Nitrox class - no dives/dives?

[scubafanatic]

I got Nitrox certified back in 2003 (TDI), dives were a requirement. I have no idea what the current standards are, but I believe PADI went to 100% e-learning many years ago and it's been a long time since PADI required actual dives for Nitrox certification.

 

[chillyinCanada]

That’s essentially the whole point of my original post - and what I quoted from the TDI Nitrox class standards. There are no nitrox specific skills to be shown during a dive. It’s not rocket science. So I’m trying to figure out why in the world dives are still required. It seems especially ridiculous to take the class on a diving vacation having not done any e-learning, thus wasting valuable vacation time in a classroom and having to do 2 dives. It’s a class to be done at home BEFORE a vacation.

I took my course a very long time ago, on Roatan. Did the course work outdoors by the water, with a very nice instructor, who I then requested as our dive guide for the remainder of your trip. 2 dives were required at the time, which we all agreed was silly but the dives and nitrox fills came with the course fee. Absolutely, zero hardship or heartburn.

Not quite sure why you're so worked up about this, Marie? Do you know someone that you feel is being or going to be taken advantage of and/or waste time whilst on a dive vacation?

 

[Germie]

No dives required in the course I did. Why? You breathe the same regulator and same cylinder. It has nothing to do with improving skills. Nitrox is done in 1-2 hours theory. It should be included in open water already. It is nothing special.

There is an agency you can do nitrox open water diver. With IANTD, this would be an example for others. No need to take extra money.

 

[Marie13]

I took my course a very long time ago, on Roatan. Did the course work outdoors by the water, with a very nice instructor, who I then requested as our dive guide for the remainder of your trip. 2 dives were required at the time, which we all agreed was silly but the dives and nitrox fills came with the course fee. Absolutely, zero hardship or heartburn.

Not quite sure why you're so worked up about this, Marie? Do you know someone that you feel is being or going to be taken advantage of and/or waste time whilst on a dive vacation?

Not personally, but I am repeatedly seeing people on FB diving groups insisting dives are required and it seems like they’re getting cheated of fun diving and time on vacation - and spending more as a result, all the while complaining about it. But, hey, if they want to keep their head in the sand and not investigate other options, their problem. Just makes my teeth itch.

This seems to be exclusively an occasional vacation diver type thing - which I most certainly am not!

 

[Diving Dubai]

seems like they’re getting cheated of fun diving and time on vacation

Why are they getting cheated? They are getting 2 dives in the same location. Also they are gettign 1:1 with an instructor for 2 dives where they can get additional "free" tuition on other "issues"

Also I find that the 2 dives "included" work out cheaper than a normal 2 dives because they're packaged

 

[happy-diver]

Do you mind if I use this in the real world sometimes please Marie13

Just makes my teeth itch.

I'll be appropriate with it and do it proud
Thanks

 

[Zef]

Not personally, but I am repeatedly seeing people on FB diving groups insisting dives are required and it seems like they’re getting cheated of fun diving and time on vacation - and spending more as a result, all the while complaining about it. But, hey, if they want to keep their head in the sand and not investigate other options, their problem. Just makes my teeth itch.

This seems to be exclusively an occasional vacation diver type thing - which I most certainly am not!

To obtain the NAUI "Enriched Air Diver" certification card one must complete 2 dives using Nitrox after analyzing and recording the gas mixture.

I imagine that a vacation type dive center may require the dives as a way of upselling on the cost of the gas cylinders...it could be as well that they provide the diver with 2 tanks to analyze and the fact that the diver is cracking the valves to do the analysis that they must rent those tanks and it their practice is that the diver will dive those tanks....to avoid any hassle with the question of "why" the dive center just makes that their standard practice. This is just conjecture/speculation.

For NAUI, I think the requirement is kinda b***s**t. My daughter recently braved cold air and water temps to complete her NAUI Nitrox qual because the instructor in our club who taught it does not offer the "recognition" card and insisted that one could not get fills unless they had the actual "certification" card.....I was not in a position to argue the standards and fighting the issue through NAUI would cause more harm than good. My daughter now has the certification card, and 2 more dives worth of experience....the water at 13C was not as bad as she expected, and she used her sister's wetsuit, booties, hood, and gloves for the second dive so that she did not have to put a cold wet wetsuit on after the surface interval. The biggest issue was finding a place nearby that had Nitrox tanks to rent.

When i asked the instructor why NAUI had this requirement he said that he really did not know but speculated that perhaps it is to show divers from a practical firsthand standpoint that Nitrox is not some miracle gas and you will typically not notice anything different breathing of a tank of it compared to a tank of regular air.

Had we lived in the US and had more options available to take the class we probably would have chosen a different agency, but at 95euros for the course through the club on the base we are stationed at it seemed like a price that would be hard to beat elsewhere.

-Z

 

[Scuba Scott]

Seriously - did you have that info at your fingertips? Or how long it take you to dig that out?

PADI has all the info available online--in the digital equivalent of a 3ft tall stack of magazines sitting on the floor beside the toilet. Their recommended procedure of opening each one individually and searching one by one is unusable unless you know where to start looking. All you need to do is get them all downloaded into a folder on your computer. Once you have done that there are several options to make them searchable, but overall it took me about 30 seconds to find the info. One way is merging them into one big file.

 

[NYCNaiad]

all the while complaining about it. But, hey, if they want to keep their head in the sand and not investigate other options, their problem.

It does seem silly for someone to complain about this if they do have an issue. However, when I did the class back in 2010 as a newbie, I loved having the extra time with an instructor. Like @Diving Dubai noted, the dives were a chance for me to have private instruction to work on improving other things. And it also meant I wasn't diving with an instabuddy since I was there alone. It was a win-win for me.

 

[tbone1004]

I'm sure it's been brought up already, but NAUI has two nitrox certs. Nitrox Diver -Dives Required, and another that doesn't require them, it's very weird. We issue Nitrox Diver in lieu of the basic OW cert so the two "required" dives are combined with OW. This is regularly done with AOW/Rescue as well so it's not always a dedicated dive and if you're going to do it, may as well combine them with another course. IMO this should be something that every shop should offer