Overtaken by the Race for Certification or Age?: Undercurrent 06/2022

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Many years ago, while flying from the Bahamas, I was sitting next to Rob Palmer, a founder of the technical diving training agency TDI, when he surprised me by suggesting I take a nitrox course.

"But you and I have been diving together with nitrox for a couple of years," I replied.

"I know," he said, "but I've just written a course."

And that's how I instantly became unqualified to use nitrox.

Many Undercurrent subscribers are finding themselves in similar circumstances. They've been diving for years and have made hundreds if not thousands of dives, but diving education has progressed, with courses for virtually everything. And now, one might find that a dive operator considers him or her unqualified to participate in a dive because he or she began diving before today's courses had been conceived and developed.

Despite 500 logged dives, they wouldn't let me dive.

Via email, we asked our subscribers if any had been refused a dive under such circumstances, and we received many responses.

Joel Hirsh (Ridgefield, CT), aged 67, was typical in that he arrived at Kimbe Bay in PNG in 2017, with 500 dives logged, but with no certification beyond Open Water Diver, except for a nitrox card....

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