CMAS q, I am new too

[dgiovanni]

Hi. I am new here, and sort of new to diving. I hope I am posting this question in the right place.

I was going to get a PADI open water certificate, but then my friend said to get a CMAS 1 star certificate. I wonder what benefits CMAS would entail over a Padi?

Who loves ya, baby?

dgiovanni
:10:

 

[matt_unique]

Hi. I am new here, and sort of new to diving. I hope I am posting this question in the right place.

I was going to get a PADI open water certificate, but then my friend said to get a CMAS 1 star certificate. I wonder what benefits CMAS would entail over a Padi?

Who loves ya, baby?

dgiovanni
:10:

One of my buddies has a CMAS 3 star certification completed about 15 years ago in Germany. From what he described the training is way more intensive through CMAS than anything in PADI. Perhaps it was his instructor or the fact that it was 15 years ago, etc. but my impression is CMAS is better.

I have my PADI OW, AOW, Rescue, Deep, Night, Wreck, Nitrox, and Drysuit among other certifications from TDI. My buddy talked about how he had to remove all of his gear at depth, swim 10' away without air or BC, then return and get back into his gear. He mentioned several other items which I have never seen or heard of in any PADI courses.

--Matt

 

[String]

Personally id go for the CMAS * certification. You wont have problems with it being recognised and it is a very thorough course.

 

[voop]

Who will you actually be doing the CMAS training with? I.e. which national federation? The thing is: there's CMAS and then there's CMAS....

CMAS standards are one thing, however the actual implementation of these in the national federations is.....well...mostly abcent and at best very different from federation (country) to federation. Hence, a CMAS certificate in one country doesn't necessarilly correspond to the same CMAS certificate in another country. Interresting, no?

While I agree that many CMAS-affiliates do provide solid training, there're also some which do less so (I know countries where a CMAS * certificate can be taken exclusively in a pool, where the student doesn't learn tables or any theory nor does even learn to control his bouyancy independantly, but has the instructor do so during the dives).

Also notice, that a CMAS * diver isn't supposed to be "autonomous" -- i.e. is always expected to dive with a "higher ranked" diver and cannot just dive with another CMAS *. A PADI OW is supposed to be able to dive with another PADI OW certified diver.

CMAS and PADI are both recognized almost the same around the globe. No real differences there.

However the mantra around here seems to be that "it's the instructor, not the certificate, which a good diver makes". So if you find a good instructor who actually teaches you to *dive*, then the text written on the plastic-card isn't really important. How to find a good instructor, you ask? -- now there's another thread....

 

[paulwlee]

As voop already mentioned, their is really no 'CMAS training'. It's the various national organizations that do the training, and they're completely different from country to country: FFESSM in France, KUDA in Korea, etc. One example is that you can get a CMAS card after getting NAUI training if I remember correctly, and NAUI OW is pretty close to a PADI OW.

Both CMAS and PADI will be recognized all over the world, so my advice is to ask the friend for specifics why he thinks CMAS there is better.

Whichever way you go, I would suggest that you not stop at entry level. That means 1 and 2 star for CMAS, and OW, Advanced OW and Rescue for PADI.

 

[voop]

Actually,in the US, it's the YMCA, Handicapped Scuba Association, Uncerwater Society of America and TDI which are members of CMAS -- according to the cmas200.org www-site.

NAUI is, iirc, not a member.

Of course, if one is a PADI OW, it's mostly a trivial thing to get a federation to issue a CMAS * diver card, provided that one pays the appropriate fees to that federation. There exists official agreements on this regard between PADI and at least one CMAS member federation. I do not know if similar agreements exists for NAUI and others, but I would assume that there does....

 

[paulwlee]

Actually,in the US, it's the YMCA, Handicapped Scuba Association, Uncerwater Society of America and TDI which are members of CMAS -- according to the cmas200.org www-site.

Ah, thank you for correcting me. I was a little unsure as I thought I had heard of this of both YMCA and NAUI, but upon doing a search, maybe I was mistaken about NAUI.

From what I hear, the entry level training for YMCA does seem a little more thorough than PADI/NAUI/SSI, etc.

 

[miketsp]

In general if you have a choice between doing PADI & CMAS and unless you hear anything against the LDS/club/association locally I would choose CMAS every time.
I accompanied my son's CMAS training through 1, 2 & 3stars and then 1 star instuctor.
I have also seen & compared training sessions from other major agencies which didn't cover 1/2 the material & situations.

Also see this other recent thread:
http://www.scubaboard.com/t63531.html

 

[DiveTyme]

As a YMCA instructor that has paid the CMAS cert. fee, I can certify CMAS in the U.S. The Y standards are the same for CMAS (in the States).
Tim

 

[dgiovanni]

I just finished a cmas 1 star session and it was one of the best things I've done. I'm going to go with the rest aT LEAST UP TO 3 STARS
ciao