1) NO SCUBA "CRASH-COURSE" PLEASE: There are a lot of dive shops that proudly advertise "EARN YOUR CERTIFICATION IN TWO DAYS!" Most of these dive shops are situated in places where influx of diving tourism is so much they want to maximize profits by reducing the training time spent on each student. Once they have your money, they want you to get out of the shop ASAP so that new students can come in. Instructors have the "assembly line" mindset where maximum certifications in minimum time is the formula for success of dive shop.
Particularly the last sentence is a gross generalisation, and if I weren't thicker skinned I would be insulted by it!!!
Yes, these courses exist - but you have to ask *WHY*. A lot of scuba training is market led, the agencies provide what people are asking for.
There is still choice, though. There are plenty of instructors who don't do fast courses. There are plenty of agencies who insist on longer courses. The question is, though, is would you pay for those longer courses?
To give you a very specific example - we offer an entry level programme by GUE, the "Recreational Diver Level 1" course. It's a ten day course, with ten open water dives, ten pool session. As well as basic scuba, it incorporates nitrox training, much more rescue skills and a real focus on buoyancy and trim that eliminates the need for courses like PADI PPB.
From an instructors point of view, such a course is about twelve hours of work per day. Let's say that the instructor wants to earn $30 an hour (here in NZ, that is about half what you would pay an electrician or a plumber, and around about on par with a newly qualified teacher). Ignoring all the expenses, just to cover their time the course needs to generate $3600 of income - with two students, that's $1800 each.
It is top notch training, but you're not going to get top notch training from an instructor who is prepared to work for $10 an hour. Yet still most people would baulk at paying $1800 for their first scuba course. Many would prefer to go down to the dive shop and pay $450 for a quicker, less involved course.
Until consumers stop making their choices on price, and instead focus on value, I very much doubt that we will see any real changes in the way scuba training is delivered. Value doesn't equate to cheap, by the way.
Expecting agencies to mandate higher standards when there is no market demand for it is simply pi$$ing in the wind.
I feel this is strongly needed because the way these courses are taught presently, it seems like students are paying money to learn in Advanced what they should have learnt in basic OW. I mean what do you mean by selling PEAK PERFORMANCE BUOYANCY to a certified diver? Kidding me??? That only means that PADI and the affiliated dive shop will allow you to get certified with bad buoyancy so that you can be charged money later to correct this training deficiency.
*sigh*
Are you saying that you have perfect buoyancy control?
I know I certainly don't, and I probably never will.... unfortunately every time you reach the crest that you think is "the end" of the climb, another peak appears out of the cloud tempting you onwards to reach the next level.
When I had around about 100 dives, I thought I had perfected buoyancy control. Man, was I so wrong.
Typically, what I am aiming for in a PADI PPB class is to extend a divers ability and to how them what is possible. By the end of the course (for which I do four dives) a pair of divers should be able to make a 3m/min timed ascent from depth to the surface, in trim, whilst sharing gas, with one diver having no mask.They should also be able to back kick, frog kick and helicopter turn.
Would I expect an OW student to be able to do those things? No.
The problem isn't with PADI, it's shared by the consumers (who don't shop around) and individual instructors (who don't understand the concept of value).
In order to get the ADVANCED OPEN WATER a diver should have a minimum of 20 dives in 60 ft depth. These should include the following:
Deep Dives
Nitrox
Navigation
Drift
Night
plus some reading on Altitude diving
Why? What is your rationale? Why those depths? Why those skills?
In the PADI system, ADVANCED OPEN WATER does not mean ADVANCED DIVER. This has been done to death - the name of the programme was changed to "Adventures in Diving" some years ago in an attempt to remove this confusion. The purpose of the programme is to advanced a divers education, not to make them an advanced diver.
Hell, I don't even consider myself an advanced diver.
Again, you have a choice. You do not have to do PADI training. I suspect that Jim Lapenta will be along shortly to describe his AOW course (he is an SEI instructor) that is close to what you describe. If that's what you want, choose SEI or find a NAUI course that suits. Don't blame PADI, blame yourself for not being informed of what your options are.
I feel that ADVANCED OPEN WATER training should also include RESCUE DIVER course. Since the motivation behind rescue course is to be able to save lives, the more people who know these skills the better / safer your dive boats become.
Again, why? And are you prepared to pay what it costs for a much longer, more involved course?
By the way, you don't need to be an AOW diver to do PADI Rescue - so it's not like this is a money making scheme here... modularisation gives you flexibility, if the Rescue skills are important to you, do the Rescue course. Hell, PADI even allow you to integrate certain skills from the Rescue course into an Open Water course (only in the pool, mind you). This works particularly well in cold countries, do to the pool stuff for OW and then keep divers involved and excited by immediate doing all the pool Rescue skills. Once summer comes, you can get out when the ice has melted and finish off both courses.
Beyond AOW+RESCUE we could have Specialties that are true specialities and not someone charging you for basic open water skills. These are:
dry suit
ice diving
photography
search and rescue
wreck or cave penetration
Again, you have no rationale for these choices at all. How do you know that "true specialties" aren't being taught?? Certainly the ones I teach are taught at a level that can add value to any diver.
These would add additional skills and equipment know-how beyond what just makes a good diver. Beyond these we can have training for professionals like DM course or Instructor course etc.
Please let me know your thoughts.
I think that you've probably had some bad experiences through not being an informed consumer, and probably wouldn't be prepared to pay what these courses would be charged at - so this whole thread is rather a waste of time.
