Uncertified divers

[pilot fish]

Over the years I have introduced friends to diving by taking them on a shallow, easy dive. I give them a basic set of instructions and maybe a pool dive before the open water. Some went on to becoming certified and some did not go any further than that one dive. I do not feel I put them in grave danger any more so than putting someone who has never driven a car before behind the wheel of a car for the first time with me sitting besides them on a deserted road.

Yeah, Capt, but you would not put a new driver that has NEVER driven a car out on a busy freeway. Would you? That is what you are doing if you take a friend to 15' to 20' on scuba, if you are not a trained as instructor. If seasoned divers can panic, you can imagine a brand new diver? If you are not trained, you should not do it. Be a good friend and send them to an instructor to learn scuba the correct way.

 

[cyklon_300]

Over the years I have introduced friends to diving by taking them on a shallow, easy dive. I give them a basic set of instructions and maybe a pool dive before the open water. Some went on to becoming certified and some did not go any further than that one dive. I do not feel I put them in grave danger any more so than putting someone who has never driven a car before behind the wheel of a car for the first time with me sitting besides them on a deserted road.

You, I, and numerous others have done this without compromising anyone's life expectancy. Some of us have the skills and confidence to do such intro dives with friends and aren't obsessed with the looming spectre of death that some find so ever-present.

That's exactly how I learned to drive too...

 

[pilot fish]

You, I, and numerous others have done this without compromising anyone's life expectancy. Some of us have the skills and confidence to do such intro dives with friends and aren't obsessed with the looming spectre of death that some find so ever-present.

That's exactly how I learned to drive too...

You're absolutely right. Thank you for sharing your opinion.

 

[The Chairman]

I'm sorry,

the introduction to Scuba Diving should be done by those properly trained to do so. In the old days, learning by your mistakes was unfortunately stock in trade for scuba diving. Today, we simply don't need to put ANYONE in peril in order to introduce them to the sport of diving and the same holds true for learning how to cave dive.

I learned from a Master Chief from the Navy and no certification was involved. He was not capable of teaching us adequately and I must say that I am happy to still be alive.

 

[photohikedive]

Yeah, Capt, but you would not put a new driver that has NEVER driven a car out on a busy freeway. Would you? That is what you are doing if you take a friend to 15' to 20' on scuba, if you are not a trained as instructor. If seasoned divers can panic, you can imagine a brand new diver? If you are not trained, you should not do it. Be a good friend and send them to an instructor to learn scuba the correct way.

I have to chime in here. Again, you are comparing apples and oranges. Taking a friend to 15' to 20' feet on scuba, is more like taking a new driver that has NEVER driven a car out on a country back road. A more proper first step, to go along with your attempted analogy, is to take that friend to a pool first, or a shallow pond. This would be like taking that driver to an empty parking lot.

Your comparison to a busy highway, would be correct, if he was taking the new diver, cave diving, or high current drift diving at night, not shallow water beach diving. Your attempting to skew the argument in your favor, by putting your point against some extreme scenario.

Please do try to think out your analogies more carefully, otherwise they just weaken an already soft point.

 

[pilot fish]

I have to chime in here. Again, you are comparing apples and oranges. Taking a friend to 15' to 20' feet on scuba, is more like taking a new driver that has NEVER driven a car out on a country back road. A more proper first step, to go along with your attempted analogy, is to take that friend to a pool first, or a shallow pond. This would be like taking that driver to an empty parking lot.

Your comparison to a busy highway, would be correct, if he was taking the new diver, cave diving, or high current drift diving, not shallow water beach diving.

Please do try to think out your analogies more carefully, otherwise they just weaken an already soft point.

You are totally right. I see the errors of my thinking. I promise to strenghten my analogies. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject.

 

[El Orans]

Good to know. Was it for use of specific equipment, or a certain dive type, or a general requirement of all divers on board? You know the odd thing, many dive travel books get very specific about all the requirements resorts or LDS have for the divers, but you never see logbook mentioned or the words "proof of dive experience". Yet they may require it. It would be interesting to hear from someone who was asked for proof and didn't have it, were you denied access?

It was a general requirement of all divers on board (ranging from instructors to barely AOW certs).

 

[MikeFerrara]

With dive instruction available on almost every street corner it's possible (not likely but possible) to find good instruction, so that's probably the best way to go. However, basic diving isn't rocket science and enough "bad habits" are taught in most scuba courses to almost negate any advantage if you don't choose your class carefully...and most just pick the cheapest and end up crawling around on the bottom barely able to survive the simplest of dives.

A non-certified diver isn't always some one who ignored the mistakes of those who came before and could easily end up far more educated on the subject than what the average OW class would do for them if they apply themselves.

Diving isn't for most people and diving outside "the establishment" and associated tourist settings is for even fewer.

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

Unless you are a trained professional taking any untrained diver scuba diving is totally irresponsible. Same goes for teaching new divers when you aren't trained. In our pool yesterday a guy was showing newer divers how to swim from one sunken tank to another, grabbing a breath of air and then swiming over to the next one. I asked him if he reminded these inexperienced divers to continue exhaling air, he had not. Very dangerous.

Leave it to the pros please.

 

[Web Monkey]

I have never seen anyone ask for a log book. I too, think its propaganda to sell log books. I find it pointless, unless, like Andy, you are sketching mooring buoys, topographical features. I don't draw well enough for it to be time worthy. Now, if I uploaded the dives in my Suunto to the computer and could see trends on a graph, I can see that as being useful, but I don't have the time/desire at recreational limits to optimize safety to that degree. There comes a point where you

I've been asked quite a few times, but it was always by larger operations that had fixed procedures they followed for everybody. For example, I went with the dive op at John Pennekamp (the one in the park) 3 times, and was asked for my logbook each time. It's hit-or-miss with the shops around Florida. Some always ask, some never ask. Some get distracted and ask twice.

I don't do logs by hand anymore, I just print the logbook page from my computer, which includes dive profile, workload, air/water temp, equipment config, along with any notes I thought might be useful.

It's way more useful than the paper log sheet that actually doesn't have any way to record multi-level dives. Although the computer pages don't have a buddy sig, nobody has ever questioned any of them.

feel safe enough and want to spend your time on some new endeavor. ...finding new sites, pictures, etc, etc. I find the need to constantly work to make diving safer and safer a little obsessive, there are so many things to do out there. Over and over....and this applies to the original question...somebody convince me why anyone should care if there are old time divers out there who are not certified? What draws me into this conversation is my curiosity with how people think about safety and what motivates their arguments.

If I operated a dive charter, I would check log books to make sure I wasn't taking a brand-new diver with more b****** than brains out somewhere he shouldn't be.

If I saw somebody who has been diving since Sea Hunt was cutting-edge technology, I probably wouldn't make a big deal out of a C-Card, but I'd still want to see a log to make sure he hadn't taken a 30 year break from diving and just dusted off the old rig.

Terry