Dumbing down of scuba certification courses (PADI) - what have we missed?

[leapfrog]

All they are saying is they are trying to prevent governments getting involved in regulating dive training. I believe that.

Yes and in Europe they are not being very successful. In the UK and Spain (to name two) the respective governments have already mandated what dive training, instruction, dive ops and so on consists of.....

 

[Diver0001]

^^ and the EU is getting in the game too. There are now minimum training standards being mandated by the EU along the lines of the WRSTC. It's just a matter of time before they start mandating the number of hours we need to spend on theory and pool work etc, or even minimum equipment regulations. Maybe in a few years we'll all be required by LAW to wear a snorkel.... who knows. In my life time I honestly expect to see "scuba police" checking people's computers as they get out of the water and giving them tickets if their bottom time was longer than 60 minutes.

 

[leapfrog]

^^ and the EU is getting in the game too. There are now minimum training standards being mandated by the EU along the lines of the WRSTC. It's just a matter of time before they start mandating the number of hours we need to spend on theory and pool work etc, or even minimum equipment regulations. Maybe in a few years we'll all be required by LAW to wear a snorkel.... who knows. In my life time I honestly expect to see "scuba police" checking people's computers as they get out of the water and giving them tickets if their bottom time was longer than 60 minutes.

Yes. We're off topic and hijacking the thread but it may be worth starting another one on this subject?

As I don't own or run an LDS I can't get down to all the finesse on what's going on here, however:

1. Air/EANx compressors: checked by the Industry Department of the local "autonomy" (rather like a state in the US). Yearly.
2. Opening licence. Conceded by the City Hall.
3. You can't have an LDS without a boat, even if you are going to do shore entries.
4. How deep you can dive mandated by the National Public Works Department/Ministry and each autonomy. Current max. depth on air is 130ft. So if you go beyond you are breaking the law unless you are a licensed commercial diver. You can exceptionally go down to 180ft on air or another mix if you have been trained and certified to do so. It is illegal to breathe underwater Air at more than 6.0 Bar, Nitrogen at more than 5.6 Bar and O2 at more than 1.4 Bar. The Scuba Police are going to fine you for breathing 1.5 Bar ppO2!!!!5. Night diving is now illegal, nationally.
6. Solo Diving is prohibited.
7. All boat Captains must now be certified commercial skippers. Two divers have to stay aboard the boat ready to enter the water in case of emergency.
8. When the boat goes out, the skipper must have a photocopy of the certifications and insurance cards or policies of every diver.
9. The Civil Guard, which is a military federal police force, enforces compliance on the shore, in the harbor and at sea.
10. All equipment sold and used must conform to CE (European Union) spec.
11. When a student signs up for a course they have to bring an official medical certificate which they can only buy in a pharmacy and the have their doctor sign off that they are "fit for recreational diving". So a waiver isn't good enough. After that all divers should have a medical certificate done once every two years.
12. All divers must dive with a BCD, either a Depth Gauge and a watch or a PDC , a knife, an SPG or a "J" valve, principal 2nd stage and an AAS (i.e. a LPI integrated AAS is illegal). (Nothing is said about masks, snorkels, fins, etc)

 

[sweatfrog]

I only have a problem with a few of these rules.

3. You can't have an LDS without a boat, even if you are going to do shore entries.

That makes no sense.

7. Two divers have to stay aboard the boat ready to enter the water in case of emergency.

That raises the price of the trip for a group of small divers substantially.

11. When a student signs up for a course they have to bring an official medical certificate which they can only buy in a pharmacy and the have their doctor sign off that they are "fit for recreational diving". So a waiver isn't good enough. After that all divers should have a medical certificate done once every two years.

When people answer yes and are told they need a medical, sometimes they leave and lie at another facility. This is a mixed bag, because people will answer no on everything, just to get around it.

In Australia, if you answer yes to anything, you have to get a physical by an Australian doctor. They won't accept a medical that you bring with you.

12. (i.e. a LPI integrated AAS is illegal).

That seems to infringe on free enterprise.

When the government gets involved, the laws will be enforced by those who don't understand what they are doing. That's a problem.

 

[leapfrog]

That makes no sense.

None at all. I think it has been suggested by the "think tank" that the federal government put together to make the rules. Most of these people are "senior instructors" with their own Center on the coast. It's principally aimed at people like me who have a freelance operation in the capital city, two hundred and fifty miles from te sea. It means I have to "make an arrangement" with an LDS in the area where I take my divers. I can run them down to the beach in a 4WD but I have to have the boat on call in case of an emergency. It also leaves a loophole where the Civil Guard can police buddy pairs who go diving from the shore because it's not clear whether as private individuals it's permitted or not.

That raises the price of the trip for a group of small divers substantially.

Yes, actually I don't know of ANY operation that is complying wth the rule. What it has done is stop the "one man band" instructor/skipper from throwing the anchor and jumping into the deep blue with their students. Now most of the time there is a reasonably proficient boat captain on the watch.

When people answer yes and are told they need a medical, sometimes they leave and lie at another facility. This is a mixed bag, because people will answer no on everything, just to get around it.

The medical certificate is not such bad thing except a. It's an extra source of income to the pharmacist who sells the form for about a buck and b. How the hell does a regular physician know if someone is fit for recreational diving?

That seems to infringe on free enterprise.

Yes, it does. Again, people are still using the integrated ones, not easy to police..........

When the government gets involved, the laws will be enforced by those who don't understand what they are doing. That's a problem.

Yes, it is. I think this sorry state of affairs came about because a lot of people from outside the country came here, set up a business without getting the permits, without paying taxes and stepping on the toes of the locals and arguing that because they were certified by or afilliated with a supranational training agency they were in some way above the law.

The Civil Guard has the only police or emergency services dive squad. There are only about 150 guys in it distributed nationwide. This seems to have given their regular trooper brothers the idea that they all know about diving, when they have no clue, especially since they are charged with enforcing the laws I mentioned.

 

[Thalassamania]

That's a bold statement and in no way reflects their mission statement: The World Recreational Scuba Training Council (WRSTC) is dedicated to the worldwide safety of the recreational diving public. As such, one of the WRSTC's primary goals is the development of worldwide minimum training standards. The establishment of globally recognized and implemented standards is a valuable asset in addressing local and national regulatory issues.

While it was dubious on their part to have created these minimum standards without either your or my input, I think your attempt to smear their mission is misguided at best and self serving at worst. Somehow, I can't find your "exact" reasoning in their literature at all. These people are either consummate liars, or you're manufacturing motives to suit your needs. I appreciate that you are passionate about this issue, but you don't have to put words or motives in the WRSTC's mouth.

I think it's best for the interested reader to peruse their website, WRSTC :: World Recreational Scuba Training Council, and make up their minds for themselves.

Words are cheap. Compare the RSTC, WRSTC and agencies standards. Talk to the people who had input in their development (btw: with respect to the RSTC, I did have input, through the development of the ANSI standards and my testing at the behest of DEMA of the 20 hour course).

We already had this discussion, permit me to direct you back to: NAUI and the RSTC, where the RSTC/WRSTC thing is rather thuroughly debunked.

 

[leapfrog]

I said this before somewhere but I would rather see the agencies actually compete between themselves and each offer something clearly different. The whole idea of there being a "scuba cartel" is anathema to me.

 

[captain]

Training provided to French Navy divers by Frederic Dumas, J Y Cousteau's right hand man.

Dumas planned the diving courses for the fleet aqualung divers, two of whom are to be carried on each French naval vessel. He immerses the novices first in shallow water to bring them through the fetal stage that took us years--that of seeing through the clear window of the mask, experiencing the ease of automatic breathing, and learning that useless motion is the enemy of undersea swimming. On his second dive the trainee descends fifty feet on a rope and returns, getting a sense of pressure change and testing his ears. The instructor startles the class with the third lesson. The students go down with heavy weights and sit on the floor fifty feet down. The teacher removes his mask and passes it around the circle. He molds the mask again, full of water. One strong nasal exhalation blows all the water through the flanges of the mask. Then he bids the novices emulate him. They learn that it is easy to stop off their nasal passages while the mask is off and breathe as usual through the mouthgrip.

A subsequent lesson finds the class convened at the bottom and again their attendance is assured by weights. The professor removes his mask. Then he removes his mouthpiece, throws the breathing tube loop back over his head and unbuckles the aqualung harness. He lays all his diving equipment on the sand and stands naked except for his breach clout. With sure, unhurried gestures he resumes the equipment, blowing his mask and swallowing the cupful of water in the breathing tubes. The demonstration is not difficult for a person who can hold a lungful of air for a half minute.

By this time the scholars realize they are learning by example. They remove their diving equipment entirely, put it back on, and await the praise of the teacher. The next problem is that of removing all equipment and exchanging it among each other. People who do this gain confidence in their ability to live under the sea.

At the end of the course the honor students swim down to a hundred feet, remove all equipment and return to the surface naked. The baccalaureate is an enjoyable rite. As they soar with their original lungful, the air expands progressively in the journey through lessening pressures, issuing a continuous stream of bubbles from puckered lips.

 

[The Chairman]

What an interesting historical perspective.

 

[evac93rd]

IMHO I think both sides have valid points. I was lucky to have a LDS that although small has among its members a course director, a fully certified tech instructor and a master diver that has been at it so long that he is rust colored, but although he no longer actively instructs will take a new diver aside either in the shop, pool or in the water to help teach them a few tricks.

Being a small shop, the owner and his wife have other full time jobs and opened this shop out of a love of diving, not as an outlet to churn out divers. I cannot agree with those who feel that BCDs with intergrated weight systems, wireless computers or low volume masks are somehow a sellout to commercialism and that the only way to make a "real diver" is to put them through the same rite of passage that existed in the fabled "old days." In my field we have surgeons who are disgusted that residents are no longer required in many training centers to stay up 40 hours at a time on call nights, but have mandated sleep periods. "They'll never make good surgeons unless they suffer like we did!" Horse poop. They complain that with intestinal staplers, the art of hand sewing the bowel will be lost and what are the new surgeons going to do if they ever find themselves in a situation where there are no staplers. The same thing that you and I will do if we can't find our car. Staplers are ubiquitous and turn a 10 min task into a 20 sec task.

In medicine as in diving we progress with the times. On the other hand, IMHO there is no excuse for a person to become a fully certified OW diver on a cruise ship in 2 days and in some of our local "big box" scuba shops I have had divers brag that they achieved their advanced open water training with only 15 dives. This is "Pay PADI" at its worst. I was certified in August of 2008 and have only 40 dives so far. I dive every chance I get. I have both Nitrox and Peak Performance Buoyancy certs and will get my Adv. when the water warms enough in our area to dive in our "deep" site. I know that I don't know very much and that is what keeps me safe.

Time and technology marches on. The primary responsibility of maintaining standards falls to the instructor and the diver because that is where the rubber meets the road. If you are worried that standards are slipping then why not get on the teaching path and pass on your views and skills to the next generation of divers. Grumbling about the "good old days" is meaningless.