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Diving Bonaire: NAUI vs. PADI
Bonaire Talk: Diving Bonaire: Archives: Archives 1999-2005: Archives - 2004-02-16 to 2004-08-14: NAUI vs. PADI
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bill Davis (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #1) on Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 1:59 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I have been diving multiple times over the years, mostly with resorts or simply using a friends gear. I finally decided to get "certified" and am wondering if NAUI or PADI is the way to go? PADI has always been the certification i have heard the most about now im getting certified and NAUI keeps coming up. What is the difference between the 2 and is either one better or more recognized than the other?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ken & Lisa (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #152) on Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 2:14 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I'd put more emphasis on the instructor than on an agency.

Talk to prospective instructors. Ask their experience. Find out what kind of diving they are doing. ie.. do they only dive once a week while teaching? What 'non-training' dives are they doing. Give them a good interviewing :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By gregg brewer (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #520) on Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 4:13 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Bill,

I suggest you take the course that is most convenient and cost effective to you. Once you are certified, then go to Bonaire and dive for a week on one of the resort boats. The course will teach you the basics. Actual experience with other divers will teach you to dive. Diving with a boat will allow you to dive with a divemaster until you are comfortable going on your own.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bill Davis (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #2) on Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 4:39 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Thanks Ken/Lisa & Gregg, I am taking it that who certifies you is not who makes you a diver but it is the desire you have within you after becoming certified that makes you become a quality diver that other divers welcome to their buddy list's. As far as going to Bonaire, I'm getting married the day this years festive is over and due to a great deal we got, we are going to Grand Cayman. Bonaire is #1 on next years list.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By gregg brewer (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #522) on Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 5:00 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Bill,

I think you said it well...you won't really become a good diver until after you are certified..the actual agency is less important

Diving in the Caymans is somewhat more tricky than in Bonaire since the tops of the walls tend to be much deaper in Caymans. However, divemasters in the Caymans tend to be much more conservative

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By herman mowery (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #357) on Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 8:28 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Welcome to the board Bill.

I would agree that the agency is not that important be it PADI or NAUI or SSI or YMCA for that matter. The quality of your instructor on the other hand is very important. Does he/she take the time to train you properly or just show you once and move on. If your instructor does not insist that a skill be done correctly and multiple times, you don't get the training you deserve. The idea that you get certified and then learn to be a good diver I don't agree with. Just how do you become a "good" diver if you don't actually know what one is? One agency that I have trained under has a saying that I think applys here "Practice does NOT make perfect, Perfect practice makes perfect". I see many many divers who don't have a clue how to be a good diver. They yoyo up and down, their octos and gauges are dragging in the sand and they are swimming around with their hands flying all over the place. To actually be a good diver you need 3 things in my opinion, good training, a buddy who is a good diver and the desire to become a good diver. The training teaches you what a good diver really is, your buddy watches you and helps you improve (what you THINK you are doing and what you ARE doing are many time 2 different things) and your desire is obvious.
Truly good divers are a pleasure to watch and dive with, poor divers are at best a nusiance and can be down right dangerous to themselves and worse to you. Do yourself and your fellow divers a favor, actually become a good diver.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By gregg brewer (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #523) on Saturday, May 1, 2004 - 10:09 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Herman,

I hope we can agree to disagree. A person interested in diving is really not equipped to shop around for a good dive instructor because he wouldn't know a good one from a bad one. He will accept the "trainer" as a good instructor but won't know otherwise until he gets in an enviroment where he can observe other divers. Also, there may only be one dive shop in the area so he is stuck with what he gets. Every dive shop should be able to teach the fundamentals. However, there are certain elements that you can't do well in a pool (bouyancy control in salt water). Check out dives are normally run to get the new diver in and out as quickly as possible to demonstrate a certain maneuver one time. Getting to a location where one can really practice is the best course of action. I agree with you about picking a good dive buddy to emulate. However, the person may not be travelling with a "good" dive buddy. In that case, as I suggested, the new diver should make boat dives and fully employ the use of the onboard divemaster. The new diver should approach the divemaster and advise that he is a new diver and would appreciate any advice the dive master offers. Every divemaster I've met in Bonaire would be glad to help a new diver who asks for help. The new diver can spend several hours in the shallows at the house reef touching up on skills that he performed once or twice in class. The biggest problem I've seen with new divers is that they are not taught well how to determine their proper weight and then learn good bouyancy control. Most arrive and grab 12 to 15 lb and compensate for that weight with their b.c. Bruce Bowker used to offer a reprint article on proper bouancy and how to achieve it. That article should be mandatory for all new divers. Buddy breathing is easy in a pool. However, it may not be so easy in the ocean if the buddy is 15 ft away engrossed in a coral head. The new diver must be allowed to gain his own level of comfort and dive within those limits.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Martin Heinrich (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #1) on Sunday, May 2, 2004 - 9:11 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I do agree with many things stated in this thread except for this one: "I suggest you take the course that is most convenient and cost effective to you."

Generally a course is 'cost effective', 'cheap', or 'on special' for a reason, and this is usually because of sub-par instructors and not adhering to the standards of the training organization involved. I would still ask around local shops - ones that take the time to answer your questions usually are ones you will want to go with.

Another great resource for you to try and find more info (especially about the Caymans) is Scubaboard.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By herman mowery (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #358) on Sunday, May 2, 2004 - 10:18 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Gregg,

Sure we can disagree and still be friends.
No doubt it's not easy for a non diver to evaluate an instructor but they should make an attempt to do so. At least they should go to all the local shops and talk with the instructors. They can ask things like - how long have they been teaching(newbie instructor?), how long have they been at that shop( lots of instructor turnover?), have you ever not given someone a C card (there are people who should not get one) and how long does the class take. Too little time is a sure indication that the class may not be done to acceptable standards. It's an unfortunate truth that there are instructors that are nothing more than diver mills - get their money, get them wet and hand them a C card. I realize that their choices may be limited but unless they live a a very remote area, driving an hour away to find a better instructor is well worth the time.
I would also suggest that a very new diver should not travel alone or with another new diver until they have some diving experience. They should find a local location to do several practice dives before heading off for a dive adventure. Several hours in a pool is better than nothing. At least you can practice buoyancy, trim and other skills like mask removal. Going back to the place they did their OW checkouts and paying one of the class DM's to go along is one idea. Don't get me wrong, I like diving with new divers and assisting them but ONLY if this is planned from the beginning and the dives are planned as a "new diver dive". Nothing ruins a dive faster than having to babysit a new diver who is unprepaired for a dive and it's totally unfair to the experienced diver to be stuck as a defacto instructor. I have heard several instructors say they carry and use the lowest level card they have when traveling to avoid becoming an unpaid instructor.
I agree that most new divers are not taught how to do a proper weight check and if it is taught in class, it's importance is not stressed enough. In addition, almost none of them have any idea of what trim is, much less how to adjust it. This goes back to finding a good instructor and then a good buddy.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By herman mowery (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #359) on Sunday, May 2, 2004 - 10:38 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I forgot about this article from a few years ago that you might find interesting.

www.diverlink.com/newdiver/agencycomparison.htm

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By seb schulherr (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1524) on Sunday, May 2, 2004 - 8:07 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

When we got certified at Sunset House in Grand Cayman, we had the new assistant instructor all top ourselves. The other, head instructor had three students he was a couple of days into training already. We finished our OW in three days, and went on our first night dive with our instructor, Buddy, and these three newly certified guys.
Buddy was going to fin a big barrel sponge for the luminescence, and instructed us to kneel in the sand, which Mary and I did immediately. The stooges flailed around a lot before they sorta got lower in the water. Mary and I looked at each other and blessed our lucky stars. I ended up pulling two of these guys off the reef during that dive.
I guess I'm saying that it's the luck of the draw. Read the heck out of the book and ask a jillion questions, and if your instructor has trouble answering them, move on. We read and tested ourselves on the whole PADI book before we left home, it's pretty easy to do.
As far as learning to dive, I strongly vote for a liveaboard, nothing like diving five a day to get you in the groove.
Herman, another reason some instructors use their OW cards is to try and avoid getting sued if there is an unfortunate incident on a boat they are on as a diver.
BTW, we are NAUI and PADI, but mostly use the NAUI card.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bill Davis (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #4) on Monday, May 3, 2004 - 2:46 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

TY Herman,

I began to give-up on hearing anything that addresses the question in the way it was intended. The article is just the kind of information i was in search of. All of the responses make perfect sense and i agree with them all. I believe i have the proper attitude to become a good courteous diver however, the question was really meant to compare how both PADI and NAUI fair up when compared to eachother. After reading up on them both i have decided that neither one is better or worse than the other, they take different approaches is all and if anyone has the desire to learn the art of diving either one will do just fine. I am however going with PADI because of the name recognition. Thanks to you all and I hope to see you Bonaire next year.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By herman mowery (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #360) on Monday, May 3, 2004 - 1:20 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Sorry we hijacked your thread Bill.
The agency debate is an on going discussion on many boards. Enjoy your training, ask loads of questions and hope to see you sometime on Bonaire.

You may be interested in joining us on another dive board. http://www.scubaboard.com/index.php

 


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