Have you ever been refused to be allowed to dive?

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I guess I have to question all of this, when I look at the minimum requirements to acquire the Divemaster certification: ... 40 logged dives

Not quite, the 40 logged doves are to begin the course. To actually complete the Divemaster course and acquire your certificate you need a still low 60 dives.
 
I am AOW but wife is only OW. When she was certified, early 80's, there was never a 60 ft limitation. She has over 800 dives, we dove Indonesia liveaboard and often hit 80 to 100 feet in Bonaire. Never had any concerns. Once we wanted to dive Spiegel in Florida the next day. Boat captain explained AWO unless approved by the shop owner. As we kitted up he watched us, talked about where we had dived and obviously watched us dive. We returned to the boat and all of a sudden the our certification level was no problem. I have a hard ti!e justifying paying PADI for a unneeded "badge*. Seems like a scam to me. So.has anyone been refused a dive became they were not AOW? B

Jamaica, Sandals. OW and public safety diver (which well exceeded the course requirements for AOW for any major training agency). I wasn't allowed to dive anything beyond 60 feet. I don't think it uncommon for PADI resorts in the Americas, but I may be mistaken.
 
The boat people have enough to deal with without the addition of obvious irresponsible boundary pushers. If you can't be bothered to get the required certificate you're not getting on my boat, unless I needed the money, if I had a boat
 
think about it from the captains position.....

im willing to bet that captain has to deal with someone 3-4x a week who claims to have been trained by jacques cousteau himself....someone who claims to dive the Andrea Doria 2x a month....or someone who claims their deepest dives were to 400 meters........all while watching them struggle to put on their split fins after strapping on a spare air.


unfortunately, personally responsibility seems to be a thing of the past......so if he drops some yaboo off at a 100ft dive site.....and they end up getting hurt, and they only have an OW certification.....well guess whos getting sued?...guess whos losing their business?....

if the person has their AOW certification....well the captain can pass that buck onto the certification agency.

you very well could be the best diver in the world, and might have lots of experience doing advanced diving.....the captain doesnt know that, nor is he, or should he, be willing to take that risk......

at the end of the day...you have no right to have the capt take you out....if you want to do deep dives, there are no scuba police, you are more than welcome to buy a boat and go out on your own......
 
Pescadore Island in Moalboal Cebu generally requires divers to be AOW. Some AOW divers want to come in and do dive the site
but may have not dived for more than a year so the shop owner will say first do a shore dive or boat dive with a DM and if assessed as capable for the Pescadore site then they are allowed to go. Many OW divers are capable some are not.

Some dives just require the experience and the certificate level is also not alone enough especially where some once a year vacation divers only have 5 dives a year and the first dive they want to do is a strong current dive.
 
If someone is turned away, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Every place I’ve seen that requires AOW for particular sites makes the requirement explicit somewhere in the reservation process.

Nevertheless, I completely understand the frustration of, say, a skilled, experienced diver with 200 dives in all manner of conditions who isn’t allowed to make a dive that a brand new AOW with barely ten dives is cheerfully permitted to undertake without being questioned.

As useless as the AOW cert may seem to these experienced divers, the purchase price may be easier to stomach if you divide the cost by the number of years you hope to dive and consider it your annual fee to do the dives you want without having to justify your experience.

But, yeah, the whole “pay to get a card to help someone else reduce his liability” dynamic is awkward for everyone.
 
Yes... I got turned down in Cabo when looking to dive Gordo Banks last August. 400+ dives over 10 years including several buddied up with divers completing their AOW on local shop trips in California and Mexico. Seemed the shops down in Cabo were shy due to some high profile fatalities in recent years.

I've decided to go ahead and get the AOW when we head to Cozumel in April so I won't get shot down again like that.
 
Yes, a few times when I only had a NAUI "Scuba Diver" card from the 70's. No depth restrictions when I got it, but over time it got to be the equivalent of an OW cert and even though I had more than 100 dives and the training was significantly more exhaustive than OW plus AOW when I did it I was restricted from some dives by some operators. Took PADI rescue and the issue went away. The shop I did rescue with did not require AOW and the rescue course was a good one so was all good.
 
If someone is turned away, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Every place I’ve seen that requires AOW for particular sites makes the requirement explicit somewhere in the reservation process.

Nevertheless, I completely understand the frustration of, say, a skilled, experienced diver with 200 dives in all manner of conditions who isn’t allowed to make a dive that a brand new AOW with barely ten dives is cheerfully permitted to undertake without being questioned.

As useless as the AOW cert may seem to these experienced divers, the purchase price may be easier to stomach if you divide the cost by the number of years you hope to dive and consider it your annual fee to do the dives you want without having to justify your experience.

But, yeah, the whole “pay to get a card to help someone else reduce his liability” dynamic is awkward for everyone.
Agree. There also is that with the AOW course you get 5 dives (with PADI anyway). Now some may be in fresh water springs (as were 3 of my 5), but they may all be in the ocean or at least somewhat interesting. How much less would 5 boat dives cost than the AOW course?
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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