owen@rtp47.UUCP (Karl M. Owen) (11/12/85)
I recently became NAUI certified, and am working on my PADI Advanced Open Water card. I'm curious about where to go from here. I've know that PADI has both Divemaster and Master Diver ratings, and that there are a number of specialty ratings, but I don't understand the relationship between the different ratings. Can somebody help? Thanks Karl -- Karl M. Owen Data General, RTP, NC ...!seismo!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!owen
bsisrs@rruxe.UUCP (R. Schiraldi) (11/15/85)
> I recently became NAUI certified, and am working on my PADI Advanced >Open Water card. I'm curious about where to go from here. I've know that >PADI has both Divemaster and Master Diver ratings, and that there are a >number of specialty ratings, but I don't understand the relationship >between the different ratings. Can somebody help? After PADI Advanced Open Water course, you can take any of the specilty courses, such as wreck diving, deep diving, search and recovery, night diving, ice diving, and so on. You can also take the Rescue Diver course which is no longer a specilty but now a new rating. The Rescue Diver course is manditory for the Divemaster course. As for the Master Diver, you get that rating by becoming a PADI Divemaster and 5 specilty ratings. (I am a Divemaster with 3 specilties, and also half way through the Assistant Instructor course.) After the Divemaster or Assistant Instructor course, you can attend an Instructor Development Course followed by an Instructor Evaluation Course and become a PADI Open Water SCUBA Instructor. Even if you don't continue to Instructor, take the Divemaster course, you WILL learn a lot more then you did in the prior courses. Rich Schiraldi PADI DM# 21546 rruxe!bsisrs Some Come Up Barely Alive
rjnoe@riccb.UUCP (Roger J. Noe) (11/15/85)
> PADI has both Divemaster and Master Diver ratings, and ... there are a > number of specialty ratings, but I don't understand the relationship > between the different ratings. Can somebody help? > Karl M. Owen After Open Water (OW) and Advanced OW, the next logical step is Rescue Diver. It's longer than AOW, requiring something like five sessions. From there, things branch out in two directions: specialties and teaching. The specialties are numerous and quite varied so I won't discuss those in detail. Suffice it to say that once you become proficient in five of these specialties, that qualifies you for Master Scuba Diver, a rating extremely few people hold. Most PADI divers who stay interested as far as Rescue Diver go the instructional route instead. The first step in that direction is the Divemaster course. Following this, if one takes an Instructor Training Course from a Course Director (see below) that qualifies the diver as an Assistant Instructor. Upwards from here, all certification is done by representatives from PADI headquarters. Assistant Instructors have to take an Instructor Evaluation Course to become OW Scuba Instructors, I think it's called. I'm not too certain about the next step, but I think it's Instructor Trainer. Then there's just Master Instructor and Course Director, I think. I heard most of this from a Course Director (he lives here in the midwest and went from OW to CD in 8 years!) but I'm sure I got some of the upper stuff a little messed up. As far as a direction after AOW, the Rescue Diver course is strongly recommended by most PADI instructors (since that's what they're told to recommend). It was recently split off from Divemaster just for that reason. A lot of divers were only going as far as AOW, thinking that Dive master was too "instructional" for them. Now PADI is saying that AOW is too early too stop, that Rescue Diver is the minimum to be a truly competent diver. From there, one can dabble in specialties or whatever. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!riccb!rjnoe