Should Cert Cards be for life? My cert cards seem to be worthless!

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markmud

Self Reliant Diver--On All Dives.
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Location
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Hello All,

Brett Gilliam wrote an article in undercurrent.org that was published in January 2015 (Vol. 30, No. 1). His perspective is that of an industry-professional and not an avid recreational diver. However, his overriding point is in-line with my viewpoint. The current certification regimen and endless specialty certs are a joke.
Should Diver Certification Last Forever?: Undercurrent 01/2015

Here are some excerpts from Brett's article:

"Instructors, assistant instructors and divemasters are required to renew annually...and show legitimate evidence of diving activity and student training. But the regular "diver" population is not obligated to any such requirement..."

More Gilliam:

"Let's take a look with an objective perspective. First of all, I don't have the simple answer because it's a multi-faceted issue and will require a fundamental cooperative change of protocol industrywide. But the diving industry is infamous for being unable to implement practical and timely changes to recognize innovations, technological advances, and evolution of diving practices by active participants ... while simultaneously possessing a remarkable ability at times to replicate a camel burying its head in the sand when the "obvious" strikes diving's "leadership" as too controversial and might require them to take an initially unpopular stand on issues that need to be addressed and remediated."

"Again, consider the nearly decade-long war against nitrox and diving computers as one example."

Brett is, I believe, referring to my wife and I in this paragraph:

"Many divers get certified and go on to actively dive and participate regularly. They visit different regions and are exposed to various conditions including currents, restricted visibility, boat diving, deeper diving on drop-off walls, wrecks and caves, and develop practical experience that embeds confidence and competence. They evolve into divers completely capable of independent activity and do not need supervision or control. These divers are not a problem."

And:

"It's the folks who got certified and simply didn't continue the sport who need to be properly identified and vetted for their own good."

The dropout rate:

"Diving suffers from a phenomenal dropout rate. You can argue about it all you want, but it's close to 70 percent within the first 12 to 18 months."

Conclusion in a nutshell--read the full article to get the full Monty:

"What causes diver dropout? A huge reason is training that does not adequately qualify them for confident independent diving. That has to be fixed as well. You are not going to retain customers who have a stressful incident shortly after completing supervised training. Sure, you told them they were qualified divers after they did four 20-minute dives in that sinkhole, lake, warm water Caribbean location or even an aquarium. But when they get a scare in the surf, or a current takes them for a ride like the water slide in an amusement park, they may decide to take up golf or tennis. You cannot make sales of anything except toilet paper to people who get the poop scared out them."

How does this relate to my experience in diving (and my wife's experience):

We both love diving, but we are getting bored with the same old beat-up shallow reefs; or, the struggle to get dive operators to be more proactive and allow skilled divers to dive different sites. We are also tired of the 20 year old "experts" treating us like newbs or Muppets. We are tired of the former housewife with 100 dives and a DM cert treating us as if we were her kids and demanding we set-up our kit as she instructs.

Our Bona Fides:

We are collectively approaching 400 logged dives. We have dived the South Pacific, East Pacific (cold water and warm water), Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Central America, Fiji, Hawaii, Key Largo to Palm Peach and all points between. We have dived Alpine walls, ceynotes, Florida caverns, Gulf Stream currents, and drift dived places like Cozumel and Cancun. We have dived the Spiegel Grove, Oriskany, Binwood, Ruby E, Yukon, and others--but I can't recall their names. We have dived the Channel Islands. We have dived Monterey and the North Coast. We have dived 48 degree to 85 degree water.

My wife did the full PADI thing and has a Master Scuba Cert (including rescue). I have various certs including a Solo cert. Our gear is maintained by professionals regularly and I have the receipts to prove it.

Too bad all of those certs and experience get us the same greeting when we board a dive boat, which is: "High newb, welcome to our expedition to three Muppet dive sites that are beat-to-hell, shallow, and boring!"

And as usual, when the divemaster climbs out of the water with minimum air (or out-of-air and buddy breathing, yes it did happen) while we have lots of gas, and then he/she states: "Hey, you two are good divers!"

Finally, my point:

Again, Brett's perspective is from an industry viewpoint. Mine is from my personal experience.

However, the two opinions are not divergent. My cert cards are worthless if the industry treats me like a Muppet Diver everywhere I go!

I am willing to work for a certification that means something, even if it means ongoing education and a yearly review of my log book (documented log book with receipts, wet signatures, and/or stamps.)

I know what you Scuba Board pros are thinking: "He must not be a good diver if he writes a post like this."

Yeah, go ahead and think that. But I have friends who are instructors, Tech certified, or have other experience levels that have the same issue. One friend only dives with a close-nit group of techies who charter the whole boat or resort so that they can "dictate" dive sites and dive profiles while in country.

My wife and I are on the way to being dropouts from diving. We are tired of the treatment. We are tired of the bait-n-switch we got with the cert card game.

An idea:

Create a progressive cert system that requires 100 logged (documented) dives, and:

  1. A multi-faceted system where divers get ongoing training, or certified experience up to 100 dives. This multi faceted system will be flexible, so that divers who regularly dive with instructors or DMs, can get credit for non-instruction dives as long as the DM or instructor witnesses good technique and knowledge. OW divers with 100 logged dives who can't prove ongoing supervised dives will need to take the "full Master Scuba Cert Course."
  2. Once the prerequisite experience is obtained and a true Master Cert earned, a diver will need to maintain that cert annually, which includes a refresher of the basics. If the diver has logged 15 or 20 open water dives, fully documented, during the previous year, then the recert requirement is very basic. Otherwise, the diver with no or very few truly documentable dives (receipts and signed log by DM, instructor, buddy, Captain, and/or Company stamp) will be required to take an extensive refresher course in order to maintain the "Master Scuba Cert level."
  3. And for the DM or operator who ignores this cert: keel-haul-em!

I am willing to do almost anything that gets me diving to my experience and training level.

Otherwise, I will probably drop out of this boring sport!

Golf is probably less expensive and less aggravating!

Hunting is definitely less expensive, even when I don't shoot anything.

markmud
(quitter)

PS: Gilliam's Bona Fides:
"I can hear the denials already, but after 44 years in the industry, including running NAUI and founding the TDI/SDI conglomerate, I've got some unique perspective. I was also invested in resorts, liveaboards, diving cruise ships, publishing and manufacturing. Now my primary focus is consulting on litigation in the diving industry."
 
You like the sport enough to get to the point you're at, but would rather drop out than spend the piddling amount of time and money necessary to pencil-whip a few more advanced courses? Does not compute.

I agree the current system is pretty silly, but I choose to work around it rather than tilt at windmills. Either find better sites and ops who will let you do your own thing based on confidence in you rather than you having specific cards, just go dive on your own where and how you damn well please (my personal favorite), or bite the bullet and get the cards that are at your current skill/diving level so you can go where you want and not be questioned.
 
You are obviously not diving at the right resorts or with the right boats.
Rather than reading Undercurrent to be a syncophant to Gilliam, maybe you ought to read the reader-reports on travel and how they are treated.

My wife and I get treated very well, as do most of the folks I observe on boats and at resorts.
Perhaps your attitude has something to do with it?
 
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Almost 70% of people taking blood pressure or cholesterol meds discontinue therapy by 12mo. If we can't get people to continue to take meds that can save their lives... why does Brett think we can get them to stick with scuba diving?

Drop off is going to be huge no matter what is done. Sure, we can modify that a bit... but there is no big fix.
 
Here is that article published in Diver Mag:
Should Diver Certification Be Forever? by Bret Gilliam, Diver Magazine

I think his most practical idea was for dive shops to offer recertification for free. You need to read the article before declaring it unworkable, but it amounts to a clever ongoing marketing campaign.

In practice, any shop that already has a relationship with an active diver (already sells them stuff) will just sign them off. It is an opportunity to try reenergizing diver dropouts and make them safer. Nobody with half a brain is going insist an active diver with advanced certs attend the basic seminar. Obviously it will all be voluntary in practice unless/until boat operators, fill stations, and resorts start denying old certs… good luck with that if their credit card is good even when their C-card is 40 year old.

Sounds like the best of all worlds to me.
 
You are obviously not diving at the right resorts or with the right boats.
Rather than reading Undercurrent to be a syncophant to Gilliam, maybe you ought to read the reader-reports on travel and how they are treated.

My wife and I get treated very well, as do most of the folks I observe on boats and at resorts.
Perhaps your attitude has something to do with it?

We've never had the experiences the OP describes either.

Goodness, we must be lucky and dodged that bullet each and every time. What other explanation could there be? :wink:
 
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Almost 70% of people taking blood pressure or cholesterol meds discontinue therapy by 12mo. If we can't get people to continue to take meds that can save their lives... why does Brett think we can get them to stick with scuba diving?...

Your takeaway from the article must be a lot different than mine. The recertification class sounds like half “here’s what’s changed” with a healthy dose “look at all the cool things you can do now”. Getting a “fair weather diver” to take a trip to a tropical resort will often mean selling new gear and maybe an in-water advanced refresher and maybe a Nitrox course.

Advanced diver or dropout, it is an opportunity for smart dive shops to develop relationships with customers.
 
Your takeaway from the article must be a lot different than mine. The recertification class sounds like half “here’s what’s changed” with a healthy dose “look at all the cool things you can do now”. Getting a “fair weather diver” to take a trip to a tropical resort will often mean selling new gear and maybe an in-water advanced refresher and maybe a Nitrox course.

Advanced diver or dropout, it is an opportunity for smart dive shops to develop relationships with customers.

I'm just saying you can't - and shouldn't try - to fix the whole thing. The best approach is to actually figure out WHY people stop (the industry seems happy to guess and/or assume) and then intervene where you can.

I love the idea of renewing a cert. But I would take a lesson from the loyalty experts (hotels, airlines, etc) and just send you a new card each year. Remind people that they ARE STILL DIVERS. Perhaps they have to bring it to a shop to get it "activated" or something.

It's testable anyway.
 
As a DM and instructor, I dive a lot. 150-200 dives a year. When I travel I tend not to identify myself as a pro. However, I am almost always welcomed as a "good diver". Good dive ops and good crews will treat you according to the level you present yourself. At a recent dive trip in the Caribbean, the DM was questioning and briefing the dive group about the usual; last dive date, depth, number of dives. My answers were, tuesday, depth of 200 or so, and around 2000. They looked at me (with my own gear as opposed to rental) and were like "ok...cool". And they were awesome.
As a pro.... my job is to do what you need. If you want me to baby you....I can do that. If you want me to ignore you... just let me know.

very few people would agree for an ongoing program of required dives and refreshers. Diving is a hobby. Diving is fun. Diving compete with other leisure activities. As an industry we need to focus on making diving more accessible and affordable.
 
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