Non PADI Card Rejected?

[FatCat]

Heh, I think that the last edition of the law that stipulates these things is from '98 (revised in '04) -- when the original law comes from, who knows? Let's just blame it on Napoleon, he probably won't mind any more

Interrestingly, the new European Norms (Standards) for scuba diving, which the European Union has just issued (and which member-countries must follow), is meeting great resistance in France since it does not favor French-trained divers. There's talks about a permanent exception to that standard for the benefit of the French....

As for you getting cert'ed and dive PADI in France, it seems that you picked the right solution: look for foregin instructors (like yours truely) who's had to fight the system themself and who just want divers to....dive, not muck with burocracy

It's a shame -- as I said, France has a great many wonderful dives

Yippie! My favorite subject: the EN 14153 norms. For easy reference, keep this in mind:

EN 14153 - level 1 = PADI Scuba Diver/CMAS 1*
EN 14153 - level 2 = PADI OWD/CMAS 2*
EN 14153 - level 3 = PADI DM/CMAS 3*

To date, only two agencies have obtained a certificate of compliance: PADI and VDST (German CMAS voting member). Others have applied, but no news yet. PADI has had to adapt standards somewhat to comply, but so has VDST. Let's say EN Norms are a bit more stringent than RSTC standards.

France has applied for a temporary exception to the norms, because France is the only EU member state that has laws pertaining to recreational scuba diving. They cannot obtain a permanent exoneration, because that would be in violation of European law.

As far as I understand it, the only thing the French argument is that regulations for scuba instructors as they are now, require SI's to pass a state examination called the BEES (Brevet d'Etat d'Educateur Sportif if I'm not mistaken). PADI has been negociating like hell to get the preparation requirements dropped or at least lowered for European trained PADI instructors (since we all trained in our wonderful tropical, crystal clear European waters).

I'm having a bit of a discussion with the other agency I teach for, because liabilitywise I refuse to teach anything other than PADI. The others will have to up standards and become compliant before I resume teaching.

http://www.instructor-training.com is one of the sites where you can find the preliminaries for the EN standards. Apart from a few commas, those are identical to the definitive texts.

 

[El Orans]

EN 14153 - level 1 = PADI Scuba Diver/CMAS 1*
EN 14153 - level 2 = PADI OWD/CMAS 2*
EN 14153 - level 3 = PADI DM/CMAS 3*

Isn´t level 2 equal to a PADI Rescue Diver? And shouldn't level 1 be equal to a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver? :06:

http://www.instructor-training.com is one of the sites where you can find the preliminaries for the EN standards.

Where exactly can I find those texts on the site? I can't seem to find them.

Laurens

 

[voop]

Huh??? "Favor French-trained divers"?? "Benefit of the French"?? Does that mean what it sounds like, or do you mean the French feel they're going to be disadvanaged for some reason? Please explain all this... What do the new Euro Norms say? I think it's got everything to do with this thread.

FatCat has already referenced the new relevant European standards, so I won't repeat those.

There seems to be a perception among, especially, FFESSM (the French diving federation) that (i) French divers know how to dive, and are well trained (ii) all divers, who are not trained by FFESSM can not dive at all, and should not be allowed anywhere near a bathtub, let alone the ocean Also, any acceptance of non-french trained divers would reduce the de-facto monopoly on diver-training which is currently enjoyed by FFESSM (ANMP/FSGT/SNMP are to FFESSM as, say, Apple is to Microsoft....) -- which is why European standards being enforced possibly would have a negative effect on that organization, suddenly recognizing that other organizations can train divers too.

I have to agree with (i) to a point: many French divers are excellent divers. Of course, I do not at all agree with (ii) -- I've been diving with many an excellent diver who'd been trained elsewhere, and the most excellent divers I've had the pleasure to be in the water with had never even heard of FFESSM.....

Incidentially, I strongly disagree with the training methods employed by FFESSM -- their cours(es) include some exercises which regularly causes lung-overexpansion injuries to the students (at least 1-2 candidates for the instructor level tend to incur such during their training each year).

One such dangerous exercise is "remonte sur palme", and the idea is as follows: you're in deep water, and you have an unconscious buddy......who's BC doesn't work....neither does yours....you do not have anything else to inflate that works either (bouy, drysuit, whatever).....and you cannot take any equipment off a potentially heavy diver (belt-buckle is jammed). You therefore grab him, and start finning like crazy, until you both hit the surface.

Ok, perhaps not an all-bad exercise, however it's often (as to what I have seen) executed thus: an instructor straps on a bi-18l steel tank set, and 30+Kg lead more than he needs. Then plants himself solid on the bottom and empties his BC. Enter the candidate/student, who also empties his BC, grabs the diver and does like many people do when going to the bathroom: hold their breath, tense their abs and (ok, this you hopfully do not see many people do on the toilet) palms upwards with this heavy diver -- all the while forgetting to breath. Now what is it that happens when you forget to breath...? Yup, that.....

I'd rather see taught the importance of redundant bouyancy etc, how to take off excessive weight from the buddy (and share air) etc. etc. etc.

I could go on -- but I won't

No... We got PADI-certified back home in North Carolina, in 1986. ("Home" as in the U.S., not North Carolina -- we're from the Seattle area.) We were living in Berlin at the time we drove down to Hyeres to dive.

Here in Poland now, PADI is by far the biggest, which shouldn't be surprising.

Does PADI teach in France now? If so, how does that factor into all this? I mean, if they don't, that would be pretty anomalous in the world. If they do, do they meet the French standards?

Weird.

--Marek

PADI teaches in France, however (at the monent) France does not recognize PADI certified divers, nor does France recognize PADI instructors. To teach in France, one MUST have a state-recognized instructor-rating.....there's no price for those who can guess which organization is principly responsible for training said instructors.

There are instructors, who hold both an FFESSM-instructor rating and PADI instructor rating, and who allows their students to chose which certificate they get.....that's how PADI (and NAUI, TDI, NASE, SSI, GUE,....) for the moment, exist in France.

Let me restate, that I have nothing against FFESSM, French divers and French diving instructors, and that I always enjoy diving with these since most of them have received excellent training and are excellent divers. It's the system, that I do not like.

ps: One can get a CMAS* cert from FFESSM by diving exclusively in a pool and never seeing open waters....

 

[voop]

Isn´t level 2 equal to a PADI Rescue Diver? And shouldn't level 1 be equal to a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver? :06:


Where exactly can I find those texts on the site? I can't seem to find them.

Laurens

http://www.padi.com/english/pil/news/110804-Standards/

In the French system, a CMAS * is a diver who must always dive with a DM-type (FFESSM N4 -- CMAS ***, if trained outside France).

CMAS** is considred as autonomous to 20m, accompanied to 40m when with a N4 or CMAS ***.

Notice, this is the perogatives of the diver-level, not a reflection of the training implied (typically, the CMAS** contains some training that you do not find with PADI before Rescue -- PADI rescue does, however, contain training which FFESSM N2/CMAS** does not emphasize)

As such, the correspondance in perrogatives between the CMAS** (as implemented in France, at least) and OWD seems fair.

And yes, I am always the one telling my students that they should get to Rescue before considering themself fully autonomous. That, however, is the subject of a different thread

 

[voop]

Also, I found this link, which might be useful: http://www.scuba-publications.com/tickermessageE.asp?NID=21

 

[drbill]

On my first international dive trip a few years ago, my Los Angeles County c-card was not recognized. By this time I had been diving off-and-on for 40 years but did no foreignh travel due to a fear of flying (since conquered, hence my international diving the past few years).

The DM in Thailand who would not recognize my card came from southern California, but was not aware of LAC certification (go figure). I'd been diving about twice as many years as he had been alive. I had similar problems in SE Asia (until DM's saw me do my check-out dives).

The first DM/instructor who knew what my LAC c-card actually meant (in terms of training rigor) was one I dove with on the Great Barrier Reef. He said my c-card should be in a museum! He, unlike the rest, realized that most of the divers who formed NAUI, PADI and other agencies first went through the LAC program which preceeded them. Heck, PADI didn't exist when I started diving! I decided I'd get a PADI AOW card from him just to eliminate the problem in the future. Of course the PADI AOW card "allowed" me to do less than my LAC BOW card (which was definitely a more rigorous training program even back then).

Dr. Bill

 

[FatCat]

Isn´t level 2 equal to a PADI Rescue Diver? And shouldn't level 1 be equal to a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver? :06:

That was the past Laurens. Look at the new NOB standards for instance.

Besides, the ancient Anaheim agreement has never made sense. It's high time PADI revokes this unilaterally and starts referring to EN 14153. Level 2 is an "autonomous" diver. A classic CMAS 1* diver isn't autonomous and isn't required to be able to plan repetetive dives among others. An OWD is.

With the new standards in place, there is almost no difference between CMAS 2* and PADI (RSTC) OWD. RSTC standards focus on self-rescue (which CMAS typically virtually neglects) while CMAS standards include (very) basic rescue (assisted ascent) skills.

Where exactly can I find those texts on the site? I can't seem to find them.

Laurens

Look in the library section under downloads.

 

[Bretagne]

A brief remark about the compulsory BEES in France:
it is a diploma which is compulsory to be allowed to teach any sport for money. There exists BEES for basket ball, for roller skating, for sailing,... there is a common part that you get once for all the sports, and a specific part. So it is not specifically to reject PADI instructors
What is more disputable, is that even as benevolent teacher, PADI instructors are not allowed to teach if they do not have another recognised instructor rating (there are some other than BEES for benevolent teaching). And that PADI dive masters are not allowed to guide any dive.
But once they have the proper diploma, they can teach with PADI standards and issue PADI certifications if they are also PADI instructors.

There are agreements between FFESSM and PADI to allow divers to get the equivalent rating of the other agency more easily (to do only what is missed in the other training). If you pay, of course .
And PADI OW is considered as equivalent to FFESSM N1, so there should be no problem for guided dives above 20m. It is for autonomy or to dive deeper that problems appear.

And voop, I agree that the exam for N4 is completely stupid, and I know a lot of people who agree too (how to have to put yourself in all known high risk situations as fast as possible...)

 

[voop]

There are agreements between FFESSM and PADI to allow divers to get the equivalent rating of the other agency more easily (to do only what is missed in the other training). If you pay, of course .

Yes -- however, incidentially, taking a PADI RD and converting to the "equivalent" FFESSM-level is no easy thing. One needs a theory-module with written exam -- plus a number of OW dives (8, at least, but I can't remember the exact standards) in the deep end (40 m or so) -- where you repeat all the OW skills (mask clearing and so on) -- with an instructor. Effectively, doing any FFESSM-level based on a PADI cert is quite complicated, and amounts mostly to starting from scratch.

This might, in theory, not be true -- but in reality it is. It's easier & cheaper to just enroll in an FFESSM-course as if you were not trained at all, than it is to invoke one of the "equivalence" mechanisms.

And PADI OW is considered as equivalent to FFESSM N1, so there should be no problem for guided dives above 20m. It is for autonomy or to dive deeper that problems appear.

Incidentially, a PADI OWD is supposed to be autonomous. In an FFESSM-structure, he's not.....

FFESSM N1: "trust-me-diver", ala Padi Scuba Diver, where you are not even able to run your own tables for the dive etc. You can do an N1 over two weekends in a swimming-pool.

How many here would agree to do a "trust-me-dive"...? I thought so

And voop, I agree that the exam for N4 is completely stupid, and I know a lot of people who agree too (how to have to put yourself in all known high risk situations as fast as possible...)

BEES1/MF1/N4, yes -- but also for N2+initiateur (roughly "assistant assistant instructor"), where some of the same exercises are repeated (but shallower, where the preasure-changes are more pronounced and the risk of accidents is higher).

But perhaps we're now entering territory which is no longer relevant for this discussion?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Can anyone relate an experience where, in the recent past, a non-PADI card was rejected due to it not being recognized (other than France etc.). I don't want hearsay, just your personal experience that you were rejected.

I went into a shop in Maui in October 2003 to sign up for a charter to Molokini. When the owner asked for my C-card, I pulled out my YMCA SLAM card. He said they didn't accept those. So I showed him my NAUI DM card. He looked at me and said they only accept PADI cards.

So I walked down the street and signed up on a similar charter with his competitor.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)