Any BSAC *and* GUE/DIR trained divers?

[DrSteve]

There's some huge debate (as ever) going on about DIR/GUE versus the rest of the world. I've trained in BSAC, SSI and PADI (due to moving away from England).

I believe that BSAC training is the most comprehensive training I have received. I have had top notch instructors in both PADI and SSI, but they weren't teaching the same content or volume.

Just curious what the BSAC guys think about the whole GUE/DIR thing?

 

[cdiver2]

I started diving 1971 BSAC at that time you basically had to be a seal equivalent, I remember just to become a snorkel diver you had to do a 30 ft surface dive (we did it in a Harbour ) and retrieve something from the bottom shell stone whatever one of the guys just made it and grabbed a hand full of sand there was nothing in his hand when he surfaced. He was told you can have another go or come back next week and do it again. I feelt so sorry for him but he did it again and made sure he got something solid this time.

 

[DrSteve]

My Dad started with BSAC in 75 I think and he told me about how he had to lay on the side with his face in the water and hold his breath until tapped on the shoulder.

I started in 1990. Of course I can't compare, but the training is still every bit as rigerous - although I am not sure the effect introducing the Sports Diver I and II had (I *think* SD I was a hybrid of the novice and part of the sports diver, which you would have called a 3rd class diver, but they may have retained the novice)

 

[cdiver2]

Im not sure how BSAC works with there training but I hope its better than a PADI student I had to deal with today.
13 year old english girl with a PADI ow card. When she and the divemaster start to decend down the anchor line she signaled there was something wrong and go up. on the surface she said she could not breath, check reg and it was ok. After a number of attempts with the same result the dive master and I took her back to the boat, She then told us she had only done two quarry dives eight months ago and had the same problem on them, but she had a ow c card !!!! Are they going to give C cards in cornflake packs next.

 

[DrSteve]

They do already don't they?

PADI is a term of contempt in the UK diving world. As I recall for a PADI AOW diver to become a BSAC sports diver II they have to take several classroom lessons and of course be taught all about rescue and recovery.

I have a buddy who is an excellent diver. When he tried to complete his dives for AOW the instructor couldn't be bothered. After a heated discussion my buddy and the other 2-3 students went off and did an underwater navigation and swam a square and dived to 35 feet (2 of the guys only wore shortie 2mm wet suits and couldn't go below the thermocline) and that was their deep dive! My buddy is well worth AOW, no question...but was his instructor worth anything?

I believe PADI, SSI etc., have some great instructors...they just aren't given the time to teach a proper syllabus.

 

[Tropics Diver]

DrSteve once bubbled...
I have a buddy who is an excellent diver. When he tried to complete his dives for AOW the instructor couldn't be bothered. After a heated discussion my buddy and the other 2-3 students went off and did an underwater navigation and swam a square and dived to 35 feet (2 of the guys only wore shortie 2mm wet suits and couldn't go below the thermocline) and that was their deep dive! My buddy is well worth AOW, no question...but was his instructor worth anything?

Did you do anything other than post here? Even if nothing is done other than the complaint being noted, that is important if there are other complaints about the instructor later.

PADI QA Flowchart

 

[DrSteve]

He wasn't my instructor, I don't know who he is pesonally, and honestly it's not my place to make complaints about that, based on annecdotal evidence. Now if my buddy made a complaint or his wife or one of the others, I do believe that would be their perogative and I encouraged them to do so.

So for now all I can do is steer people away from that store.