A different take on Master Scuba Diver

[seaj]

As a Padi MSD my feeling on any of the recreational certs is that they all are basically a handout….regardless of agency. Is there some work involved and knowledge….yes…but it’s nothing too significant or difficult imho....

I think my NAUI classmate who washed out in the dive phase of our Master Diver training would disagree with your assessment that "they're all basically a handout." He's a good diver but there were no participation trophies that day.

And it's exactly that sentiment that gives some pause and reason to question the PADI MSD designation. Don't get me wrong, I whole heartedly support whatever path you choose to being a better diver and, in fact, like the PADI approach to encouraging divers to take specialty courses. However, when you're in a discussion about an agencies top rec designation and you can't define specific training goals/milestones to achieve that title, well, it does make you wonder what that title means.

Maybe "Happy Diver" should be a designation and not just a screen name;-)

 

[SirThomaswantsalot]

Hi I been a RD Since 84, and back in the day the specialty courses used to be given to you by your instructor on a paper card, with their Diver number and date of Completed course along with their instructor signature. I got my wallet wet and the specialty certification got destroyed, I was qualified in Deep Water, Under water navigation, Night Diving, Wreck Diving, Search and recovery, and ice diving, so I have my log book showing those dates when I was certified. How or where do I go to get my specialty courses confirmed. Where I got the certification was from a dive shop that is no longer in exsistance. I have over 200 dives, and I am thinking I would like to apply for the Master diver certification. I agree for the Master you should at least 100 of logged dives, because everytime you dive gives you that much more experience.

 

[tursiops]

Hi I been a RD Since 84, and back in the day the specialty courses used to be given to you by your instructor on a paper card, with their Diver number and date of Completed course along with their instructor signature. I got my wallet wet and the specialty certification got destroyed, I was qualified in Deep Water, Under water navigation, Night Diving, Wreck Diving, Search and recovery, and ice diving, so I have my log book showing those dates when I was certified. How or where do I go to get my specialty courses confirmed. Where I got the certification was from a dive shop that is no longer in exsistance. I have over 200 hours of diving, and I am thinking I would like to apply for the Master diver certification. I agree for the Master you should at least 100 of logged dives, because everytime you dive gives you that much more experience.

Is it possible that your Deep, U/W Nav, Night, Wreck, and S&R were simply single dives as part of an AOW course? If you had the full specialties in those topics, you would have had 4,3,2,4,and 4 dives each (respectively).Your PADI record (available to instructors like me) only shows AOW in 1982 and Rescue in 1984. Ice is not mentioned, nor OW. Was your OW class with PADI?

 

[NYCrecdiver]

Hi I been a RD Since 84, and back in the day the specialty courses used to be given to you by your instructor on a paper card, with their Diver number and date of Completed course along with their instructor signature. I got my wallet wet and the specialty certification got destroyed, I was qualified in Deep Water, Under water navigation, Night Diving, Wreck Diving, Search and recovery, and ice diving, so I have my log book showing those dates when I was certified. How or where do I go to get my specialty courses confirmed. Where I got the certification was from a dive shop that is no longer in exsistance. I have over 200 hours of diving, and I am thinking I would like to apply for the Master diver certification. I agree for the Master you should at least 100 of logged dives, because everytime you dive gives you that much more experience.

Did you get these at PADI? I would reach out to them. Maybe they can issue replacement cards. Not sure how good their record keeping was though in the 80s. Unfortunately they charge a fee if I'm not mistaken.

 

[BlueTrin]

What other hobbies have "Master" certifications?

Cooking

 

[happy-diver]

I would reach out to them.

Like this?

 

[SysGreg]

How or where do I go to get my specialty courses confirmed.

Hi. If this was PADI, just scan all you have and send an email to PADI explaining. They are able to verify some records and if not they may add the achivements for you into PADI database. I went through the same process some time ago for my specialities I got back in 84-86. PADI reviewed it and fixed for me.

 

[tursiops]

Did you get these at PADI? I would reach out to them. Maybe they can issue replacement cards. Not sure how good their record keeping was though in the 80s. Unfortunately they charge a fee if I'm not mistaken.

Hi. If this was PADI, just scan all you have and send an email to PADI explaining. They are able to verify some records and if not they may add the achivements for you into PADI database. I went through the same process some time ago for my specialities I got back in 84-86. PADI reviewed it and fixed for me.

There is enough info in his SB profile that I was able to find his PADI records; I sent that info to him. He did NOT do those specialties; he apparently did one dive each as part of his AOW. I explained how he could look at his logbook and verify my conclusion. He has not responded, because I guess it did not agree with his memory.

 

[SirThomaswantsalot]

Is it possible that your Deep, U/W Nav, Night, Wreck, and S&R were simply single dives as part of an AOW course? If you had the full specialties in those topics, you would have had 4,3,2,4,and 4 dives each (respectively).Your PADI record (available to instructors like me) only shows AOW in 1982 and Rescue in 1984. Ice is not mentioned, nor OW. Was your OW class with PADI?

I talked to my old instructor, I guess I didn't receive the memo, he told me they where trying to kill several birds with one stone, by putting in extra activities into our dives to get certified in the different specialty courses, but after the fact Padi told them that for advance open water they were aloud to do multiple tasks on one dive to qualify for AOW, but for the specialty dives each dive had to be a task for each one of the specialty qualification, for instance search and recovery there are so many task that had to be done, and even though some of the task that had to be done may of been apart of another specialty did not qualify for that specific specialty like navigation, even though you needed to know navigation skills for search and recovery that didn't qualify you for the navigation skill, you could though take multiple specialty courses but they had to have there own dives. So you were right, the dives I did even though we did more dives and tasks then needed for AOW just made me a better AOW diver. The things I did after my AOW and then Rescue Diver can't be taken away from my experiences just made me a better diver with over 250 dives.

 

[tursiops]

I talked to my old instructor, I guess I didn't receive the memo, he told me they where trying to kill several birds with one stone, by putting in extra activities into our dives to get certified in the different specialty courses, but after the fact Padi told them that for advance open water they were aloud to do multiple tasks on one dive to qualify for AOW, but for the specialty dives each dive had to be a task for each one of the specialty qualification, for instance search and recovery there are so many task that had to be done, and even though some of the task that had to be done may of been apart of another specialty did not qualify for that specific specialty like navigation, even though you needed to know navigation skills for search and recovery that didn't qualify you for the navigation skill, you could though take multiple specialty courses but they had to have there own dives. So you was right the dives I did even though we did more dives then needed for AOW just made me a better AOW diver.

Your instructor was wrong about almost everything. PADI has never allowed multiple tasks from separate topics to be combined into one dive, even for AOW; he should have know that from his instructor training, and it is laid out quite clearly in the Instructor Manuals.
At least you have your AOW. That's good. And extra dives never hurt.