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DIR Cave Diving The roots of DIR are firmly in cave, and the hearts of most who have experienced the dark side of diving remain here.
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July 21st, 2006, 04:25 PM
| #1 (permalink) |
| DIR Practitioner  Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Naperville, IL USA (Chicago Suburb)
Posts: 105
  | PADI Cavern Diver Course Changes This isn't really DIR but it still might be good for laughs. I know many of us have made fun of PADI's cavern course. But it looks like PADI is taking steps to make this a more legitimate course preparing students for further overhead training. Starting in Q1 of this year, there are new changes to the standards for this course. 1) Out of Air drills: OOA drills must be practiced in open water prior to entering an overhead environment. OOA drills are now performed on cavern dives 3 and 4 in an overhead environment. Previous standard: No OOA drills in an overhead environment. 2) Gas management: Divers must now use the rule of thirds for planning their overhead dives. Previous standard: Divers must independently calculate turn pressures. 3) Restrictions: Places to narrow to allow divers to pass side by side or piggyback are prohibited. Previous standard: Nothing about restrictions 4) Cavern Instructor Prerequisite: Instructors must now be FULL cave certified from a cave diving training agency. No word if PADI will accept a GUE Cave 2 card or not. Previous standard: Cavern instructors only had to be Into to Cave trained 5) Instructor equipment: Cavern instructors must now wear full cave diving equipment including doubles and long hose. Previous standard: Same equipment as student. 6) Equipment recommendations: Students are highly encouraged to wear BP/W and a long hose. Students are still not permitted to use doubles for the class. So I think this is a good step in the right direction for PADI, but I don't think it quite matches up with NACD or the CDS. Still doesn't come close to GUE. I really hope this is not in preparation for a PADI full cave course.  |
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July 22nd, 2006, 12:02 AM
| #2 (permalink) |
| New Member  Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: New Zealand
Posts: 128
| Quote: (Originally Posted by ppo2_diver) 5) Instructor equipment: Cavern instructors must now wear full cave diving equipment including doubles and long hose. Previous standard: Same equipment as student. 6) Equipment recommendations: Students are highly encouraged to wear BP/W and a long hose. Students are still not permitted to use doubles for the class. I just say:  
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July 22nd, 2006, 12:45 AM
| #3 (permalink) |
| New Member  Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Posts: 110
 | Humm Quote: (Originally Posted by ppo2_diver) This isn't really DIR but it still might be good for laughs. I know many of us have made fun of PADI's cavern course. But it looks like PADI is taking steps to make this a more legitimate course preparing students for further overhead training. Starting in Q1 of this year, there are new changes to the standards for this course. You never know where Padi is up too now, see the DSAT stuff, while way back they declared that technical diving won't be in their curriculum.1) Out of Air drills: OOA drills must be practiced in open water prior to entering an overhead environment. OOA drills are now performed on cavern dives 3 and 4 in an overhead environment. Previous standard: No OOA drills in an overhead environment. 2) Gas management: Divers must now use the rule of thirds for planning their overhead dives. Previous standard: Divers must independently calculate turn pressures. 3) Restrictions: Places to narrow to allow divers to pass side by side or piggyback are prohibited. Previous standard: Nothing about restrictions 4) Cavern Instructor Prerequisite: Instructors must now be FULL cave certified from a cave diving training agency. No word if PADI will accept a GUE Cave 2 card or not. Previous standard: Cavern instructors only had to be Into to Cave trained 5) Instructor equipment: Cavern instructors must now wear full cave diving equipment including doubles and long hose. Previous standard: Same equipment as student. 6) Equipment recommendations: Students are highly encouraged to wear BP/W and a long hose. Students are still not permitted to use doubles for the class. So I think this is a good step in the right direction for PADI, but I don't think it quite matches up with NACD or the CDS. Still doesn't come close to GUE. I really hope this is not in preparation for a PADI full cave course. The rule of thirts is also discussed in their wreck dive specialty. We only can wait and see....  |
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July 22nd, 2006, 02:59 AM
| #4 (permalink) |
| APLP  Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 181
| Quote: (Originally Posted by Ziggi) You never know where Padi is up too now, see the DSAT stuff, while way back they declared that technical diving won't be in their curriculum. given the level of interest in technical diving, and the $$$ being set down for gear and training, i would expect that PADI will eventually want their piece of the market...The rule of thirts is also discussed in their wreck dive specialty. We only can wait and see.... |
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July 22nd, 2006, 09:17 PM
| #5 (permalink) |
| New Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Posts: 110
| Quote: (Originally Posted by lamont) given the level of interest in technical diving, and the $$$ being set down for gear and training, i would expect that PADI will eventually want their piece of the market... Well..with the the demands, they start to think about safety, instead of doing it with "normall" recreational gear, as standard (sloppy) bcd's and standard octopus length. |
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July 23rd, 2006, 12:16 PM
| #6 (permalink) |
| New Member  Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Burton-upon-Trent
Posts: 64
| Fully paid up PADI pro alert! I have a feeling that if they were to start doing full cave courses it would be DSAT based not recreationally based. The DSAT courses have their own equipment specification including manifolded twin sets and long hoses which are not as strenuous as GUE standards but are comparable with agencies such as IANTD. Changing the course pre-requisits to a more standard approach makes a lot of sense and will turn out safer divers capable of dealing with a ceiling - real or otherwise - in all sorts of situations. There seems to be a lot of PADI bashing in general, but most of it is undeserved. Please bear in mind that the vast majority of divers who train with them worldwide wil only ever dive on holiday and learn on holiday as it's something to do. Therefore the average lifetime in the sport is about 5 years. Anyone wanting to take the cavern course would be "slightly" more commited than that to safety and the sport in general. The materials sent out to pros, which is admittedly very American biased - but nothing wrong with that as it's the biggest market - have a large sectioin aimed at retaining divers in the sport. PADI is like any other business and want to keep themselves financially viable so branching into the technical sector was inevitable - I'm just glad they are doing it properly.
__________________ Team Bunny. Depth before Dishonour. |
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July 23rd, 2006, 12:57 PM
| #7 (permalink) |
| New Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Posts: 110
|  Humm Quote: (Originally Posted by Noel Johnson) Fully paid up PADI pro alert! I won't bash PADI I have a feeling that if they were to start doing full cave courses it would be DSAT based not recreationally based. The DSAT courses have their own equipment specification including manifolded twin sets and long hoses which are not as strenuous as GUE standards but are comparable with agencies such as IANTD. Changing the course pre-requisits to a more standard approach makes a lot of sense and will turn out safer divers capable of dealing with a ceiling - real or otherwise - in all sorts of situations. There seems to be a lot of PADI bashing in general, but most of it is undeserved. Please bear in mind that the vast majority of divers who train with them worldwide wil only ever dive on holiday and learn on holiday as it's something to do. Therefore the average lifetime in the sport is about 5 years. Anyone wanting to take the cavern course would be "slightly" more commited than that to safety and the sport in general. The materials sent out to pros, which is admittedly very American biased - but nothing wrong with that as it's the biggest market - have a large sectioin aimed at retaining divers in the sport. PADI is like any other business and want to keep themselves financially viable so branching into the technical sector was inevitable - I'm just glad they are doing it properly.  He..I'm a TECREC Trimix diver and gasblender my self and I must say that the course is great. The big difference with the recreational PADI courses and the PADI/DSAT courses are that you really have to work for your c card. you have to pass with 80 % instead of 70%. The course books are easy readeble and enjoyble to read. the only thing I think that they should think over is that they should skip the TECREC deep diver and go immediatly to the tecrec trimix or combine it. But that's my opinion.  |
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September 5th, 2006, 04:21 AM
| #8 (permalink) |
| New Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 15
| PADI Cavern Diver changes The main shame is that a long hose is called anything over 80cm. Thought they would have included at least the length of an alternate hose or stage hose. V pleased wiht the mention of BP and wing, amazing. Terri Allen PADI MSDT CDAA Instructor GUE Fundies diver |
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