Certification and levels for PADI

[greg somers]

It would seem that a basic OW diver would be more comfortable in the water than an AOW with less dives, but this is not necessarily so. I have met OW divers with hundreds of dives and they were dangerous and definately not proficient in their skills.
The benefits of going through the AOW course are sharpening up skills ( particularly if you have long periods between dives) and exposing you to different types of diving. Particularly with deeper dives and boat dives. These are common dive options when you travel and dive and not everyone is necessarily equiped or comfortable in doing these types of dives outside of their current comfort zones. I am lucky where I am because there are so many different diving options and conditions, so divers here are comfortable with many types of conditions when they travel, whereas divers who are restricted to occasional tropical dives or rivers, lakes and quarries and who do maybe 5 or less dives a year and use thin wetsuits may not be comfortable with thicker suits and weights when the dive open ocean and deeper off of boats in other locations. Those 2 courses alone are worth going through and you can do each course one at a time and gain more experience if you want or do a full AOW course at the same time.
The choice is yours. More education is nearly always going to benefit you, so consider your options.
One example was a diver on the same boat as me who had done 50+ tropical dives but had no temperate diving and open ocean experience and when he entered the water, he was underweighted and when adjusting his weightbelt, it slipped off and headed fro the bottom. He also displayed poor skills and preparation, but had spent most of the trip out bragging about his experience....(guess which nationality..heheh eace: )
It is all about the individual and their temperment and maturity.
Hope that helps

Cheers Big Ears
The Gasman

 

[HammerNoMore]

Walter once bubbled...
"You mean rescue?"

That's merely a drop in the bucket. At least it is possible to get those skills in a later class. I'm talking about more fundamental skills.

When you say "At least it is possible to get those skills in a later class" it leads me to belive you are talking about "experience". Though your original message was about skill that are lacking in the PADI training.

Other than proper bouyancy skills, what skills do you belive are lacking in someone who has gone through the "resuce" level of a major certifying agency?

 

[BartBe]

Hi all...

I am completely new to all of this and i only start my OW next week... so i haven't even been in the water yet.
It took me a while to descide what course and club to choose and i finally decided to go for PADI (various reasons).

The way i see it is that diving, safety and experience are what you make of it yourself. I took the time to surf the internet reading up on safety and have also read numerous articles and stuff on accidents. Althow they could scare you off i think it is good to read about them.
My intentions are very clear to me and it doesn't matter what any certification card says i'm going to go with my own feeling.
As was said before in this forum, PADI gives you the basics and points out the risks and it's up to you to practice and better yourself. If a diver with 30 or 60 (however much you need) logged dives and a DM certification pretends to know everything and thinks he is the best diver in the world, he is nothing more than a stupid diver and a poser ! As far as i'm concerned i'll watch my own back around one of those.
I intend to go at my own pase and do only those dives i feel ready for and confortable with.

Don't get me wrong... i'm not saying a diver with 60 dives is a bad diver ! If that same divemaster with only 60 dives comes up to me but with a different attitude as in showing that he knows he's got some more things to learn i'll feel a lot more comfortable with him.

A DiveInstructor with 600+ dives that tells a basic OW diver to do this, that or the other without a buddy, or that takes a OW diver past his certified depth or a number of other NON FICTION stories i've heard, is just as stupid and unreliable as the 60 dive show-off !

I think it's all a matter of attidude towards the sport and about how serious and safe you want to be yourself. A busload of good DM's can not guarantee a foolish diver's safety !

All this to say that in my eyes PADI certification (or any other certification for that matter) is there to give us the basics to practice this sport and in no way to put in writing how good a diver someone is !

So far for my Newbie opinion...

 

[Walter]

No, I am not talking about experience. I am talking about skills never taught in the PADI OW or AOW course. The missing rescue skills can be obtained later in the PADI Rescue course. Basic skin diving skills are almost totally missing from PADI's OW course. They are not taught in AOW. Basic SCUBA skills such as doff & don, bailout and kicks other than flutter are not taught in either OW or AOW. These are skills which some other agencies do include in their OW course.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Walter once bubbled...
No, I am not talking about experience. I am talking about skills never taught in the PADI OW or AOW course. The missing rescue skills can be obtained later in the PADI Rescue course. Basic skin diving skills are almost totally missing from PADI's OW course. They are not taught in AOW. Basic SCUBA skills such as doff & don, bailout and kicks other than flutter are not taught in either OW or AOW. These are skills which some other agencies do include in their OW course.

'

To add to this...
Buoyancy control and trim. Buoyancy control is given lip service but that's about it. Trim is never addressed at all except in the PPB class. Also good trim isn't a requirement of any class.

Sharing air off the bottom and neutral
managing a free flow off the bottom
managing a lost mask off the bottom
The buddy system is given lip service only

In general if you aren't tought good technique during your OW class you never will. It's not even required to be an instructor.

 

[BartBe]

Ask a lot off questions during your training... !
I think thats very important to be a good diver.

 

[Walter]

Mike,

I agree with your points, there are others as well. OTOH, buoyancy control is required, although I agree it is rarely taught very well.

 

[hotsoup631]

What skills should basic, intermediate and advanced ow divers have irrespective of PADI designations?

 

[Diver0001]

hotsoup631 once bubbled...
What skills should basic, intermediate and advanced ow divers have irrespective of PADI designations?

For what goal? If your goal is the push the accident rates lower then you need to teach the same skills as we do now but you need to focus a *lot* more on water skills; bouyancy control and "alertness" for lack of a better word. As I recall something like 65% of fatal accidents involve some sort of bouyancy problem and 30% involve OOA.

I think Mike's post makes a lot of sense. Dealing with things like a thrown mask or a faulty regulator in the water column and not sitting on your knees on the bottom is an essential skill that every diver will need. If you look carefuly at the accident stats (which I admit I haven't) I wouldn't be surprised to see that many of the "bouyancy" incidents are precipitated by simple things like water in the mask or a sticking inflator that the diver didn't recognise until it was too late or he/she responded incorrectly.

OK, on skills:

The PADI OW course presents 19 or 20 skills. Part of what's missing are navigation skills (not just compass), which I believe beginning divers need up front. Different kicks are not covered even though PADI, among others, moans about damage to coral from "careless" divers with bad fin technique (chicken and egg). Some skills should be done neutrally bouyant. This will solve two problems. First of all you'll learn it and secondly it will improve the general conditino of bouyancy control among OW divers. Tanks slip out of BCD's on a regular basis. You should be made to learn tank replacement in the BCD under water both solo and with buddy assistance. Also, gas management is completely ignored, which is so sad. Ascending without a mask (say you've lost it) might be a good one. Buddy team protocol is given very little if any attention and I would also like to see (more) attention given to the question of what buddies should and should not do. Sticking inflator gets covered in the Drysuit specialty and it needs to be moved to OW if you ask me. Also swimming with one fin (dolfin stroke with ankles crossed) might be a good one to cover for the odd case that someone blows a finstrap during a dive. An alternative to this (or maybe an extention of it) would be to teach horizontal ascents. Some will also suggest that you need to learn a few more skills (snorkel) for on the surface but I'm not entirely convinced of that. And finally, I think simple things like dive planning, checking wind and wave conditions, reading tide tables evaluating dive conditions and dealing with current are essential skills.

I probably missed something but this will give the others something to shoot at.

R..

 

[ThierryA]

I have been taking the PADI OW/AOW classes here in Israel over the last month and have logged only 10 dives until now. Israeli law requires 20 dives with a Divemaster before one can dive with a buddy of OW or AOW level so I'll be doing this. You can get over this requirement by taking the rescue class, and I'll be doing that next weekend also.

When taking the whole package, I looked at it as a basic skills training (from OW to Rescue). I still find that I'm pretty anxious when doing a mask removal exercise, even though I never had a real problem with it; and would really like to learn to do it when not on the bottom. Same with losing my mask, as I wouldn't know what to do if it happened down 20 meters or so. Also, no one thought us different stroking techniques; I've been playing with my fins underwater, but nothing was thought.

There does seem to lack a structure for improving ones skills after these initial classes. All the instructors I had were former Navy Commandos (I guess the Israeli equivalent to SEALs) and where really good at what they're doing. My OW instructor was also an MD. But at the same time, it seems like that in order to make it accessible to all, it is watered down, and is a little too easy. I could've passed the written exams before I even started learning about SCUBA, with multiple choice having really stupid answers, and the rest easy to answer using basic science knowledge. I personally would've preferred if it was a little tougher on the students. I guess I'll have to learn it by just going out and diving.