DIR- Generic Drinking the DIR koolaid

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Yup and you would be shocked at the insanity and lack of critical thinking skills in the dive industry. Totally "shocked"...​

Not "kicked off" but on one charter that wanted to see my logbook and AOW. I first tried showing them my logbook and my GUE tech1 card. Nope weren't interested in that despite it saying "150ft training depth" on the back (its old)
Logbook and (GUE) cave2 card? Nope
Logbook and UTD DM card blessing me to "lead" dives to double AOW depths? Nope
Had to be AOW - it was near the bottom of my pile and once they saw that they were happy and their "insurance" covered me (that was their excuse for wanting it)

Other operators have balked at my SSI and NAUI cards, some of these people knew less than 20 words in English. No matter how limited their English skills, I can guarantee you "PADI" is a word they know.

I hope you checked their O2 kits, amount of fuel in the tank, and overall seaworthiness!

 

[rjack321]

I hope you checked their O2 kits, amount of fuel in the tank, and overall seaworthiness!

yea well sometimes even newer minimum wage staff interpret what the boss wrote or told them and take it a bit too literally to cover their own butts. "Double check AOW card" (or whatever was the company policy, I wasn't privy to the exact directive) turned into "must have AOW and ignore anything else"

 

[EireDiver606]

It seems the thread has turned into, "get a padi aow card - because there might be, maybe, sometime, somewhere in your future, the possibility of maybe running into an operation that only takes that card." Someone mentioned earlier that their thought was that r3 was only about selling courses - well what is this? This is fear tactics selling at their best!

Honestly - how often does one go on a dive vacation with no plan, randomly picks a new dive op with no contact, and shows up with no reservation just before the boat leaves - only to discover the boat has room for one more, but you can't go - because you forgot your padi aow card and no other card will work? This scenario is few and far between!

First of all, show me a dive op that only accepts padi, and I'll show you one that accepts visa right next door!
Second, while such an exclusive dive op might somewhere exist, one might ask themselves, "Is that the operation I want to dive with?" Because chances are, their target market is likely the cattle boat type.
Third, one way to mitigate the fear of not carrying a padi card is to look for operators with other agency affiliations.
Fourth, by making contact and a reservation in advance, you not only secure a guaranteed spot on a boat that is actually going out, but get all the equivalent card issues sorted in advance.

Take fundies / essentials now, and if by chance you do actually find a padi only operation that you absolutely have to dive with, take that as an opportunity to hire them for your aow guided dives. That way you get the boat, five guided dives, and a souvenir card all together in one nifty package deal! And if you never run into such an op, then you are ahead of the game because you never had to buy that card.

Every once in a while someone mentions the nebulous padi only op, so please post some verifiable references to such operations, and let's review them and their competitors.

Cheers

I agree with you but this is an issue in USA and parts of Asia. They’re not talking about Europe here.

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

Just curious, did you try showing a card that some might consider to be higher than aow, such as Rescue, Deep Diver, Master Diver, or a technical card, etc.?

And FYI, aow certifies to 100, not 130 as noted in your previous post

Cheers

Well, I don't have any cards other than OW (1976), AOW and Nitrox (2013), all PADI. I learned diving by doing, and learning with a superb group of mentors, back in the days when OW was "it" and there were no other advanced certs unless you wanted to be an instructor. So, when the newer approach of breaking training into expensive numerous steps, and the development of formal tech training, came into being I never noticed because I was already diving at an advanced level without any other certs and was part of a group/shops that did not require it.

When the even newer trend started of some shops requiring AOW, I did that because I had to. I did not realize AOW only takes you to 100, I thought it was for "recreational limits" and, at least so far, no shop or charter has refused my AOW for a dive in the 100 to 130 range.

If I wanted to do planned deco dives now, I would have to get a tech cert, just like some shops are requiring AOW for deep rec dives.

 

[JohnN]

Well, I don't have any cards other than OW (1976), AOW and Nitrox (2013), all PADI. I learned diving by doing, and learning with a superb group of mentors, back in the days when OW was "it" and there were no other advanced certs unless you wanted to be an instructor. So, when the newer approach of breaking training into expensive numerous steps, and the development of formal tech training, came into being I never noticed because I was already diving at an advanced level without any other certs and was part of a group/shops that did not require it.

When the even newer trend started of some shops requiring AOW, I did that because I had to. I did not realize AOW only takes you to 100, I thought it was for "recreational limits" and, at least so far, no shop or charter has refused my AOW for a dive in the 100 to 130 range.

If I wanted to do planned deco dives now, I would have to get a tech cert, just like some shops are requiring AOW for deep rec dives.

And if you consume the GUE Kool-Aid, anything over 100' requires Helium. . . and your dive computer is evil

 

[lv2dive]

It’s already been discussed in this thread that GUE does not prohibit computers.

And if you consume the GUE Kool-Aid, anything over 100' requires Helium. . . and your dive computer is evil

 

[guyharrisonphoto]

Yes, I dive with GUE divers and they all use computers for recreational NDL diving, and most use shearwaters for deco diving also. I like GUE divers and share a lot of their philosophy especially about buddy procedures, and if I was on a boat looking for an insta-buddy I would take someone who had passed Fundies over many instructors from other agencies.

 

[JohnN]

It’s already been discussed in this thread that GUE does not prohibit computers.

Should I dig out the JJ rant on computers ??

 

[sigxbill]

And if you consume the GUE Kool-Aid, anything over 100' requires Helium. . . and your dive computer is evil

This is a bit of a misconstruing of dir. There are no scuba police, so no one cares how you dive after the class.

DIR is a mindset that one has because they want to. They consider the goal of training to be the acquisition and refinement of quality skills and techniques that are consistent, scalable, and interchangeable - not something you have to do to get a card. No dir diver thinks of it as a list of things they can’t do. Instead, they think of it in terms of what they can do. For example, they can use helium past 100 feet. Or they can calculate a decompression profile in their head without a computer, but a computer is not evil.

It all depends on how you look at it. You should try it - you might like it.

Cheers

 

[PfcAJ]

Should I dig out the JJ rant on computers ??

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