Why would a shop change from PADI to SSI affiliation?

[Nemrod]

The cards are fairly universal in acceptance. Padi is not really all that spectacular anyways. Besides, most people, over the years, collect numerous cards from multiple ABC agencies. Oh, and somebody I know made up their own and it seems to be quite well accepted.

N

 

[bfw]

The shop was recently a PADI affiliate - I think they'll know the limitations of the cert, and that they don't meet the requirements of their current insurance.

 

[oly5050user]

What you're missing here is they don't have Open Water cards. They have PADI SCUBA Diver cards, which indicate completion of slightly more than half of the OW course. Such a card explicitly does not qualify someone to "dive with almost any dive charter." It also doesn't have a corresponding cert level within SSI, or almost any other agency. To any other agency, those cards are effectively referral forms for partial completion of another agency's equivalent to their lowest cert.

Most agencies' lowest cert qualifies the holder to dive without supervision. PADI's SCUBA Diver cert does not. (Actually, PADI has often said their OW cert doesn't qualify one to dive without supervision.) PADI has rigid standards for how many holders of the SCUBA Diver cert a pro of a given rating may supervise at once. An SSI shop would not have any way to even determine that standard unless one of the staff still had a PADI Instructor Manual lying around, and then they'd have to trust that the information in question wasn't superseded.

Call the shop. Explain the situation. Get assurances, preferably in writing.
THEN book your trip. Either that, or, as others have said, complete your OW certification.

Where ? When? Did PADI state as you wrote "Most agencies' lowest cert qualifies the holder to dive without supervision. PADI's SCUBA Diver cert does not. (Actually, PADI has often said their OW cert doesn't qualify one to dive without supervision.) "???
True:
a "scuba diver" card diver is required to have a pro supervise/dive with them with depth limitations.
But,
a PADI OW certified diver SHOULD be able to plan , execute a recreational open water dive with their buddy without any pro supervision required. If they cannot then they should not be ow certified. Very simple. Part of the evaluation process during their training dives.
If someone cannot and still gets the certification who is to blame? Not PADI but the instructor who certified them. Example follows:

yesterday I did a simple pool refresher for someone who was certified on Puerto Rico not even 6 weeks ago.. She had no idea of what she was doing, could not assemble gear correctly, could not use a RDP or RDPml, never saw a dive computer. Could barely clear a mask, no buoyancy control, mixed up inflate / deflate button on bcd. Failed a ow quick review quiz. List goes on and on..told her to contact training agency and let them know of the non "quality" instruction she received in Puerto Rico.
Obviously advised her forget about diving until she received proper training. WHO TO BLAME?
Not the training agency, but the lame / lax instructor with poor judgement or evaluation skills she had in Puerto Rico.

 

[bfw]

"An Open Water Card is a license to keep learning. Open Water divers aren't really ready to dive on their own, and that's why we created the new AOW program." - Gary Joyce, PADI Exec, at a Member Update several years ago.

There were other references to OW not really preparing a diver to dive unsupervised at that and prior updates. It fits the business model - more fees for members to supervise divers.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

If that is the feeling then under RSTC guidelines the ow program is incomplete and does not meet the RSTC guidelines.

 

[Storker]

"An Open Water Card is a license to keep learning. Open Water divers aren't really ready to dive on their own, and that's why we created the new AOW program." - Gary Joyce, PADI Exec, at a Member Update several years ago.

We must have missed that memo in my neck of the woods since we don't require PADI OW divers to be supervised on club outings.

The sentiment isn't way removed from reality, though. It's quite similar to what my children were told in driver's ed: that the driver's license is really just a license to keep learning.


--
Sent from my Android phone
Typos are a feature, not a bug

 

[boulderjohn]

"An Open Water Card is a license to keep learning. Open Water divers aren't really ready to dive on their own, and that's why we created the new AOW program." - Gary Joyce, PADI Exec, at a Member Update several years ago.

There were other references to OW not really preparing a diver to dive unsupervised at that and prior updates. It fits the business model - more fees for members to supervise divers.

This is the second time in the last few days that bfw has claimed to have personal knowledge of important PADI policies that no other PADI professional knows about. He did it in this thread, too, claiming to have heard important PADI standards explained verbally in a meeting 7 years ago, standards that must be followed but are not written down anywhere and given out only verbally in meetings attended by a handful of people.

If that isn't absurd enough for you, let's look at the line quoted above. The quotation marks disguise the fact that he is unable to supply an actual quote in support of his claim--he is supposedly remembering what the person said, so he cannot honestly quote him. He said "several" years ago. In the other post, he said 7 years. In his quotation, he says the man quoted is explaining "why we created the new AOW program." New AOW program"? There has been no change in the AOW program other than minor adjustments to individual dives and the removal of the night dive requirement since I got my AOW certification 16 years ago. There have been only the most minor changes since I became a professional 11 years ago--I still use the same slates I bought then. I suspect the AOW program is largely unchanged since its creation nearly 50 years ago.

In the OW course, there is no reference whatsoever to OW divers diving under supervision. They are taught to plan their dives as divers but there is no reference to following a DM at all.

Now lets look at what the course does have in it:

• At the end of the confined water session, students are required by standards to conduct a mini-dive, in which they simulate planning an OW dive on their own, including turn pressures, etc.
• For the OW certification, students must complete four dives. For the fourth dive, they are on their own. They must plan and execute the entire dive on their own. The instructor only intervenes if there is a problem. The instructor is to observe the students on the dive, but again, only intervene in case of a problem. The clear purpose is to prepare students to plan and execute their dives without supervision once they are certified.

 

[oly5050user]

"An Open Water Card is a license to keep learning. Open Water divers aren't really ready to dive on their own, and that's why we created the new AOW program." - Gary Joyce, PADI Exec, at a Member Update several years ago.
There were other references to OW not really preparing a diver to dive unsupervised at that and prior updates. It fits the business model - more fees for members to supervise divers.

Yes ow certification is a ticket to learn. Gives diver access to gain experience by actually diving on their own with a buddy and access to continue education. If a ow diver is not ready to dive unsupervised with a buddy then they should not be certified. Very simple.
Ow diver can plan and dive on their own. Bfw is totally wrong on this. If bfw feels not ready to dive on their own then it is not the agency fault. Fault lies with the instructor that certified him/her and OR the student. The student should say they are not ready and seek out remediation.
bfw, where do you get this information you state? Are you a PADI instructor with access to standards?
I think not. If you are an instructor and passing students that cannot plan and execute a recreational dive on their own , I see a problem there. They should have been failed.
There are students who can demonstrate that they can plan and execute a dive unsupervised, but choose not to do so for what ever reasons.
For those feeling that way, immediately taking a advance course or speciality such as peak performance buoyancy or almost any other supervised speciality is advised.
Everyone is different and has different goals.
There have been times over the last 40+ years I have failed a student I found unable to pass required standards, either remediation to continue or they simply dropped out.

 

[bfw]

This is the second time in the last few days that bfw has claimed to have personal knowledge of important PADI policies that no other PADI professional knows about. He did it in this thread, too, claiming to have heard important PADI standards explained verbally in a meeting 7 years ago, standards that must be followed but are not written down anywhere and given out only verbally in meetings attended by a handful of people.

If that isn't absurd enough for you, let's look at the line quoted above. The quotation marks disguise the fact that he is unable to supply an actual quote in support of his claim--he is supposedly remembering what the person said, so he cannot honestly quote him. He said "several" years ago. In the other post, he said 7 years. In his quotation, he says the man quoted is explaining "why we created the new AOW program." New AOW program"?

John, maybe you shouldn't make pronouncements from outside your historical experience. Maybe I got the exact years wrong, but when you became a PADI member, I'd been attending annual updates for about 16 years. That was a direct quote from Gary Joyce at a PADI member update in Cleveland, Ohio, after the AOW course was rebranded. During several other updates we were told that OW divers were given a credential to dive on their own, but the goal was to have them dive with DM's to give PADI members more opportunities to earn money. Here's another DIRECT quote he said multiple times during the updates - "We're not selling education; we're selling entertainment!" Another one - when asked why PADI was developing programs to teach 10 year olds to dive, "because kids are the key to their parents' wallets."

 

[bfw]

Ow diver can plan and dive on their own. Bfw is totally wrong on this. If bfw feels not ready to dive on their own then it is not the agency fault.

I feel completely ready to dive on my own.
I think that if you were to test your assertion that an OW diver can plan and dive on their own, you'd find that 90% or more of newly certified PADI divers do not feel able to do so. I've actually met someone who became certified as a full PADI Instructor, never intending to teach, who did not feel confident to go diving on her own.

bfw, where do you get this information you state? Are you a PADI instructor with access to standards?
I think not.

I dropped my PADI membership after 20 years because I could no longer stomach their least common denominator, quantity over quality, mercenary approach. My PADI number was in the low 5 digits.