had lived in Monterey over the past 3 yrs. until recently. There hasn't been a Monterey Scuba Death in those 3 yrs.

I only started diving around the Monterey area in 2000, so I don't know about before that, but there are deaths in Monterey now and then. Specifically, I think there have been something close to 5 deaths over the past year, and I heard that this was a larger number than usual. Among them, one was an instructor who had difficulty at the surface for an unknown reason and drowned. Looks like the coroner concluded that the cause of death was not dive-related. Some other cases were: drowning after being tumbled at Monastery beach (this place often has treacherous surf entry), drowning after being entangled in kelp, bad buoyancy control and buddy seperation resulting in drowning.

In many of those other cases, the person in question was either an inexperienced diver, or even worse, a relatively new warm water diver with no cold water diving experience.

AFAIK, the only dive professional casualty during the past three years I've been diving here, was the instructor I mentioned above, so I would also be very interested where MB_diver got his(her?) info.