PADI certification question

[John Mooradian]

Finished my AOW 6 weeks ago. Very to 100' or depth you trained to shallower than that. Deep adventure dive was mandatory. Again UP TO 100'. Must do deep diver full speciality to go to recreational max limit of 130'.

 

[kafkaland]

Must do deep diver full speciality to go to recreational max limit of 130'.

That's not quite how it works in practice. Almost all dive boats will take you to sites in the 100' to 130' range with AOW and relevant experience. And if you shore dive you can do whatever you are comfortable with - there is no scuba police down there.

 

[Derek Ralston]

Want to really have an operator's mind blown? Hand him my Basic SCUBA Diver card from 1977. The terminology has changed so much over the past 30 years that you have to be a fairly old and experienced diver to even know what that card is, let alone the kind of dives that I have done on it over the past 11,000 days! I've had op's smile when they saw my card, and had others try to turn me away because they thought it wasn't a valid certification for autonomous diving.

I liked the old system. A c-card got you air and/or on the boat. Whether or not you were qualified for the dive profile was your personal responsibility.

 

[Bob DBF]

I liked the old system. A c-card got you air and/or on the boat. Whether or not you were qualified for the dive profile was your personal responsibility.

I'm a fan of the real old system, same thing only you didn't need a c-card. I can understand the change, since SCUBA is now safe, training is ubiquitous, and personal responsibility is just an archaic concept replaced by civil litigation.


Bob

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm a fan of the real old system, same thing only you didn't need a c-card. I can understand the change, since SCUBA is now safe, training is ubiquitous, and personal responsibility is just an archaic concept replaced by civil litigation

The second human being to dive with the newly invented scuba regulator was Jean Michel Cousteau, who was then 7 years old. A couple decades and several thousand dives later, he was on a dive boat in Australia, and the captain would not let him dive because he was not certified. The captain eventually relented, but as soon as he returned home in California, he went to PADI and got certified so he would not have to go through that again. IIRC from his telling, that was 1967.

So, long time divers may remember times when they were able to dive without certification, but that does not mean that is how it was everywhere. People have been requiring it for quite some time now.

 

[Bob DBF]

Australia has consistently been at the leading edge of government regulation of SCUBA.

My experience was different, however if I was not using the same dive shops and dive OP's for some time, I would have probably had the same experience as JMC sooner than I did. And, to be fair, he had been diving for 22 years before this without incident.


Bob