Why aren’t there “River Diving” classes?

[M DeM]

I mean, PADI gives you a certification for a “Boat Diving” class, for heaven’s sake.

I’m a new diver (<50 dives) and diving in a river sounds fun, but also — very different.

Granted, I’m not a river person- I grew up around ocean. So when I think river, I think of stuff like where I did my Swiftwater training. With kayakers wearing helmets and tourists on rafts and whatnot.

I can’t imagine diving in those rapids, but then again, some of you people are effing nuts.

So is river scuba like in Hudson River type rivers? What makes a river scuba-able, which is an awesome new word I just invented.

How different is river diving (aside of buoyancy)?

 

[decompression]

A friend of mine did most of his Teaching/diving in the St Lawrence river.....every class was a “river specialty”. Very challenging indeed.

 

[boulderjohn]

There are certain specialty classes that are standard, but you have to be clear on the language about them, because it makes a difference. PADI does not give you a certification; PADI does not teach you a course. An instructor teaches you a course with a curriculum that PADI has approved, primary for safety. If you complete the class, the instructor will certify you, and PADI will send you a card that indicates that the instructor has certified that you completed the class. The important thing is this: you are paying an instructor, not PADI, for the effort of teaching you that class. The only money PADI makes is the cost of the certification card and the cost of course materials, if they are required.

There are also classes called distinctive specialties. These are classes that instructors have created on their own and which PADI has approved. They can be on almost any topic. An instructor has to go through a specific process to get the course approved, much of which has to do with safety. In the two that I created, the amount of work and negotiating I had to do to get it approved was extensive. In the case of a distinctive specialty, the only money PADI makes is the cost of the card; if the student does not want the card, then PADI does not make a dime. They won't even know the student took the class.

Why would an instructor do this? For liability reasons. If a student were to have an accident during the class, the instructor is likely to be sued. If the instructor is just teaching something he or she made up, the plaintiff would demand proof that the course content was safe. The burden would be on the instructor to prove it. If the course was instead approved by the world's largest dive agency, the instructor would be pretty safe--the burden would be on the plaintiff to show not only that the content was unsafe, but that the instructor should have known it was unsafe. That is pretty much impossible.

I would bet that someone somewhere does indeed offer a distinctive specialty in river diving. Ask around in the places that offer diving near rivers.

 

[shurite7]

PADI nor NAUI have written a set of standards or an instructor guide for river diving. An instructor can write one and send it in to the perspective agency so that he/she can teach it as a specialty class. The one issue with coming up with a course is rivers vary greatly in terms of currents, visibility, depth, temperature, etc. One can learn to dive in a mountain river, but that will not prepare them for diving in a much larger river.

Many people up here dive in the mountain rivers, Salmon River for example, or the larger rivers such as the Missouri or Columbia, but have never taken a course. In some spots we call the dive a superman dive, go with the swift current with your hands in front of you to protect yourself. In other spots divers will stick to an eddy and collect valuable debris off the bottom.

 

[rhwestfall]

We routinely drift dive the Niagara River (3 kt current). The local NAUI shop here used a River drift as a component of their Advanced certification...

Diving the Niagara River, you basically cannot stop.

When we dove various sections of the St. Lawrence, there were areas you could stop, turn, and swim back upstream. There are also sections of the St. Lawrence that get real interesting....

 

[admikar]

I'm interested in "river with fishies in it" specialty! Since my home rivers have nice fishies in them.

 

[Kayakingphotos]

How bout a "river diving with a chance of getting landed on by a whitewater kayaker" specialty? I just completed my AOW this weekend and we dove at the base of a waterfall that is a popular whitewater kayaking spot when there is enough water in the river. Lucky for me, the river flows don't overlap for the two sports. Dove it with only slight current. Here is a video of the waterfall with a kayaker going over it. *F-Bomb alert*, kayaker swimming waterfall *F-Bomb alert*. Sorry, no photos from diving.

 

[Youngandfree]

My local dive shop does its open water training in a river that apparently has a spot with a wall that's at least 40ft deep.

 

[M DeM]

There are certain specialty classes that are standard, but you have to be clear on the language about them, because it makes a difference. PADI does not give you a certification; PADI does not teach you a course. An instructor teaches you a course with a curriculum that PADI has approved, primary for safety. If you complete the class, the instructor will certify you, and PADI will send you a card that indicates that the instructor has certified that you completed the class. The important thing is this: you are paying an instructor, not PADI, for the effort of teaching you that class. The only money PADI makes is the cost of the certification card and the cost of course materials, if they are required.

There are also classes called distinctive specialties. These are classes that instructors have created on their own and which PADI has approved. They can be on almost any topic. An instructor has to go through a specific process to get the course approved, much of which has to do with safety. In the two that I created, the amount of work and negotiating I had to do to get it approved was extensive. In the case of a distinctive specialty, the only money PADI makes is the cost of the card; if the student does not want the card, then PADI does not make a dime. They won't even know the student took the class.

Why would an instructor do this? For liability reasons. If a student were to have an accident during the class, the instructor is likely to be sued. If the instructor is just teaching something he or she made up, the plaintiff would demand proof that the course content was safe. The burden would be on the instructor to prove it. If the course was instead approved by the world's largest dive agency, the instructor would be pretty safe--the burden would be on the plaintiff to show not only that the content was unsafe, but that the instructor should have known it was unsafe. That is pretty much impossible.

I would bet that someone somewhere does indeed offer a distinctive specialty in river diving. Ask around in the places that offer diving near rivers.

This is really interesting! Thanks for taking the time to explain this!

 

[M DeM]

My local dive shop does its open water training in a river that apparently has a spot with a wall that's at least 40ft deep.

And you're in virginia from what it looks like, yes?