What kind of certification is required to take people scuba diving commercially?
Like the people that take tourists out into the ocean or gulf or something. What kind of certificates are they required or typically have? Is it just a divemaster certification, or is there a more advanced/specialized one for instructors? And is NAUI or PADI or one of the other agencies best (those are the only two that I know anything about, I know there are a couple of others)?
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Tags: Certification, commercially, diving, Kind, People, Required, scuba, Take
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There are Coast Guard regulations for the captain of the boat.
If the boat regulations are taken care of, to act as a guide for diver, there isn’t a real certification that is required.
Most dive guides are referred to as a divemaster, but usually they don’t hold the divemaster certification.
The general certification worldwide for taking people diving is being certified as an instructor. Padi is the most common certification agency in my area and it is relatively easy to get diving certifications and does not take all that much time to become certified on an instructor level. In my experience padi is the most widely used certification, though i have found a higher standard of training in 1 other agency. A dive master will usually assist an instructor though i believe they may sometimes take people out diving. To be successfully employed in the diving industry you would want to be trained to the instructor level, as well as having boat operation licensing, (if it is required in your area) and some emergency medical training. The school that I took my Commercial Diving Certification through, (for offshore work on rigs, etc) has a program to train people to the instructor level, as well as boat captain certification, hyperbaric technician, regulator tech and a few other useful certifications. Diving Dynamics out of Kelowna BC Canada. It is far cheaper however, to take the courses through a local diving shop, though it will take longer to get certified.
If you’re talking about the guy who drives the boat, then (depending on the size of the boat) most jurisdictions will legally require that guy to have qualified for a boat-handling or skipper’s license, at least in the western world–in less well-regulated jurisdications, getting a boat license may simply be a case of buying it from the local police…
If you’re talking about the guy who actually organises the diving activities for guests (who might be the same guy as drove the boat, although hopefully he’s got a backup if he’s planning to go in the water!), checking certifications, making sure there’s enough cylinders on board, briefing for the dive site(s), doing the roll-call, etc., then that guy should ideally hold some kind of dive-leadership qualification from a recognised dive training agency (which has been the case everywhere in the world where I’ve been diving so far, but is apparently not universal).
PADI’s lowest-rank dive-leadership qualification is called ‘Divemaster’, but other agencies have equivalent qualifications called ‘Dive Leader’ or ‘Dive Supervisor’ or similar. You don’t actually have to be a dive-instructor to lead dives and certified divers–but being an instructor means being qualified to take non-certified divers (e.g. students, or ‘try-divers’) underwater as well, so an instructor can offer more services to more guests than can a mere divemaster. As far as which training agency is ‘better’, there is no right answer, since it’s alll down to the individual in question.
PADI still certifies more divemasters and instructors per annum worldwide than any other agency, but while that means that they will have certified the greatest number of ‘good’ dive leaders, it also means that they’ve likely certified more idiots than any other agency, in absolute terms (if 5% of any population are idiots, then a population of 1,000 will have 50 idiots, but a population of 100,000 will have 5,000 idiots). That said, I’ve met both very good and very poor instructors badged by nearly every major agency, and every instructor I know (who wasn’t successfully brainwashed by their instructor indoctrina–excuse me, training–course) could say the same.
Of course, this is in an ideal world. Since the dive industry generally regulates itself fairly successfully, and laws are usually only passed following accidents, it’s not always a legal requirement that dive guides should be specifically qualified to do so. There are probably plenty of dive-guides out there who are just (very) experienced divers and good at organising, and unfortunately there are also ‘qualified’ dive guides out there who are barely capable of organising an orgy in a brothel. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
Personally, I’ve long since got to the point where I don’t particularly care (if I ever did) who qualifies how many divers, or whether the person nominally in charge of the diving activities on my charterboat is qualified to do so. All I care about is competence–if the captain, the dive-briefing and my buddy are competent, I’ll be a happy diver.