Post any questions you have about PADI's open water diver, advanced open water, rescue or any PADI specialty Certification's here. We will be happy to answer or research any questions you have
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Post any questions you have about PADI's open water diver, advanced open water, rescue or any PADI specialty Certification's here. We will be happy to answer or research any questions you have
How does one become an industrial diver?
Do I have to do the PADI first or can I just go on an industrial diving course?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrsquirrel
Commercial Diving is a whole differernt type of diving. If you do a search for commercial diving schools there are a number of websites that will be able to give you guidance. Here at Mermaids we are researching an intro to commercial diving course but at the present time we are not able to offer it.
Best
So do I have to do the PADI first or can I just go and take a commercial diving course?
It might be a good shot to get the PADI cert first to see if you can actually do scuba diving before leaping into a commercial course.
I remember 20 years ago the commercial course was nearly 2,000 pounds, it has probably gone up a bit since then :( BUT, you can earn real good money if you do that sort of work :)
I have a phobia of the sea so I cant dive.
I tried to once but as soon as I got into the water I was panic stricken and had to get out.
I asked this elsewhere and got ignored; Really, it's OK, I'm used to it.
I've got SSI certification. Would prefer PADI certs, Is there any portion of the SSI course I can transfer over to get PADI certs? Can I challenge the some of the courses?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by friscofrankie https://teakdoor.com/images/td_defaul...s/viewpost.gif
Is your school PADI, SSI or "other?" What about dive ops for the different certs? I got my Open water cert with SSI, I took three - four days course, went diving. If I wanted to re-cert with PADI would I have to take a full on course or is there some sort of corss over?
We are a PADI 5 Star diving center. You will need to bring in your card or certification from SSI, take PADI open water diver Final exam, and do a 1 day scuba review. We would then be able to certify you thru PADI
YEah yeah yeah, so I wasn't payin attention. Swear, I looked and looked for that response :D
is that really that big an issue ? I've got a NAUI certification - and its apprears to be the equivalent of the PADI.......Quote:
Originally Posted by friscofrankie
well at least i've never been questioned about it.
Mind, it was also a week course - 4 days with a day spare in case of bad weather, swimming pool intro, seas dives, boat dives, thoery tests etc.
leave him alone dog - he's a resident amerikan hippy dude! cant be expected to retain anything much longer than 15 mintues most days ....Quote:
Originally Posted by friscofrankie
:dev+ang:
The only problem with Naui certs is that Naui is not big over here, So if you wanted to add specialty's it would be harder, I am not aware of any Naui shops here in Pattaya but as I am a PADI shop owner, I never really looked for 1.Quote:
Originally Posted by kingwillyhggtbis that really that big an issue ? I've got a NAUI certification - and its apprears to be the equivalent of the PADI.......Quote:
Originally Posted by friscofrankie
well at least i've never been questioned about it.
Mind, it was also a week course - 4 days with a day spare in case of bad weather, swimming pool intro, seas dives, boat dives, thoery tests etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dirtydog
Thanks for answering, I was on yesterday and somehow missed this post.
I'm a former commercial diver and can answer some questions in that area.
You do need at least a basic SCUBA cert to get into the school. Nowadays, it's a big business, pumping out commercial divers, and you'll spend a lot of money going through it. When you get out, you'll be a tender making the least amount of money, holding the diver's hose in all weather and doing a lot of grunt work.
If you're lucky, you'll get a lot of grunt dives along the way and break out in a year or 18 months. There is a lot of work going on right now, but that's not to say that there will be in a few year's time and that you'll make back what you spent on school. However, if you do the schooling through a reputable school, you will probably end up with a decent degree which you may be able to use for other jobs. I know Highline in Washington state has a 2 year course that gives a degree. Also Santa Barbara (sorry, I don't know about the U.K. schools.
The real money is made on 'depth pay' which is usually scaled on 50' increments. So 0-50 is free. 50'-100' is something like $1 a foot. 100'-150' is $2 a foot, etc. That's money on top of your day rate.
And the best pay is in SAT(uration) diving. This pays something like $700 a day and up. But you're in a tube for upto a month at a time. It's great money. But for me, the trade off in quality of life isn't really worth it.
Diving was good for me from 1989-1997 and it helped get me into wellheads, which is what I'm doing in Sattahip now. There is usually good camaraderie and good memories.
I've got buddies who are still diving now and they are busy. Working all over the place and making decent money.
If you're American, you'll find it very hard to find work outside of the States due to the Jones Act (you'll have to Google it for details). All other nationalities can pretty much work most anywhere. I was 'lucky' in that I was able to work in Nigeria for 5 years (4 as a diver). That helped my international career. And I've only lived in the States for a year since then.
My SCUBA certification is SSI, which is popular in Southern California. It's also common in the Middle East.
Honestly, I see a lot of the new teaching as a bit of over kill. People are being taught very conservative rules and not a lot of common sense.
One example is one time we were on a (standard U.S. Navy table)no D dive, something like 60' for 50 minutes, and the people we were diving with (PADI or NAUI) said that we had to do a 3 meter stop for 5 minutes. We got to the rope on the boat and the seas were a good meter and a half. Everyone was flopping around in the water. After about 15 seconds of this, my commercial diver friend and me said bollocks to this and went up. We didn't get the bends. The ones who waited in the surf came up somewhat battered...The point is that the standard U.S. Navy tables are considered pretty safe and reliable (save for the 170' table which has bent more than a few commercial divers) and the new procedure that they'd been taught was more dangerous to them that just going straight up.
(It may have changed since I was diving. But back then, all of the commercial diving companies (and SSI's, when I got SCUBA certified) tables were based on, and closely followed, the Navy tables. That's a lot of 'proving' of the success of those tables.)
Another time a guy said that we had to wait 48 hours before we could fly. We'd just been doing regular diving, not even any in-water decompression. Standard, at least for that time, was that after 24 hours you're 'clean'. If you'd been doing decompression in a chamber or SAT, ok, then you would want to wait 48 hours.
I guess it doesn't hurt to be ultra safe with 'newbies'. But it irks me when I've got some guy who's done 17 dives, has a florescent wet suit and computers hanging off of him and is "going to be a Master Diver!" telling me how to dive when I've got over a month of bottom time over 8 years. Not a lot compared to some SCUBA divers, but I'm not a rookie.
Slack the diver.
I think you've hit on why the accelerated courses are so dangerous. I think they try to make up with very conservative procedures what they lack in teaching diving skills. I'm always amazed at how many certified divers seem to have absolutely no buoyancy control, are poor underwater swimmers and, in fact, tend to swim way too much. (If you want to swim, try a lap pool.) But it takes time to teach and learn this skills; and it just can't be done over a weekend.
But then again, it's all about money, isn't it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by buadhai
The other side of the coin is how many people will pay for an extended courses to learn all the skills that are developed over say 100 dives? Most people don't want to take wreck skills courses or even 1 on navigation. So if you have to find a comfortable balance. 1 that will teach enough so they can continue to dive and improve.
Actually it is a bit like driving a car, most people do 20 hours of tuition and can then legally drive, only a very minor amount of people have extra tuition after passing their test, 4 or more years after passing my driving test I spent about 6 months/ 4 hours per week to learn to improve my driving, shame all the cars are now front wheel drive nowadays though :(
I guess I'm jaded by my years on Saipan where most of the tourists are Japanese on a three day holiday. So many of them do their intro dive course in that time, get certified and then don't dive again until next year's three day vacation. They never really develop dive skills and some of them can barely swim, yet they're taken on difficult dives like The Grotto which can be deep and overhead. It's frightening to watch them dive.
what is the quickest course to receiving certification?
Since I am about to embark into diving course, which I understand that I will have to do my Open Water course first, my question is how long a duration does one take from an open water diver to becomes an instructor? :)??
Guy sure wouldn't want to rush a thing like that.
I would say at least 2 days, maybe 3 if you didn't go into to many bars and girly joints.
Up to rescue, goes fairly quick, Master-diver takes longer, and to become an instructor, I'm pretty sure that you need to have an X amount of dives and experience to achive that. I made it to rescue-diver, the I had no more time.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shakatak
Hey Dive THai, your website seems to be messed up.
Great informative post.
A Guy I used to work with was a ex Navy SEAL and he had a funny story about when he got out of the service and he wanted to do a few rec dives with his family in Florida and they would not let him even rent tanks cause he did not have a silly little PADI or NAUI open water cert. card.
Imagine that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyZ
^ makes sense why a friend of mine back home, gave up engineering to become a commercial diver.
:)
I know it's not worthy to answer but mine took only 4 days.Quote:
Originally Posted by avaadore
That's what I was told from the dive shop here in Bangkok for my Open Water.Quote:
Originally Posted by sharon
Done! I am now a certified Open Water diver. Advance open water diver looks interesting enough. An recommendation or suggestions as to where to do it? Would prefer to be in a place with great visibility.
Maybe in the Gulf of Thailand area, Phuket would be too far for me now.
gulf of thailand - visibility isnt the best, so go andaman side. ;)
Brits right, you've got the Similan Isles, Surin Isles and Burma Banks for the best visibility.
For learning to dive the Gulf Of Thailand is good though, with the cheapest courses for us cheap charlies in Koh Tao.
It gets really busy there though in peak season.
Maldive Islands, that rocks. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shakatak
^ Yea, yea, looks like it is getting further and further away from the gulf of Thailand. Koh Tao looks like an interesting place, I might just do the AOW over a long weekend. Any help or suggestions on prices and accommodations?
^ I had around 400 dives when I worked at the Maldives, they have it all there, I've done 2 dives in Thailand the last 12 years, I got spoiled in the Maldives, and everythings else is just crap :(
I am lost - so everywhere is crap compared the Maldives?
not at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by pangsida
plenty of good diving around Krabi/Koh Phi Phi area, Andaman islands, you can learn in Pattaya/Sattahip. diving is certainly ok then.
some good diving in Indonesia, Phillipines, Australia, New Guinea, Vietnam.
I think Dalts just means Maldives is the best, in his opinion.
I think Pattaya is a great place to learn to dive. Challenging conditions quite often (currents, low viz etc), and if you can dive there, you can dive most places in the region. Learning to dive in 40 meters viz and perfect conditions does not really teach you enough in my opinion. Even some decent marine life - if you look hard enough!Quote:
Originally Posted by kingwilly
However, i am currently taken with philippines - the marine life there is way above whats left in (most) Thai waters. That being said though Similans etc are pretty good.
^I'll be taking my open water in Koh Tao, but then plan to check the Phillipines out for my next dives. I wouldn't agree about the challenging conditions to start with. I'd like great conditions to learn how to dive.
Where in the Phillipines do you dive? From what I have read, there are many great areas near Cebu, Boracay, and Palawan.
Its a matter of mind set I suppose. I have half jokingly said if you can dive pattaya you can dive anywhere, but there is an element of truth to it. Learning under "ideal" conditions maybe easier, but it may not be better. YMMV.Quote:
Originally Posted by phuketbound
Ive dived Dumagette (awesome) and Peurto Galera (decent). Both good for macro marine life (the small stuff) which I like. Hoping to go again in the next 2 months or so.