Is dive certification really necessary?

[boulderjohn]

I think this is kind of my point. Other extreme sports rely on the individual to know their limits or face the consequences whereas I think there may be a false sense of dive ability when someone holds a card saying they have been trained, even if it has been many years since their last dive.

I used to be an avid cyclist, both mountain biking and on the road. I even had some formal coaching and had my collegiate license. Trail ratings were key for some runs but even for some of the more technical trails, our club would hit green trails for warm-up. I know skiers who do the same. They don't just hit the black diamond run without warming up or being well into their ski season.

I think a hybrid model would be more beneficial to the sport and maybe even the environment. I think that those agencies that do requrie so many dives to keep their cert active are on the right track, but the question then is what happens to the vacationing diver who may only get out one or two weeks a year?

I don't really know the answer to any of this but I think this a good discussion.

I think the fact that I tried to set up a rating system for caves and did set one up for more basic overheard environments indicates that I believe there should be some kind of an advisory system about dive difficulty. My attempts to create it showed me how unlikely it is to happen.

The problem with requiring a certain number of dives to maintain a rating is the nightmare of policing it. How is an agency to know how many dives I have done in the past few years? Will they take my word for it? I know agencies that have such requirements, but as I indicated in an earlier post, if you want me to produce a dive log that meets certain specifications, I can have it in no time.

Many advanced certifications require a minimum number of logged dives, but that is really just a fuzzy gatekeeper that is more of a guide for the student than a real requirement, since it is so easily faked. The real requirement for the advanced certification is what you demonstrate during the course, not some meaningless dive number required to start it.

Many years ago I was on a dive boat setting out for dives in Cozumel, and our group included a couple we had just met. He was well into middle age and financially well off; she was (I know it's a stereotype) his young, very beautiful, trophy wife bride. She had just been OW certified for this honeymoon trip, but he made sure everyone on the boat knew we were in good hands with him on the trip--he was a certified Rescue Diver. He showed us all his card. (I was then just AOW.) Well, she turned out to be a very good diver, far more polished than her new certification would lead you to expect. He was a wreck. On both dives, the DM literally held his hand throughout the dive. He remains one of the very worst divers I have seen in my life.

 

[boulderjohn]

Looking back at the pioneers of Scuba diving in the US like Bev Morgan and Connie Limbaugh makes you realize that you can be self taught if you are adequately motivated. Just ask @Sam Miller III what it was like when a Frenchman started selling Aqua Lungs from his sporting goods store in LA — which was the only "dive shop" in North America at the time.

My introduction to scuba diving came in the early 1960s, when as a young teen I visited my cousins in New Jersey. My older cousin had all the gear, and he went out spearfishing almost every day I was there one year. Only a few years ago I visited him for the first time since I had become a diver myself. I asked him about his training. He said he had gone into a sporting goods store and bought the equipment. The salesman had given him about a 5-minute explanation about how everything worked. That was it. No certification.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm new here! First time I've seen it!

In that case, I will give you some background you might find interesting. Some of the references are to ScubaBoard discussions.

• The doctor who screwed up the visibility by landing on her tank is Lynne Flaherty, known on ScubaBoard as TSandM. She often told how bad her initial training was, saying that she used to descend facing up until she crashed on the bottom, where she would turn over and begin the dive. Sadly, she died while diving a few year ago.
• The reference to something undescribed as a "Warhammer" comes from the phrase "Warhammer maneuver," created by an old member named Warhammer who has not been active in many years. Here is the thread.

 

[Marie13]

I think the fact that I tried to set up a rating system for caves and did set one up for more basic overheard environments indicates that I believe there should be some kind of an advisory system about dive difficulty. My attempts to create it showed me how unlikely it is to happen.

Cris Kohl is a Great Lakes diver and historian who has written a lot of Great Lakes wreck books. The main one is the 600+ page Great Lakes Diving Guide. The wrecks are categorized into novice, intermediate, advanced, very advanced, and technical. Also gives an idea of difficulties such as current, low viz, etc. Good place to start, anyway.

 

[Marie13]

Lots of people without certifications get tanks filled. Mobile airbrush artists, nail salons, hobbyists using portable compressed air, paint ballers, friends of divers getting fills for them, etc. there’s nothing that says you have to certified to get an air full, that’s up to the shop.
Shops can rent everything needed to go freediving without any certifications, they just won’t rent the SCUBA part.
Just call and ask any local shop in my area how many sets of gear they’ve lost or had to get back from the morgue because an ab diver croaked. We used to lose an average of 8 per year. I never saw any of them get sued out of business.
And I have plenty of very good reasons to call some instructors shady and incompetent. I have seen lots of stuff.

It's very area dependent apparently. I was just describing my local/regional situation.

 

[boulderjohn]

Here is another early diving story. I was travelling to a dive destination and had a long conversation with the person sitting next to me. He told me he had done some diving in the 1960s. Some friends had told him what to do, and they went diving together. After one of the dives, he did not feel well, and they told him he probably had DCS. (From what he described, I would say it was a good diagnosis.) They gave him a new tank and told him to go back down and sit on the anchor until he was about out of gas and then come back up. He did that and was fine.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I wondered how paintballers got their tanks filled. So, if you simply say it's for paintball they will fill it and if for scuba they won't, without a c-card?

It depends on the dive shop, but yeah, I’m sure it helps if you get to know them and they know what you are doing with the air. If they ask, people simply say they are not using it for scuba it’s for something else.
A lot of airbrush artists used to use CO2 for a remote compressed gas source, but they are $20 a fill for a 95 CF tank. An air fill is $6 for any size tank even a 130. Plus air is safer, you’re not filling a room with inert gas that can make you pass out.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

It's very area dependent apparently. I was just describing my local/regional situation.

I’ll bet you though that if someone went in and explained to them what they were using the compressed air for they might make an exception, maybe with a quick waiver drawn up?
Maybe some shops in different regions are more anal than others. We seem to be pretty laid back here.

 

[Akimbo]

I asked him about his training. He said he had gone into a sporting goods store and bought the equipment. The salesman had given him about a 5-minute explanation about how everything worked. That was it. No certification.

Sounds like the René Bussoz Scuba school. I guess not that much has really changed except cash has given way to the most important cards of all.

I have a US Navy Diving Manual from 1943, which happens to be the same year that Cousteau made his first successful test dive with the Aqua Lung. It shows the state of the art knowledge of diving physics and physiology at that time, along with some minimal information of pure oxygen rebreathers. Cousteau, Philippe Tailliez, Frédéric Dumas, and Hans Hass had to learn enough to keep from blowing their lungs out, getting bent, or OxToxing from some place — not the sort of stuff you want to learn the hard way even though many of their older "bothers" had. We all stand on the shoulders of those that came before us.

 

[JamesBon92007]

Maybe some shops in different regions are more anal than others. We seem to be pretty laid back here.

In Orange County I could count with one hand how many times I'd been asked for my C-card when getting a tank filled, but I always just assumed it was because of the encrusted salt on my face and the seaweed stuck in my hair.