"Advanced Divers Only..."

[dmaziuk]

Now that I think about it, I have only encountered this in Cozumel. At dive resorts and on liveaboards, and on Bonaire, the dive ops have asked only that we do a shakeout dive, which I suppose fulfills several goals: check for proper weighting and exposure protection, equipment check, and for those who haven't dived in a while, just get in an easy dive as practice. But they are not really evaluating your ability to dive certain sites.

Rubbish: if the DM is in the water with you, they are evaluating your ability to dive.

I've been on "advanced" dives in CR after a couple of dives with the op, and there is at least one wreck on Roatan that would count as "deep" but no op's going to insist on seeing your deep cert after they see you dive. If you look closely at Internet descriptions of Bonaire and Curacao dive sites, you'll see the word "advanced" often enough too.

It's not that uncommon if you look closely.

 

[boulderjohn]

Now that I think about it, I have only encountered this in Cozumel. At dive resorts and on liveaboards, and on Bonaire, the dive ops have asked only that we do a shakeout dive, which I suppose fulfills several goals: check for proper weighting and exposure protection, equipment check, and for those who haven't dived in a while, just get in an easy dive as practice. But they are not really evaluating your ability to dive certain sites. Maybe Cozumel is unusual. Many sites are relatively benign, but a few are reliably challenging. Due to its convenient (to N. America) location and good value, Cozumel draws a lot of divers, with abilities all over the spectrum.

My last liveaboard was in Australia. We had to do a checkout dive. When we were done, the customers were divided into groups by ability. My friends and I were allowed to dive on our own. All others had to dive in groups with specified DMs. One group had people who only scuba diver certified, and they pretty much stayed at the 40 foot level every dive.

When I was in Palau a couple years ago, the dive operator (not a liveaboard) had us in a group based on our abilities on paper. When one couple was clearly out of step with that group one day, they were on a different boat the next day.

The reason that is unusual may be that it is not all that usual for people to dive with a company for more than a day or two. With shorter trips and smaller companies, there is less ability to do this. On one trip to Cozumel, I planned to do two days of recreational diving before switching to tech, and I used a one-boat operation that was very highly recommended by a ScubaBoard regular. On the first day, it was just the owner/DM, another diver, and I. That other diver was pretty good, and we had an excellent day. The next day the two of us were joined by another couple, and they supposedly had good credentials. Our first dive was to Columbia Deep, one of the more advanced sites. As we started the descent, I was surprised to see the owner/DM head for the shallow sand to give the wife a basic buoyancy lesson. On both that dive and our second dive, the owner/DM literally held her hand throughout the dives. There were no swim-throughs to be done like that, and we did the most basic, boring dive you can imagine. By the time I reached the end of the second dive, I swore that I would never again dive with an operator that did not have the wherewithal to separate divers by ability.

If a dive operation has the ability to separate divers by ability, it is very much to everyone's advantage if they do.

 

[Coztick]

Wow, 45 degree slope is STEEP when skiing. And with so much powder sounds like an avalanche waiting to happen!

It was incredible, after the breifing, we all got a crash course in Search and recovery in the parking lot.
Everyone was given a transponder for the day. That said, we saw no slides.

 

[dmaziuk]

As we started the descent, I was surprised to see the owner/DM head for the shallow sand to give the wife a basic buoyancy lesson. On both that dive and our second dive, the owner/DM literally held her hand throughout the dives.

If that was their first dive off the plane, it's the op's mistake. I want an easy "checkout" dive after the winter, to fine-tune the webbing, get the kit soaked, and generally get back in shape. My better half usually needs a day or two of diving for that, dep. on her insomnia etc.

 

[boulderjohn]

But in those rare one or two cases when I found myself on the s..t end of the stick and wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do because of arbitrary shop requirements, I couldn’t help but be annoyed.

As I suggested in my last post, you are more likely to be restricted in what you want to do by an operator who does not do checkout dives than one who does. If you are diving in a DM-led group, the quality of your dive depends upon the quality of your least qualified diver.

If you are diving with an operator who requires checkout dives and, after having done one, restricts your ability to do the dives you want to do, maybe the problem is not the dive operator.

 

[boulderjohn]

If that was their first dive off the plane, it's the op's mistake. I want an easy "checkout" dive after the winter, to fine-tune the webbing, get the kit soaked, and generally get back in shape. My better half usually needs a day or two of diving for that, dep. on her insomnia etc.

My point was that a one-boat dive operation like that does not have that luxury. If you want a nice, easy first dive, and if your are using a one boat operator, then everyone else on that boat has to do your nice, easy first dive day or two with you, and they are pissed. If you want to use that operation for most of your diving and don't want people to be pissed, you had better use a different operator for your first days of diving and then switch when you are up for it.

In my first years of diving, I did a lot of diving on Cozumel. For the first couple of years, I was perfectly happy with the dive operation where I was staying. It was convenient and well run. As I got better, though, it seemed like every trip started the same way. The DM would ask where people would want to go, and someone would say, "Well, I just got certified, and...."

After that, I sought out operators that could put me on a boat with other more experienced divers.

 

[tursiops]

Advanced, in this context, means advanced beyond Open Water. It is a spectrum from OW to dive god; AOW means you have started the journey.

Because I know this will piss off the PADI haters, here is a quote from their web description of AOW: "It's titled PADI Advanced Open Water Diver because it advances your diving knowledge & skills."

 

[ChuckP]

This sentence tells you all you need to know: “We only take customers who have been diving with us before or for a couple of days before going on the Aldora adventure trip”

It essentially translates to “We are gods, and only we determine if you are worthy of this trip”.

Love it when dive shops do that.

To begin with, define an advanced diver - the definition is extremely broad.

The northern dive sites in Cozumel can present the unique challenge of the current combined with potential open ocean. Can you stay with a group in fast currents, do you listen to the DM, do you have enough control and the ability to stop in the current without over excertion? Some people you can tell after a few minutes in the water, some are questionable and you need a few dives with them - the key is control and listening - up north is no place for holier than thou divers.

One day, three instructors on the boat, myself, Jorgito and Dinora - four customers and we planned on doing Baracudda/San Juan, a fifth customer shows up that the shop sent down, he wants to do it too, he's an advanced diver with few hundred dives. Jorgito and Dinora reluctantly (Dinora was really fighting it) agree to take him, there's three of us, we should be OK. All I'll say is that's the worst dive I've ever had in my life and I'll never do it again - Jorgito was very firm in his briefing and this guy listened to none of it. We weren't gonna die, but the damn CO2 hit we all took trying to keep with this guy was miserable. Never ever again. I'm not sure what was worse, the headache or the ass chewing from Dinora because she could really only yell at us two.....

Yes, you have to be worthy of trips up north, sorry.......

 

[Scuba-74]

If you are diving with an operator who requires checkout dives and, after having done one, restricts your ability to do the dives you want to do, maybe the problem is not the dive operator.

Those were not the cases that I meant. I was never restricted in anything after I dove with an op - be it a checkout dive, or a first 2-tank dive of the trip. Those were the cases when I didn’t get to dive at all because I either didn’t agree or didn’t have time for their BS.

The most egregious case happened when I was making arrangements to dive with my newly certified JOW 10 yo son in Cancun. He was certified just a few weeks prior to that, and did his checkout dives in a lake in Connecticut in late October, where he had to break ice to enter the water. He did excellent in the class, including finding and retrieving a dive belt lost by another diver in that lake. The only reason I had him do checkout dives back home is so we can do really exciting ocean dives when we go on a family trip to Cancun, where we would only have 1 or 2 mornings to devote to that. So when I reached out to a shop next to a hotel and was told that, essentially, instead of going on a real dive trip, we would have to play in the sand with some DM to check my sons ability I was really, really pissed.

I ended up reporting the shop to PADI for an attempt to override/supplement official certification requirements with their arbitrary BS, and took my business to another shop that gladly took us diving where we wanted to go.

 

[TMHeimer]

I believe it was my first boat dive. There was a NAUI instructor doing an advanced course on board (she was one of the shop owners). Being only OW certified, she said the dives were to at least 75 feet and asked if I was OK with that. I broke the rules and said yes. She buddied me up with her advanced husband, who at one point disappeared on me to go after 3 lobsters at about 75'.
So I don't think there are any hard & fast rules on what dive ops can require. As I mentioned, best to contact them and get the info. you require ahead of time, if at all possible.