American divers get no respect

[dmoore19]

Then they should say they do not accept a PADI certification and refuse to sell their services to someone who is not certified to meet their standards.

 

[demed]

Well, I think this is part of a wider phenomenon - you see the same thing with British divers and BSAC sometimes. I think it has less to do with agency standards than the fact that England and France are fairly challenging diving environments, so divers who come from those countries tend to be pretty hard core for the most part. If you meet a British diver then "do you use a rebreather" is a reasonable question, as about a third of them seem to.

In the U.S., just by the law of averages, you would expect to see a lot more "fair weather" divers.

But people who pass judgements based on generalisations inevitably end up looking foolish. (Or, if you are French, more foolish.)

I do fondly remember my own diving experiences in French Polynesia. Unless memory plays me false, that may have been the last time I dived using a J-valve instead of an SPG (in the heady 1980s).

Before drawing comparisons between the challenging conditions of french diving and the fair weather diving conditions of the US of A, I would go back to check that book called atlas and count the % of miles of coastline of the two countries where the average water temperature is below 70. Since the demise of the J-valve probably diving Newfoundland, the Puget Sound, Alaska or the Wrecks of New Jersey must have become much more comfortable than the mediterranean. In fact, would be even better to see how much french diving is done in the south versus the north.
Diving the british isles is indeed much similar to diving in much the north of of the US, but I wouldn't even start to compare the number of divers in the two geographies. So how does CMAS and BSAC pretend to teach lessons to the galaxy of agencies certifying hundreds of thousands of divers in the US under equivalent or more challenging conditions is a mistery to me. perhaps must be certifying divers in the single digits every year that forces those two bodies to conduct immensely long course just to keep busy their bored instructors....

---------- Post added October 5th, 2014 at 10:43 PM ----------

Then they should say they do not accept a PADI certification and refuse to sell their services to someone who is not certified to meet their standards.

Indeed, and then specialize in super-exclusive service for the lucky one tourist who meets such a requirements every year.

 

[OMANDIVER]

Before drawing comparisons between the challenging conditions of french diving and the fair weather diving conditions of the US of A, I would go back to check that book called atlas and count the % of miles of coastline of the two countries where the average water temperature is below 70. Since the demise of the J-valve probably diving Newfoundland, the Puget Sound, Alaska or the Wrecks of New Jersey must have become much more comfortable than the mediterranean. In fact, would be even better to see how much french diving is done in the south versus the north.
Diving the british isles is indeed much similar to diving in much the north of of the US, but I wouldn't even start to compare the number of divers in the two geographies. So how does CMAS and BSAC pretend to teach lessons to the galaxy of agencies certifying hundreds of thousands of divers in the US under equivalent or more challenging conditions is a mistery to me. perhaps must be certifying divers in the single digits every year that forces those two bodies to conduct immensely long course just to keep busy their bored instructors....

---------- Post added October 5th, 2014 at 10:43 PM ----------



Indeed, and then specialize in super-exclusive service for the lucky one tourist who meets such a requirements every year.

BSAC happily welcomes PADI qualified divers in my experience, they don't pretend to teach lessons to other agencies. There is nothing in the above posts to suggest it does. Just been doing it longer and differently ie a club not a commercial agency.

 

[cb5150]

I have been diving in French Polynesia the past two summers and I have run up against a distinct disdain for American divers based on our predominant certification agency; PADI. You get no respect. Dive operators sneer at the mention of PADI. Fortunately, I also have various certifications from NAUI, SSI, and the YMCA in addition to PADI, so I managed a little more street cred. I asked a friend of mine while there what is the big difference between CMAS (the predominant French certifying agency) and PADI. The laws of physics don't change between certifying agencies. So what is the big deal? Is it just snobbery (I know a French snob, sounds unlikely). She answered that the majority of problems they have with divers are mostly US or Aussie divers. Is CMAS so different? So much better?

The greatest prison people live in is the fear of what other people think of them.

 

[AdivingBel]

When I dived in French Polynesia, they let me know that there were different standards and the CMAS ones were higher than PADIs. PADI AOW means little to a CMAS dive operation, it doesn't equate apples to apples, you need to be Rescue certified to meet their criteria to dive below 30 meters.

They also made it clear in casual conversations that they took your certification very seriously because there was a high level of legal accountability for not only a dive operator but for the dive master if there was an accident or an incident.

As long as their policy is clearly stated up front, it's good by me. Their boat, their rules. Doesn't sound like a respect issue. Sounds like a training/skills issue. If that is what is required and I really want to dive there, then I would get the appropriate cert.

 

[Adam Grose]

GREAT quote!! I am SO gonna steal that one from you.

The greatest prison people live in is the fear of what other people think of them.

 

[drbill]

PADI AOW means little to a CMAS dive operation, it doesn't equate apples to apples, you need to be Rescue certified to meet their criteria to dive below 30 meters.

They also made it clear in casual conversations that they took your certification very seriously because there was a high level of legal accountability for not only a dive operator but for the dive master if there was an accident or an incident.

Indeed PADI AOW (and that of a few other agencies) means very little. Back in the 60s when I finally got certified by Los Angeles County (LAC), the OW cert required training that was in many ways equivalent to the current OW-AOW-Rescue certs. It took three weeks of fairly rigorous classroom, pool and open ocean work to get certified. The funny thing is I finally got a PADI AOW cert when young PADI instructors (even those from the "Lost" Angeles area) had no clue what LAC and wouldn't let me do certain dives without a "check out dive" despite my extensive dive log. I finally chose to get the PADI AOW cert when a great PADI instructor in Cairns saw my original c-card and referred to it as a "museum piece." He knew about the LAC even though he lived "way down under" and gave me the PADI AOW cert for the cost of materials.

Face it... current training standards by most mainstream dive agencies are pretty minimal. There are far more extensive and rigorous training programs both here in the States and elsewhere in the world.

And the subject line "American divers get no respect" is somewhat misleading since PADI is international in scope, not just the U.S. and the rest of the Americas.

 

[Mike]

As long as their policy is clearly stated up front, it's good by me. Their boat, their rules. Doesn't sound like a respect issue. Sounds like a training/skills issue. If that is what is required and I really want to dive there, then I would get the appropriate cert.

Precisely.

---------- Post added October 6th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ----------

 

[Akimbo]

PADI, OW, and AOW don't get any respect on this board, why should it be different anywhere else?

 

[sphyrnidus]

The statement that French & German divers use an awful lot of rebreathers is a bit over the top. A lot of divers from Germany, Belgium, France, Chech come to Zeeland to dive. I seldom see a rebreather. Diving the wrecks in Scapa Flow in Scotland is different though.
In the Netherlands it is 40% CMAS and 40% Padi and of course GUE, BSAC and every other agency. In the Netherlands there is an agreement that all of the same level of certs are interchangeable after a debate that lasted a decade or longer. So if you are a OW it is recognised as 1* and so on.
The diving conditions here are low vision and low temp's. I think about 50 % are diving dry suits here and the wet suit divers only dive from May till October.