Changed depth limit for PADI Open Water

[tursiops]

Please go on, explain to me what is so dinosour about stoo's comment. BTW i first certed in the late 60's when PADI was in the phase of a new born agency and what are we going to name it. The old timers did not mess things up. Its the newby's that have gone to the how to make the most $ of something simple. Its the newbys that require all methods to be instant gratification processes.
<snip>
If you are of the new generation you are handicapped because you cant conceive the past, you can only cuss it. We on the other side have not only seen the movie we were in it and most probably being laughed at cause our flippers do not match our masks.

On behalf of the younger generation, you do have so much more to manage when training is involved. cell phones candi crush texts ect. I can guarentee the old timers could assemble and tote their own gear and did not blame the dm when thier J valve was pulled. J valve ??? You can look that one up.

If this is directed to me, you are making a really bad assumption. My first scuba class was 1963, double-hose reg and no BCD.
My complaint is about stoo's complaint about ""PADI-fication of diving which requires a new course and card for every inch you move further into the sport." As has been posted on here numerous times, PADI did not invent the progressive-diving training...others did that first, because of customer demand. We old-timers took a very long class, with lots of training; today a much better version of that training (and MUCH better training materials, thanks to PADI) is still available, but now you do it a piece at a time, and stop when you've run out of either money, time, or attention span. The problem is not the piece-meal training, it is the parental attitudes that "my kid is perfect and can do no wrong and can learn anything instantly" and the kids believe it. I saw a great sign today: "If you want to be an expert at something, please understand that when you start doing it you are going to suck."

 

[boulderjohn]

You said that padi does not teach that level of math for rock bottom. I believe you are right. It is my opinion that what AOW does is opens the eyes of OW;s to the complesities of diving deeper. They dont have to know how to compute rock bottom. They need to know that it exists and and tht recovery from a problem is not the same as at 25ft whre blow and go is still an option.

Rock Bottom" is a way of calculating gas reserve that was created within a specific agency and taught exclusively by them until very recently. Almost all other agencies use different methodologies to calculate gas reserves. The PADI open water class now does teach the students to plan a gas reserve, but it does not use the term "rock bottom," and it would not be surprising if their students do not use it.

Please go on, explain to me what is so dinosour about stoo's comment. BTW i first certed in the late 60's when PADI was in the phase of a new born agency and what are we going to name it. The old timers did not mess things up. Its the newby's that have gone to the how to make the most $ of something simple. Its the newbys that require all methods to be instant gratification processes.

Story: 2 bulls standintg on a hill one old and one young. The younger says to the older "lets run down there and get us a couple of these. The older says let walk down and get them all.

If you are of the new generation you are handicapped because you cant conceive the past, you can only cuss it. We on the other side have not only seen the movie we were in it and most probably being laughed at cause our flippers do not match our masks.

On behalf of the younger generation, you do have so much more to manage when training is involved. cell phones candi crush texts ect. I can guarentee the old timers could assemble and tote their own gear and did not blame the dm when thier J valve was pulled. J valve ??? You can look that one up.


I get so much pleasure out of posts about when you are diving with an insta buddy you are diving solo. Why is that?

I would love to comment on this section, too, but I have no idea what it said.

---------- Post added August 14th, 2015 at 03:36 PM ----------

If this is directed to me, you are making a really bad assumption. My first scuba class was 1963, double-hose reg and no BCD.
My complaint is about stoo's complaint about ""PADI-fication of diving which requires a new course and card for every inch you move further into the sport." As has been posted on here numerous times, PADI did not invent the progressive-diving training...others did that first, because of customer demand.

Specifically, Los Angeles County invented the Advanced Open Water Diver certification, followed soon after by NAUI. PADI added it later. Specialties came after that as students asked for more information that was provided in the courses. There weren't many such courses, then, so a diver who finished 5 specialties had pretty much run the gamut of courses, which is probably why they could issue a Master Diver certification without ridicule.

Technical diving as we know it today did not exist--not even the name. When people dived very deep and in caves, they did not take classes for it because their were no classes, and they often paid for that lack of training with their lives. As Sheck Exley noted in one of the first instructional books on cave diving, in 1974 at least 26 people died diving in caves in Florida alone. Today such divers can take a whole host of classes before entering such environments, and as a result only a handful of divers die world wide every year, and most of those are people who still entered the caves without training.

You can also take many courses today on things that no one learned about back then because they did not exist. I am pretty sure people in the 1960s could not take a course in underwater digital photography. I have tried my hand at underwater digital photography without training. I suck at it. If I ever wanted to get serious about it, I would take a class for sure. I don't understand what is wrong with that.

 

[NAM001]

Perhaps we are on the same page sorry

If this is directed to me, you are making a really bad assumption. My first scuba class was 1963, double-hose reg and no BCD.
My complaint is about stoo's complaint about ""PADI-fication of diving which requires a new course and card for every inch you move further into the sport." As has been posted on here numerous times, PADI did not invent the progressive-diving training...others did that first, because of customer demand. We old-timers took a very long class, with lots of training; today a much better version of that training (and MUCH better training materials, thanks to PADI) is still available, but now you do it a piece at a time, and stop when you've run out of either money, time, or attention span. The problem is not the piece-meal training, it is the parental attitudes that "my kid is perfect and can do no wrong and can learn anything instantly" and the kids believe it. I saw a great sign today: "If you want to be an expert at something, please understand that when you start doing it you are going to suck."

 

[Diver0001]

When I was in Cozumel last year, I was newly certified OW with no dives beyond my certification requirements. The first day of boat diving was to ~85' IIRC, and they only wanted to see my OW card; they didn't care about anything beyond that. Later dives that same week went to 100' and slightly over (I hit 102). If I had wanted to, they would have let me do the Devil's Throat, which is a vertical shaft (cave) that starts at ~80 ft and goes down to 120 or so before it opens out on the side of the wall. I chose to skip that one because I wasn't sure how narc'd I would get and how I would react, but still ended the week with several dives between 60 and 85 ft, and the one dive to 102, on just an OW cert.

---------- Post added August 13th, 2015 at 10:04 AM ----------



For sure!

I've heard this before about Cozumel. Personal responsibility goes a long way in these cases. Ultimately you are the one who agrees to do the dive (or not).

For example, I was just in Italy and went diving with my daughter, who has her OW card. We found a shop that would take us out and I was very specific that I wanted them to choose a site that was suitable for an OW diver. They happily accommodated us and picked a perfect site. We had to wait a day to dive but I was fine with that. On the dive day we had a great time and met a great bunch of friendly relaxed divers who really felt good to dive with. It was wonderful, and yet another confirmation of why I like traveling in Italy as much as I do. As soon as you get off the beaten path in Italy and there's no pressure from tourists you start wondering why you don't just move there permanently....

I've been diving in Mexico a number of times as well and in the big tourist areas they seem to be reluctant to ask experienced divers to do shallow or "easy" dives. I think some of it might be that the clientele is generally very assertive in terms of getting what they want. That isn't a bad thing, but can lead to situations where meeting everyone's expectations is difficult at best. As an aside, one of the best experiences I ever had was in Mexico. In Puerto Escondido. We didn't dive with a shop at all because at the time there was only one shop in town and the owner needed to close for a few days to go to a wedding. We had befriended him over the course of a week or so via a Canadian guy we met who grew up in the same small town I did. When he left to the wedding he gave us the keys to the shop so we could use the gear and the compressor and he connected us up with a fisherman friend of his for the duration. (Where the heck does that ever happen these days?)

We asked the skipper to, "take us somewhere that the fishing is good and the bottom isn't more than 30m deep". We made some AMAZING dives that were totally off the beaten path and had a world-class good time. It's the only time that I've ever seen a large school of tuna moving at cruising speed..... which is a sight I'll never forget. A large tuna moving a cruising speed is scary when there are no "painted lines" to keep them out of your lane...... Getting hit by one would be like getting run over by a car! On board the boat, the girls (my wife and my friend's wife) were watching Orcas as we were diving.... which, alas, we missed seeing under water.

R..