Whats your Certification agency- level and year??

Now thats an Idea..

Instead of the usual "look what badge I've got" topic..Lets see who's got the necessary HSE (Health and safety executive) certificate or international equivalent qualifications to actually work for a broadcast company or whoever / whatever underwater...

Its the bane of my life at the moment..I can't afford three 2 four weeks off work and £2200. Just so I can get a day rate for carrying a camera underwater. It sucks.

Is this just the U.k again or do others have to do the same shite.

Dive safe

DeanB

Dean

Look at it this way. If you want to use a pretty lethal hydraulic winch hauling system to pull up cold, wet, slippery gear on an unpredictably moving platform in cold, harsh conditions then become a fisherman - no Health & Safety to worry about because there is no risk assessment that can possibly make it safe! And fishing remains one of the most dangerous occupations in the UK.

But put your head under water and a loads of regs immediately apply - you clearly want to kill yourself. Problem is that the Diving at Work regs came from the Commercial sector and they have a vested interest in ensuring that commercial diving remains a closed shop (if we were discussing unions then this would be classes as restrictive practices). I have my suspicions that many of the people involved in thinking out the regulations didn't/don't want to see them changed for a variety of unsound reasons (I'm excluding John of course!).

I can quite honestly state that it is often safer diving with some good, highly experienced 'amateur' divers than it is with stand-by divers who are an unknown quantity and who often operate to obsolete requirements (US Navy tables - we're in the computer age for heaven's sake!).

Don't get me wrong, I do see far too many bad practices by 'sports' divers for many to be accepted as anything else, but equally I hear of and see some quite ludicrous 'H&S conforming practices' which I reckon are at best pointless and irrelevant, and at worst probably less safe to adhere to than not! Rant over - but they are a bane (I did an ERCA (Experience Routeway Competence Assessment) to get my Part 4 - a reasonable way which sadly seems to have been dropped!

Paul,

I agree with the close community thing. Keep the masses out, I say old chap. But maybe thats a good thing. Or maybe not. If I ever become peter Scoones 2..then I might feel the same..who knows.

But I'm also all for cheaper... concessions for certain people..Me maybe.

In my line of work the H.S.E are coming up trumps again by trying to ban the use of ladders if work is over 2metres high. I have a friend whos runs a window cleaning business and he will have to erect scaffolding to clean domestic house windows.

I blame the yanks and their sue for anything culture . The H.S.E are just scared as we are begining to imitate them.

Dive safe

Dean(only joking my U.S.A chums I'm not tarring you all with the same brush..Please don't sue me)B

P.s I'm all me, me, me i've noticed.

Padi OW 1994

CMAS *** 1996

MJ

CMAS * in France 1980

PADI OWSI in the UK 1998. I missed the deadline for getting an automatic HSE Part IV restricted which used to come with the PADI instructors ticket in the old days.

JP

Once you have all the required paperwork to demonstrate you have the necessary paperwork, it's also necessary to file another copy of everything with the Department of Redundancy Department again.

Another relatively new diver here... Just hope I pass as advanced with all you old skool divers out there

PADI Open Water 1996

PADI OWSI 1998, now in none teaching status!

Oh what the heck I might as well join in.

PADI 1970

PADI OWSI 1975

SSI Nitrox 1999

Have a great day and enjoy life

Stephen

No, but here are some courses and certifications I'm definitely interested in!

PADI Fork Foot specialty

- 5 days intensive training in the special techniques of using split fins.

PADI Advanced Macho All-Black Gear specialty

- Looking cool!

PADI Enriched Nachos Underwater Gas Crisis Emergency Rescue Specialty

- Stand back everyone! We may have to cut away the wetsuit. Madre de Dios!

PADI Post-Dive Ethanol + Citrus Blending Specialty

- Daiquiris? Mojitos?

PADI OW

- Gee, that hurt. Elite training in enduring extreme pain (repetitive dives while listening to Rap music).

PADI BOW WOW

- Canine diver, limited to max depth of 24 meters or length of the yard. No pit bulls or St. Bernards.

PADI AOW

- That really hurt!

PADI WAAAAH

- New certification level for precocious customers divers aged 3-6 years.

PADI Recreational Ballistic Hazard Recovery Specialty

- Qualified to sneak onto gold courses at night with scuba gear and a mesh bag!

PADI Investigative Diver Specialty

- Find out who is the father of Ana Nicole Smith's baby!

More?

Robert

I just remembered...

Last year I went off to do a PADI open Water Diver course with Nitrox included, for an article in Diver.

Everyone wondered if I'd pass

They made it more difficult because, blimey, they did it in German! (I don't understand a word.)

I bluffed my way through!

I amazed me that on Day One I was surounded by frightened newcomers and by Day Four they were all experts!

They never sent me a certificate though.

I handed my PADI instrutor rating back in 2000.

They then asked my why

Kept my SSI one though just so I had one.

BSAC 3rd Class 1970

BSAC 2nd Class 1980

CMAS Troisieme Etoile (three star) 1980

PADI Nitrox 2005

I got some spear-fishing awards in the sixties, but not so proud of those these days ...

Holy cow Nick,

You passed your BSAC 3rd class when I was 1 years old...

Have a beer on me old timer...

Dive safe

DeanB

Eee it were tough in our day! Six months for a BSAC Third Class after regular night classes and passing a certified Snorkel Diver course before we were allowed anywhere near the sea with a tank; none of this namby pamby Open Water Diver in three days stuff by greenhorns who wouldn't know the difference between Boyle's Law and Sod's Law even if it blew their eardrums off.

And beer, I could tell you about beer! After the one 30minute dive of the day in 40degrees F off Durdle Door in March, and with feet so numb you could walk on broken glass without feeling anything because you never got round to finishing glueing the bootees in that kit you had to cut out, we'd spend the rest of the day around a warm fire in a pub and tell each other how great the dive was because the viz had improved to five feet after yesterday's rain had cleared!

Still, diving in the new millenium with a bloody walking stick sucks a bit, even if it can be useful as a staff to bump off over friendly tiger sharks

Still, diving in the new millenium with a bloody walking stick sucks a bit, even if it can be useful as a staff to bump off over friendly tiger sharks

Here's an idea, Nick (one codger to an another). With the boomer generation (about the only ones who can afford diving kit or trips these days) moving toward their (ok, our) golden years, what about a folding zimmer frame BC made from marine-grade stainless. Plenty of places to hang or hook bits of kit. I could bolt my camera housing to the crossbar or something. And the tech version, which would cost more of course, could be black.

Village People Certified '88

IANTD Trimix/Rebreather 95/96

Bahasa "Rice" DM (haven't done the practical for OWSI yet and I don't think I ever will) 00

Village People Certified '88

IANTD Trimix/Rebreather 95/96

Bahasa "Rice" DM (haven't done the practical for OWSI yet and I don't think I ever will) 00

Village People took me a minute, and I'm from San Francisco too. But I'm sure you were the cutest in your whole class!

OK, OK, here's mine

CMAS "Bahasa" 1-Star '93 (w/ Markus Tolang at Maumere)

PADI AOW '98 (w/ Larry Smith, at Kungkungan Bay)

PADI Rescue Diver '00 (w/ Dave Collett, at Puerto Galera)

PADI EAD/Nitrox '01 (w/ Dave Collett, at Puerto Galera)

IANTD Deep Air '05 (w/ Avandy Djunaidi, in Bali)

NickJ: I'm told that Mares has pre-empted us on marketing the underwater Zimmerframe-built-into-a-BC. But they don't call it that, they call it the "HUB".

Robert Delfs

Village People took me a minute, and I'm from San Francisco too. But I'm sure you were the cutest in your whole class!

Hey hey, the Village People certification was done in Boston under my university. And there was definitely no cuties in my class. I was hoping to jump in on the Wellesley classes but got disqualified for being the wrong gender... the nerve!

learned with BSAC in '86

then did my PADI OWSI in Malta 1992 with none other than John Bantin....

small world

Steve

learned with BSAC in '86

 

then did my PADI OWSI in Malta 1992 with none other than John Bantin....

 

small world

 

Steve

Yes Steve, and you were a pretty boy then with girls's hair, and I was in my prime.... How things get turned around, eh?

JB