Scuba Diver Certification

[jonhall]

We also were required to do one from 60 feet for our certification dive for PADI scuba diver (a long time ago).

Saw this post in another thread and it reminded me of something I've been wanting to find out about.

My buddy was certified in 1975 in a college course and received a PADI Scuba Diving certification card. There is no cert. number, but a great picture of him in which he looks like Charles Manson (which maybe isn't a great thing.)

We have been diving together since 2008. Three and a half years ago in Hawaii, he forgot his card, but the dive op said they would look it up with PADI. The dive op couldn't find him and eventually said he could dive as long as I was responsible for him. In the meantime he had contacted one of his children who sent pictures of his card to him. We dove that week without any problems.

A couple of weeks ago, when we were in Mexico, the dive op (lots of young people working there) didn't recognize the Scuba Diver certification card, and as we were completing the first 2 dives of our trip (in which we were getting AOW certification) they tried to look him up on the PADI website. It showed no certification but he was in the system, at this point, for having Nitrox cert which he obtained in Grand Cayman in early 2015. Long story short, he had to complete OW training and get certified before the dive op allowed him to do any AOW. We laugh that it only took him 41 years to get his OW cert.

To those old enough, what did the Scuba Diver certification certify you to do? Does anyone else still use one today? Any other stories/history about the Scuba Diving certification?

 

[Mustard Dave]

I'm not au fait with the old 'Scuba Diver' grade, but I understand it was a proper autonomous diver grade. I imagine there would be a lot of confusion with dive centres who are unfamiliar with the older grades, particularly with the modern 'Scuba Diver' grade meaning somebody who is qualified to dive to no more than 12m, and who must be supervised by a PADI Pro.

 

[Bob DBF]

Back when I started diving it was the equilivent of OW. Since there was not a lot of different classes then, SCUBA Diver covered diving on SCUBA.


Bob

 

[SOFDiver]

I believe I am correct in saying that PADI is the only "major" certification agency that differentiates between Scuba Diver and Open Water Scuba Diver. I am a NAUI instructor and work with shops that are SSI centers. Both of these agencies certify divers who are qualified to dive independently of a dive professional as a requirement. Because of PADIs dual certification, NAUI some time ago found it necessary to add a open water statement to our Scuba Diver certification cards as PADI operators would not recognize our divers equivalent to their open water divers. I train Scuba Divers who are competent and confident and assume others do as well, unless they hold a PADI Scuba Diver C card.

 

[Erich S]

I was first certified by PADI back in 76 and "Basic Scuba Diver" was the first cert which allowed me to dive anywhere.
So, it went:
Basic
OW
AOW
DM