Dive certification

While in Bunaken I was buddied up with a woman who had her PADI advanced open water certification in Thailand. While talking over dinner she mentioned that she had to do 3 dives - navigation, drift and fish aware to get her advanced.......apparently not all dive shops are doing the correct thing. It seems Thailand in this neck of the woods is one of the worse for certifying divers who are not actually capable of diving safely as long as they pay their money. Advanced PADI has two core dives - Underwater Navigation (that one is kind of important), Deep Dive (according to PADI website) and THREE specialties..of the three I find Peak Performance Bouyancy to be the most helpful for most people.

So pay and sign off appears to be alive and well in many S.E.Asian dive shops...and its not just PADI.

My partner waltzed into a shop in Ao Nang, told them he had thousands of dives but from years ago and wanted to be certified. First dive..local islands. Halfway around Koh Si he had 5 bar of air left. Our newly qualified dive master was on his first outting as a fully fledged dive master. Before we discovered my partners little problem with lack of air he had gotten lost by baling over the side in a fit of excitement before I even had my weightbelt on and heading down to the bottom to squeeze under a bombie to see what he could see. By the time I got in the water with DM - my partner was gone. DM and I looked at eachother, looked around and both went.....where did he go?. Eventually he popped up and later told me that it was nothing to be concerned about as he could see MY bubbles...apparently the fact I couldnt see his was of no concern. I had to occy him around to the side of the island where the boat was after convincing him he could not surface and swim the rest of the way...!!

Second day out....he had no issues so after a two dive day at Phi Phi he was certified CMAS *

No pool sessions, no skills prac, no proof of his 1000 plus dives (totally untrue) and off he goes holding certification that allows him to dive without an instructor. Is he a safe diver..hell no.

I dived in Vietnam on a boat with 40 divers and was assigned a nice young british lass DM with a group of 9 divers...I later found out that was her 30th dive. She had done open water one week, two days later advanced, three days later Rescue and then spent two weeks working as a guide to be a DM.......is it just me or does anyone else see this as a worrying trend.

I found this link which explains the comparative levels from CMAS, PADI, NAUI, SSI, SSA and BSAC.

http://www.wannadive.net/community/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=5&func=view&id=411&catid=8

I also found this quote regarding the PADI scuba diver course - "PADI justifies "dumbing down" entry-level course requirements by comparing diving to skiing/snowboarding and arguing that even three and four-day Open Water courses are an obstacle to potential divers who don't have time to learn to dive. In that sense, the PADI "Scuba Diver" course is a marketing concept designed to increase PADI certifications and expand market share, not to reduce the inherent risk of diving"

While waiting for a flight in Denpassar on my way home from Bunaken I wandered into a couple of dive shops and said I had PADI Scuba Diver (I dont, just wanted to see the response) and was told I could dive Tulamben or Nusa Penida the next day. I was not asked for any proof of certification nor any info about dive medicals or amount of dives done etc.

At 45, Padi asks me to provide a yearly dive medical, which I have no problem doing if I am doing a course. My partner at 53 was told "Well with all those muscles you must work out a lot so you're fit"..no medical at all.

I also have serious issues with the try a dive days so popular in thailand and indo and I presume in a lot of other places around the world. To date, ive been asked to occy one try a diver and to tow two who were attached to a rope because.....they couldnt swim!

Is it just me being pedantic or has anyone else ever had concerns about the validity of some divers certifications?. In Bunaken another lovely taiwanese girl asked me why I do my courses over years when I could have done them over a 6 week period and been working as a dive master by now. I worked at Ningaloo reef with just OW certification for over 4 years..why? because I was a) working b) we had to free dive a lot due to humpbacks - they dont like bubbles and c) I dont feel the need to be the worlds highest qualified diver to have fun.

Has anyone else ever thought some divers just shouldnt be in the water and pondered how they got certified even if they are? To be honest I now look for more and more remote spots because im tired of having my reg kicked out of my mouth by a discover scuba day tripper and being asked to assist when I am also paying to be on the boat???

I dont get it 😞 Reply to this

Ha this is all so true...

Thankfully we don't fall in to the same boat as we got certified on the GBR. I know Cairns throws certifications around like confetti, but at least it's somewhat regulated, well it seemed that way to me. We weren't even allowed to do our open water certification without getting checked out by a doctor first, something I was glad for as I needed to talk to a doctor about my chemotherapy regime that I undertook as some regimes prohibit diving forevermore...

Obviously I was fine as I dive, but what if I'd taken a different combination of drugs and was getting certified in Thailand, I'm quite sure they wouldn't of checked and it would only become apparent later at a somewhat inconvenient time.

While doing the open water course though I did wonder if anyone ever fails it? There's so much coaching until you get it right that I'm sure everyone passes. After we got certified we dove the S.S. Yongala (off the coast of Queensland) and as parts of the wreck are below 18m we HAD to have one of our dives certified as a deep dive, otherwise they wouldn't of let us do it. We also had a dive certified as a wreck dive so we could use it for our advanced open water when we decided to do it.

Fast forward a few months and we're diving our asses off in the Philippines, and we decided to complete our advanced open water. We had a freelance dive instructor from Belgium, who was really great. I actually asked him if anyone ever fails the open water, and he said he used to keep a tennis racquet so he could give it to people he said were a complete liability under the water telling them "take up something above the water, you're not cut out for activities under it". With him we did our underwater navigation which we HAD to do, then we could choose another two (we chose peak buoyancy and a night dive as we wanted to see mating Mandarin fish), we were then certified advanced open water.

Later in the Philippines we were staying at a lovely dive resort with an English/American couple running it and they said they'd be very wary about employing anyone who got there divemaster/instructor certifications in Thailand, so it seems it's not exactly a secret that Thailand is an easy place to get your certifications.

Mike. Reply to this

Hi Cindy,

Don't worry, Diving 2011 is not over yet...one or two more little surprises!

At the end of the day, for me the best details of a place to dive still come from good long discussions with the local divemasters...at the same time, it gives them the time to have a thorough look at who they are going to dive with.

Cindy, I will one day need you to give me a proper detail info about Ningaloo...will not be either in 2012, or 2013....but hope to get there sometime around April 2014...I know not tomorrow!

I found on the web that it does look VERY commercial...targeting the snorkeling around whalesharks, but never much details about the diving. Interesting point, they all sell "day package" with 2 or 3 dives...but could never see somebody offering 10 dives package. Can you give me more details.

Because I imagine there is a lot more than swimming with mantas or snorkeling around whalesharks... Reply to this