For Scuba Divers

View Comments (73)

• Looks like a PADI Open Water Course, Open Water Dive 1 to me.

  I hope so anyway. Any other scenario and the dive professional there just isn't responsible enough to hold people's lives in their hands at all.

  If it is an OW1 class, the instructor has completely failed to teach their students buoyancy or respect for the wildlife yet, both of which should have been taught from the moment they entered the water for the Confined Water sessions, and to a certain extend before they ever get wet.

  If they are students, you can't blame them for not knowing how to dive though. It is 100% the Instructors responsibility to ensure they teach divers how to dive safely and responsibly before they get into any Open Water Dive....and this is FAR from responsible no matter how you slice it.

  When considering taking a diving course, make sure you do research on a dive instructor before you pay a dime and avoid the low cost dive instructors unless you can reasonably prove they're actually good instructors.

  You can ask about a dive instructor at other dive shops in the area and online scuba diving forums, however recently certified students are probably the worst person you can ask for an instructor reference. I mean they just got done getting certified and then celebrating, most likely by getting drunk and partying together so they tend to be entirely jaded along with the fact that they have no idea what is, or is not, a complete or proper dive course.

  If you don't do your research on your instructor, you just might end up with a certification and still not know how to dive safely, or at all....or worse yet, you leave with a piece of paper declaring you are a certified diver but the certifying organization has never heard of you and you have to pay someone else for another entire course at most likely a higher price than the bargain class you got the first time around.

  Besides, it's only your life your playing with here. Not a big deal, right?

  • You are absolutely correct... every word

  • Hmmm...maybe an open water class, but I doubt PADI...PADI standard is that everyone has a snorkel. Looks more like some sort of cruise ship/resort "try scuba!" type setup.

    • Ya PADI. Our open water had everyone on the bottom of the lake and just do like this. Why I left padi quick

    • It just looks like a bunch of incompetent friends having a bit of a jolly on there holidays. It doesn't look like they are padi qualified to me.

  • I AGREE!! THE PERSON TAKING THE VIDEO IS IN AS BAD A SHAPE AS THE REST!!

  • I agree, I was a NASE instructor for many years. I once set in on a PADI class and was horrified. The instructor makes all the difference. Bouyancy control is out the window here. All my students have to master that to pass even the open water class...

  • Video looks like Mexico to me. Obviously any skilled professional can see they are over weighted in lead. But since NONE of these people have been in the pool to train, typical of third world countries, what do you expect? The instructor of this group should be expelled but it will never happen because PADI is a selectively enforced and policed agency. Sad that the environment is the one that suffers the most.

  • Come on people 10 meters How about 3 - 5
    These are a try SCUBA class and whoever is running it had the forsite to drop them in a sand flat so they wouldn't hurt anything It is the equilvent of a pool dive with students the first time they are underwater out of the shallows
    Hopefully these people will have enough fun that they will take a open water course and have time to get more comfortable in the water no matter if it is PADI SSI NAUI or whatever

• First off, why are they there.. There's nothing to see. Secondly these are obviously students or very new divers who need lots of practice on their buoyancy!

• I'm going to agree with Kelly that this looks like dive 1 of an OW class. If that is the case then I cannot really fault the divers for poor buoyancy and bad form. I think it's a rare student who has those mastered on their first open water dive. However, they should have had it drilled into them from the first classroom session that you DO NOT interfere with the wildlife, so there is really no excuse for that.

• I just got my cert card about a month ago and even I know you don't swing your arms and legs like that.

  • Congrats on your Cert Card :)

• Blowing through air. All of them, including videographer and inhaling/exhaling the entire contents of their lungs ever other second. Look at what I call their "bubble trails" - they're like choo-choo trains, puff puff puff puff. A relaxed diver breathes at the same rate as you would if you were laying in bed, and tasked with just moving your feet back and forth very slowly. These people, like a lot of people I see diving, have every breath EXPLODE out of them like they're blowing out birthday candles and inhaling as if preparing to blow down a house. That's why newbies go through their tanks in 20 minutes. Anxiety is responsible for some of that, moving your arms and legs uncontrollably is another.