Posted by e-shark on July 05, 2001 at 11:15:27:
In Reply to: Re: The real Scuba Police posted by Tribes on July 05, 2001 at 09:22:07:
As far as I know, local dive stores are continuing to enforce the basic rules (visual inspection, hydro, scuba certification) pretty much as they always have. If there are local dive boats letting people dive without a scuba certification card, they are generally considered to be aberrations and not the norm.
Has there EVER been industry-wide consensus on screening certified divers for specific skills before they can make a particular dive? As far as local dive boats, dive stores, or DMs screening individual divers with a c-card for a specific skill level BEFORE allowing them to dive, all I can say is that I have not seen it locally in 14 years of diving. (I don't do deep wreck or penetration wreck diving, so I cannot speak to whether things are different on charters set up for this specific purpose.) It doesn't make much sense to say that dive stores, dive boats, or DMs are not doing their "jobs" as scuba police when there isn't much industry-wide agreement on what that job is.