In the school where I collaborate, under SSI, we receive many students from other agencies for courses like Stress & Rescue and several specialties, mainly from PADI.
Besides this I did all my career (from OWD to DCS) under SSI.
Your favorite certification agency ...
- Thread starter CAPTAIN SINBAD
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Besides this I did all my career (from OWD to DCS) under SSI.
Depends on how you define bad. Military and commercial dive training is all about safely getting a job done, most of which is surface supplied. They are not trained to care about gently floating over the bottom. However, they do know about diving physics, physiology, rescue, anticipating and analyzing risks, and safety (in addition to ship’s husbandry, salvage, burning, explosives, etc). All that I have worked with are also not likely to panic, ever. Lots of hours in black water also contributes.
Surface supplied divers also rarely develop low SAC rates in Scuba. Their gas supply is essentially unlimited, they work physically hard, and they have to breath deep to prevent CO2 buildup in their higher volume oral-nasal masks. It is a different skill-set.
One of the best diving supervisors (a US Navy Master Diver) I have ever known could suck a set of doubles dry faster than a gas turbine. However, I spent many days when my life was in his hands and never gave it a second thought.
All that said; there are always moron outliers. But in this case, it is not the fault of the training agency.
Last edited:
I have multiple certifications from each of UTD, TDI, PADI, PSAI, and NSS-CDS. I have had non-certification training and considerable experience with SSI. I say with complete conviction that you cannot judge an agency by any personal experience. For example, my PSAI experiences were all with the same excellent instructor--can I really judge the entire agency from those experiences? My one NSS-CDS instructor is also an instructor for PADI, TDI, and I don't know how many other agencies. Which agency do I judge from my experience with him? Which of the agencies I have trained with does a student judge from an experience with me?
What I really like is hearing people who not only judge entire agencies from one experience, they judge entire agencies with no personal experience, only what they read about them on the Internet. My experiences have at times been completely the opposite of what I so often read in these threads.
---------- Post added December 18th, 2013 at 12:08 PM ----------
As for the Navy....
There was a thread on ScubaBoard a few years ago that linked to a very elaborate U.S. Navy report on a dive fatality. I will summarize it fairly accurately here:
The ship was having some R & R in the north Atlantic, at the edge of an ice floe, and one of the sailors asked if she cold go ice diving. She took two other less experienced divers with her. She was the most experienced diver on board, with 10 lifetime dives. She had had a bad experience on one of her earlier dives when she lost control of her buoyancy and went to the surface, so she used her vast training to assume she needed a lot more weight. I don't recall the total, but I believe ishe wore over 40 pounds. She advised her fellow less experienced divers to do the same. They were attached to tending lines, as required. She did not know the standard line tending signals, so she made up signals to tell the tenders, who had never done it before. While she and her friends were submerged, the tenders did not go over the R & R limit of two beers each. After a while and the realization that they had been down for a long time, the bodies were recovered.
What I really like is hearing people who not only judge entire agencies from one experience, they judge entire agencies with no personal experience, only what they read about them on the Internet. My experiences have at times been completely the opposite of what I so often read in these threads.
---------- Post added December 18th, 2013 at 12:08 PM ----------
As for the Navy....
There was a thread on ScubaBoard a few years ago that linked to a very elaborate U.S. Navy report on a dive fatality. I will summarize it fairly accurately here:
The ship was having some R & R in the north Atlantic, at the edge of an ice floe, and one of the sailors asked if she cold go ice diving. She took two other less experienced divers with her. She was the most experienced diver on board, with 10 lifetime dives. She had had a bad experience on one of her earlier dives when she lost control of her buoyancy and went to the surface, so she used her vast training to assume she needed a lot more weight. I don't recall the total, but I believe ishe wore over 40 pounds. She advised her fellow less experienced divers to do the same. They were attached to tending lines, as required. She did not know the standard line tending signals, so she made up signals to tell the tenders, who had never done it before. While she and her friends were submerged, the tenders did not go over the R & R limit of two beers each. After a while and the realization that they had been down for a long time, the bodies were recovered.
- Messages
- 93,753
- Reaction score
- 92,395
- Location
- On the Fun Side of Trump's Wall
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
I wonder how good SSI training's going to become now that they're owned by Mares ... seems to me that a dive equipment manufacturer owning a training agency has a lot of potential for developing a conflict of interest between quality training vs turning the class into an equipment sales pitch ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
SanDiegoSidemount
Contributor
I have wondered about this pitfall with UTD as well. In practice, however, I have not encountered any overt sales pitches for their gear during UTD courses. I even did a recreational-level clinic with another student who had a jacket BC, and the instructor was fine with it: no pressure or criticism about his choice of gear.
It seems to me that UTD is very conscious of the potential conflict of interest, and they work hard to cultivate an open and inclusive attitude.
Now with SSI and Mares, who knows? I assume you can be a SSI dive center and not sell Mares gear at all, so would that really be a concern? I still see all brands of gear in the photos on the SSI web site. In fact, I'm hard pressed to find any Mares stuff in their photos. We'll need to start worrying when all we see are Mares logos all over their website and teaching materials.
Unless things have changed a lot, you can’t complete Scuba school with less than 10 lifetime dives. You also have to perform enough dives to maintain your quals. Scuba school alone is/was 4 weeks, 5 days/week, 8 hours/day.
John: if memory serves -- and it does not always -- that incident was on a Coast Guard vessel. With all due respect -- and we thank them for their service -- that is not Navy.
I also think the incident precipitated some changes to the SOPs.
Hank49
Contributor
True, but isn't this already the case with many shop's instructors pushing whatever brand they sell onto new students?
I'd say the YMCA, but it isn't around (certifying divers) anymore......
For recreational diving, as stated above, its the instructor and student that makes it a success. The agency only establishes the business plan...
For recreational diving, as stated above, its the instructor and student that makes it a success. The agency only establishes the business plan...
Well, I checked and the incident did occur with a Coast Guard ice breaker, but the divers were Navy trained.
Similar threads
