5 ms·

I thought it was 18m (60ft) for PADI open water.

zackbloom 8y ago
That is generally more of a recommendation. The recreational diving limit is generally considered to be 130ft, as that's the depth you can't spend more than a few minutes at without incurring mandatory decompression (breathing air). You can take a deep diving course if you like, but not everyone bothers. Going below 130 though becomes a technical and very complex endeavour quickly.
- danilocesar 8y ago
  This is almost correct. People imagine that diving training agencies has police power to allow or forbid you to do something. That's not true. When you get a certification, the agency certifies that you have been trained to go to 18m. That's all it does. After the training you can do whatever you want. But if you're not stupid and don't want a quick death or a painful life (wheelchaired due to bends), you will stay within the limits of your training. So it's not only a recommendation, but at the end it works like one.
acjohnson55 8y ago
Looking it up, you're right, and the Advanced Open Water says 30m max. I don't know if it changed or if I just misremembered. I'm pretty sure I did 40m as part of the deep diving segment of Advanced Open Water, but that might not be accurate either. It was about 10 years ago.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  100+feet was part of padi/naui advanced when i was diving, 20 years ago. We did 120ish feet regularly on normal equipment (air).
- Nursie 8y ago
  > I don't know if it changed or if I just misremembered. I'm pretty sure it changed. Back when I did PADI OW on Grand Cayman in the early 90s, I did the course under a course director (apparently some sort of god within the hierarchy according to another instructor I chatted with years later). We learned that 40m was the limit and went down that far. It's only years later on 'refresher' courses that I've learned both that I wasn't officially qualified to dive beyond 18m (being an OW only, not AOW), and that 30m is considered the recreational limit these days, with 40m as a sort of hard limit. In the 90s and early 00s I did deep dives, wreck dives, cave dives and all sorts on the basic qualification! Always with instructors, but still... I feel both privileged and hugely underqualified to have done that cenotes dive on the yucatan peninsula... I've done a deep-dive speciality and an enriched air speciality since then. I must get my Advanced one of these days!
  - acjohnson55 8y ago
    I've done a couple cenotes and a couple wrecks, also with an experienced dive master. AOW isn't really very "advanced". It's doable in 3 days, with some prework. Such was the case for me, and I got it like a week after getting my OW. So you're probably a lot more advanced than me by any real measure! Did you do proper cave dives? I've only did caverns (within site of daylight) in the cenotes, which was enough of a thrill for me.
    - Nursie 8y ago
      Yeah, I did two fully enclosed cave dives into the dark. We were following a line laid by the dive master, and he was clearly very experienced and lead the group (me and one other guy) slowly and calmly. We learned a low-turbulence way of propelling ourselves around before we went, so we didn't kick up too much dust in the tighter spots, and how to attract his attention with the torch. It was stunning, we swam through some huge, completely submerged caverns, and through some small connecting passages with submerged limestone cavern features. We also surfaced in a bat cave at one point on the first dive. This was somewhere around Playa Del Carmen. Just happy I was young enough at 22-ish not to really think about the risks :)
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  I never met instructor who was very fond of keeping strict limits as per our current certification, I guess those folks are rather laid back and don't care about some rules that much. I recall when doing my original SSI Open water cert in Croatia (max should be 18m), the instructor took us to 33m, it was maybe 4th dive in the course (and in my life). I was a bit worried and showed him the depth meter, he just signaled back OK, so I went along (like I could do anything else at that moment). When training for Advanced OW, or diving after I obtained it in various places, nobody cares about precise limit (should be cca 30m for SSI IIRC), generally 35-40m is the limit for real dives. At least they all rigorously follow decompression stops on a way up, wrist computers help greatly with more precise measurements. You just need to stick to +- same depth as instructor, not be constantly 5m below him chasing creatures.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Dive computers will give you precise instructions, but they aren't necessarily accurate. Many people fail to appreciate the difference between precision and accuracy.
- belorn 8y ago
  It goes from 18m with open water, 30m with advanced, 40m with deep specialty. After that you get tech diving when it comes to depth.

That is generally more of a recommendation. The recreational diving limit is generally considered to be 130ft, as that's the depth you can't spend more than a few minutes at without incurring mandatory decompression (breathing air). You can take a deep diving course if you like, but not everyone bothers. Going below 130 though becomes a technical and very complex endeavour quickly.

danilocesar 8y ago
This is almost correct. People imagine that diving training agencies has police power to allow or forbid you to do something. That's not true. When you get a certification, the agency certifies that you have been trained to go to 18m. That's all it does. After the training you can do whatever you want. But if you're not stupid and don't want a quick death or a painful life (wheelchaired due to bends), you will stay within the limits of your training. So it's not only a recommendation, but at the end it works like one.

acjohnson55 8y ago

Looking it up, you're right, and the Advanced Open Water says 30m max. I don't know if it changed or if I just misremembered. I'm pretty sure I did 40m as part of the deep diving segment of Advanced Open Water, but that might not be accurate either. It was about 10 years ago.

sandworm101 8y ago
100+feet was part of padi/naui advanced when i was diving, 20 years ago. We did 120ish feet regularly on normal equipment (air).
Nursie 8y ago
> I don't know if it changed or if I just misremembered. I'm pretty sure it changed. Back when I did PADI OW on Grand Cayman in the early 90s, I did the course under a course director (apparently some sort of god within the hierarchy according to another instructor I chatted with years later). We learned that 40m was the limit and went down that far. It's only years later on 'refresher' courses that I've learned both that I wasn't officially qualified to dive beyond 18m (being an OW only, not AOW), and that 30m is considered the recreational limit these days, with 40m as a sort of hard limit. In the 90s and early 00s I did deep dives, wreck dives, cave dives and all sorts on the basic qualification! Always with instructors, but still... I feel both privileged and hugely underqualified to have done that cenotes dive on the yucatan peninsula... I've done a deep-dive speciality and an enriched air speciality since then. I must get my Advanced one of these days!
- acjohnson55 8y ago
  I've done a couple cenotes and a couple wrecks, also with an experienced dive master. AOW isn't really very "advanced". It's doable in 3 days, with some prework. Such was the case for me, and I got it like a week after getting my OW. So you're probably a lot more advanced than me by any real measure! Did you do proper cave dives? I've only did caverns (within site of daylight) in the cenotes, which was enough of a thrill for me.
  - Nursie 8y ago
    Yeah, I did two fully enclosed cave dives into the dark. We were following a line laid by the dive master, and he was clearly very experienced and lead the group (me and one other guy) slowly and calmly. We learned a low-turbulence way of propelling ourselves around before we went, so we didn't kick up too much dust in the tighter spots, and how to attract his attention with the torch. It was stunning, we swam through some huge, completely submerged caverns, and through some small connecting passages with submerged limestone cavern features. We also surfaced in a bat cave at one point on the first dive. This was somewhere around Playa Del Carmen. Just happy I was young enough at 22-ish not to really think about the risks :)
saiya-jin 8y ago
I never met instructor who was very fond of keeping strict limits as per our current certification, I guess those folks are rather laid back and don't care about some rules that much. I recall when doing my original SSI Open water cert in Croatia (max should be 18m), the instructor took us to 33m, it was maybe 4th dive in the course (and in my life). I was a bit worried and showed him the depth meter, he just signaled back OK, so I went along (like I could do anything else at that moment). When training for Advanced OW, or diving after I obtained it in various places, nobody cares about precise limit (should be cca 30m for SSI IIRC), generally 35-40m is the limit for real dives. At least they all rigorously follow decompression stops on a way up, wrist computers help greatly with more precise measurements. You just need to stick to +- same depth as instructor, not be constantly 5m below him chasing creatures.
- nradov 8y ago
  Dive computers will give you precise instructions, but they aren't necessarily accurate. Many people fail to appreciate the difference between precision and accuracy.
belorn 8y ago
It goes from 18m with open water, 30m with advanced, 40m with deep specialty. After that you get tech diving when it comes to depth.