View attachment 108711
According to the CMAS website (club finder) there is a grand total of 55 CMAS clubs outside of Europe. Some of those are university clubs. Yep... 55 whole dive clubs!
In the Asia region... wow.... 11 clubs.. including 2 in India, 1 in Iran and 1 in Lebanon.
In Oceania & Australia.... 4 clubs! 3 of those are in French Polynesia.
On the other end of the 'relevance' spectrum... in 2007 PADI listed 1009 member dive centres in 42 Asian countries alone. Those are
paid-up IRRA members... not just dive shops affiliated to teach PADI courses..
that number would be
far higher.
So, for Asia... CMAS could be seen (generously) as
1.09% of the size of PADI. Better not even consider the volume of certifications from those clubs...
Are we really going to argue about 'global relevance'? 55 international dive schools?
Looking at it another way... Koh Tao, a small island in Thailand, produces 60,000 PADI certifications annually. SSI can't be much further behind...certainly well into 4 figures. How many divers does CMAS train
globally per year?
Looking at it another way... in 20 years of diving, in more than 25 countries on 5 continents, I've met a grand total of
3 CMAS divers. Sadly, one of those (a 2* Diver) ran out of air on a 25m tropical reef dive...and had to borrow my octopus for the ascent.
But point conceded... CMAS probably got PADI beat in Iran...
CMAS may allow divers to do deco at 2* level.. but the global relevance of that, in perspective of my article, is irrelevant. CMAS diving just isn't big enough statistically to seriously sway any definition of 'the dive community'.