Diving agency Certs

O.C.Diver

Hi Jonny,
I am more of a local dive operation than a destination. Most of my customers live within 100 miles of my boat. 95+% of my spaces are filled by repeat customers. I have tech trained probably 70+% of the tech divers on my boat. Most charters are filled months (up to 6) in advance. If a new diver wants to dive off of my boat without doing a recreational trip with me first, someone is going to vouch for him/her first. I generally accept references from my customers, other charter boat operators that I'm familiar with, and some/most tech instructors. Bottom line, the best way to prevent diving accidents is to keep them from getting on your boat.

Ted

__________________
Consider this my opinion.......sometimes I'm even right, but remember.........YMMV.

Ted Green
Charter Boat "OC Diver"
http://www.ocdiver.com

Scuttle

Thanks for all the replies guys, some informed & some not.
As you can see nearly all agencies are different in levels & standards. Hard to keep up with if they change it too. Point of my post is
What I would like agencies to do,
Issue certifications cards with the depth rating to say that the student was trained for.
This will make my job easier and would Not be a hard thing or costly to print an extra line, surely.

My policy is No Cert NO Dive. Presented with a cert, you then get to fill in details on a waiver form. On the passenger manifest is the planned run time, emergency contact, etc & signed off, (on a clause that I am not guilty if said diver is negligent).
Here in Oz you can’t pretend to be a water Taxi, you are liable as soon as someone boards the boat. Some states here require at least a trained rebreather DM to be onboard & oversee breather divers. No DM no dive, fortunately I am & will ask if you have performed all your checks & will take your word for it. I do not keep records of divers usage, scrubber etc. A logbook is something I highly recommend, recording date/ depth / run time /& most importantly scrubber duration. I will give divers a credit if a logbook is produced.

Just My opinion, regarding CCR tec breather courses using diluent gas of air or trimix/heliox.
Air; Maximum depth of 56m or 1.4 ppo2
Trimix; 100m depth
Normoxic is a waste of time / effort / money, but good for card collectors.

My core operation is based for technical divers & like OC diver stated 95% are local repeat customers. I will not accept a recommendation from anyone; hearsay is not a valid argument in court, heaven forbid that I find myself in the box.
Not a breather accident but OHS made a recent example of a Melbourne operator for not crossing the T & dotting the I. $250k fine poorer, he closed up shop & boat.

I like to run a “tight ship” and continue to do so.

jradomski

ANDI has been printing detailed limits on the cards since ~2000ish..

__________________
Joe Radomski
CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer
ANDI Instructor Trainer Director #10

All posts are personal opinions and DO NOT reflect any affiliated agency unless specifically stated.

Scuttle

Can't say I have ever seen one of those down here, but I will take your word for it. Now if only the rest would follow your fine example. I'd be as happy as a pig in ---err--- mud.

sadave

ANDI have SFA presence in oz now.

Tricky at Dive Center Manly used to push them a bit, my original Nitrox course (sorry, Complete Safe-Air User.....) was through ANDI, but he's now gone to the Kool-Aid brigade, so I much doubt he's still doing much with them...

__________________

O.C.Diver

Maybe I wasn't clear, you need both a Cert and a referral for my boat. To me cards mean little. One has only to look at most diving fatalities to realize that having the card doesn't mean you will dive safely.

Ted

__________________
Consider this my opinion.......sometimes I'm even right, but remember.........YMMV.

Ted Green
Charter Boat "OC Diver"
http://www.ocdiver.com

Scuttle

Ted it sounds like you are even a harder man than me, with a no muppetts please policy.

jradomski

We have not had a presence in Oz for a while.. The former RHQ director was made an offer from another agency that only an idiot would have refused.. ANDI has been trying to get some new presence in that part of the world, we have had some interest for a new RHQ but so far the right person has not been found..

About the closest real presence is our RHQ in the Philippines... ANDI has been doing alot or re-organization over the last year, creating new RHQs in Latin American countries, creating ANDI-Europe to join most of the smaller European RHQs and recently a change of hands at ANDI-UK.

__________________
Joe Radomski
CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer
ANDI Instructor Trainer Director #10

All posts are personal opinions and DO NOT reflect any affiliated agency unless specifically stated.

RonMicjan

where we do most of our diving the rules are sorta self limiting and quite darwinian. The operators up in British Columbia Canada (about 5 hours north and a 2 hr ferry ride) run on the water taxi premise and the Canadian courts tend to err in the side of believing the waiver. When a bozo shows up and causes trouble its pretty hard for them to hide it, (cold water tends to week out the weak) and the operator tends to be full next time they phone up looking for a charter...

Sometimes one could be too carefull...had a newly minted PADI DM show up working his first day on a boat I have dived with easily 100+ dives, Im wearing the Meg with a couple stages, rigging up for a solo deep wall dive (rest of the boat was rec divers but the plan was to be anchored right next to my favorite wall) and the DM reaches for my valves and got his hand slapped (literally) he gets all indignant and then tells me to be sure to give him the "OK" after I GS off the boat and before I descend, I said "sonny, when I hit the water I expect to sink, the next time you see me will be when I climb up the ladder in 90 minutes." He told me that was against the rules and I had to give him the OK before descending. How could I argue with that...? So I gave him an OK and stepped off the boat, giggled all the way down the wall, bubble and gear checks on the fly, wondering if I was that naive when I was a freshly minted, poodle jacketed, split fin wearing, Know-it-all, rototilling DM? probably!

had a nice reminder of the good old days helping my buddy Dave with an open water class last week, had almost forgot how much OC sucks The class was actually lots of fun, bunch of nice folks, wide eyed and enthusiastic, thrilled about a 1" nudibranch stuck on the back of a kelp frond, freezing their butts off in wetsuits and 45f water. I think we all should occasionaly go diving with a group of OW students and remind ourselves how we got here. Just to keep our fat heads in check

I would hate to have someone think I drank the kool-aid and been asimilated...


...just back home from 2 solid weeks of diving, teaching OW, hanging out at the not so local Dive Shop, and basicly having a ball up in BC, next its 4 days of rat race and then head for DEMA... Its been a great year

__________________
Ron
"Life is pain princess, anyone who tells you different, is selling something", The Dread Pirate Wesley.


www.tmishop.com Diving bits etc.

JD White

Scuttle,
Why not also print training depths on the cards also? Dont quote me on the numbers here, but a PADI deep course requirement is only 21m+ training depth, meaning you can get a 'deep' 40m rating, when your deepest dive to date may have been 21m. Basically certified to 40 because you were doing OK at 25m or so? C'mon.......... This makes the need for log books worse. If you could see a diver is trained to 100m max, and has a course depth of 95, it means the instructor has seen the diver at that depth and has given them certification.
This continues throughout the tech agencies also, but I quoted PADI cos I remembered the discussion with an instructor recently.
I have been really lucky instructor wise throughout my diving training, getting instructors who understand there are flaws in the system and conducting courses accordingly. I have yet to do a Rebreather course (soon!!!), but from my cards:
Ext Range TDI 55m max (training depth 45ish m)
Advanced Trimix TDI 100m max (training depth 96m)

JD