31 Oct 96 21:11, Paul Hutley wrote to Jay Hanig:
 PH> Jay why should a charter require you to show your c-card when it has
 PH> almost become meanalise (one dive cert orgazion is cert. divers that 
can't
 PH> even swim).
Who is this?  Specifics, please.
 PH> All the cert. orgazions want is your money and compeat with each
 PH> other for it. They all have lowered their standards for divers. Also
 PH> it has happen when a dive instructor does not cert. a prospeced diver
 PH> the owner of dive shop fires him. (This does not happen everywhere or
 PH> very often) But it has happen.
I can't speak for anybody but myself.  I followed the rules that PADI laid 
out when I was still teaching and I can honestly say that I've never 
certified a nonswimmer.  Only a moron would.  In today's litigatious society, 
how long do you think it would be before some smart lawyer took everything I 
owned ?
You should ask one of my instructors if I've ever applied pressure to pass a 
marginal diver.  You'll find the answer is no.  If one of my instructors 
didn't feel a diver was competent enough to certify, why should I lay 
everything I own on the line just to make another $100?  If I didn't trust 
the instructor's judgement, I wouldn't have hired him in the first place.
Frankly, most of the problem students I had were there for the wrong reason: 
they were the son, daughter, or girlfriend of someone who already dived and 
they were taking the course to please them (the significant other) rather 
than because they wanted to be there themselves.  The trick then was to let 
them down gently without their losing any face in the eyes of their loved 
e.
 PH> Many dive shop operators talk to their customers and if they talk
 PH> about diving in an informed and knowledge way then they don't card
 PH> their customers. Also once known they don't card them ether.
Yes.
 PH> Also their are still divers who are not cert. as they started diving
 PH> before their were any cert. agances. A friend of a friend wanted to get
 PH> cert. finally and went to serval places. They wanted him to do the whole
 PH> class even thou he's been diveing for longer than the instructors have
 PH> been alive.
I used to run such people through an Experienced Diver program.  I made sure 
they could swim, had them take the written test that all my Open Water 
students took, and then took them down to Florida one weekend with a regular 
class and ran them through the checkout.  I did it for the price of the 
Florida trip (which was $100 for transportation, hotel, and airfills) and my 
cost for the C-card.  I did the same for military divers.
 PH> I think people are putting to much in the c-card thing. I have seen a
 PH> cert. diver not able to dive very good. Their was one time when a
 PH> cert. divemaster could not even put his gear together and it was not
 PH> rental gear it was his own.
If the divemaster was incompetent, someone should have reported the situation 
to his training organization.  I'm curious, did you observe this person 
yourself, or did you just "hear about it" from somewhere?
 PH> This is prime example of some of the capabilaties of the current crop
 PH> of divers.
I don't buy it.  It is an isolated example at best.  Why don't you start a 
protest against C-Cards wherever you go?  The professional dive centers that 
I used to work with on the North Carolina and Florida coasts had the same 
attitude towards folks like you that I do:  leave your card at home and we'll 
leave you at home.
Jay
PADI M-9033
--- GoldED/386 2.50+
(1:379/41.5)
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