The person(s) who are talking about doing "Intro to Tech" course in lieu of a recreational "Advanced Scuba Diver" course here in this thread are people who are talking through their hat and are indeed giving a horribly wrong advice. In fact, they are doing a total disservice that can and will be detrimental to the new certified student who is looking for advice here. Their justifications for this line of thinking are grossly uninformed and totally prejudicial and certainly ignorant. The “accusation” and the insinuation that the average recreational dive instructor doesn’t know how to teach proper diving skills including buoyancy are not only just unprofessional and can only come out from a person who appears to hold a grudge and has no background in diver training and shouldn’t be giving advice in this realm. One can live in a false world of grander with thoughts of superiority just because they hold certifications in “technical diving” but they should keep that to themselves, not play the role of a dive educator, and give most ignorant and unprofessional advice to the uninitiated recently certified diver.
Forgetting about taking any type of a technical course (including Fundies), I'd advise taking a recreational advanced course. This advanced course should give the student more "practical" knowledge in diving including:
1. The course would concentrate on giving the student more experience in dealing with practical open water dynamics (dealing with various openwater conditions such as tides, currents, waves, etc.).
2. Advanced buoyancy control
3. Night diving
4. Advanced navigation skills
5. Proper planning procedures and skills to increase sense of prevention of issues at all levels (equipment, environment, buddy, etc.).
6. Introduction to deeper diving.
7. Better buddy diving procedures.
8. Review of rescue skills
9. Review and recognition of unsafe diving conditions and potential threats (marine life and water conditions, entry and exist points).
10. Knowledge of local marine life and its effect on divers (hunting and dangerous marine life).
11. Proper techniques for water entry and exist (shore with all of its types including sandy, rock, etc. and boat).
12. The are many other issues addressed in the advanced diver course but the ultimate goal is creating more independent skilled safe divers who have the wisdom, courage and foresight to call off a dive when they determine that the dive is unsafe for them or their dive-buddy in anyway.
My advice is to take the advanced course immediately after the entry-level course and not wait much longer after the entry-level course. In fact, I believe that delaying this advanced course to do 20 - 30 dives in between the courses is a negative thing to do. The whole point of the advanced course is to condense a dive season's worth of experience into a single course (6 - 10 dives) done under a professional instructor who will guide them to become better and safe more experienced divers. The 20-30 dives in between the courses would only manage to create a false sense of experience away from professional supervision. We all know that the dive experience gained in the entry-level course (in various degrees accounting to the difference between instructors and agencies with various levels of standards quality) is insignificant and doesn’t provide the certified student with adequate experience to manage diving on their own in anything beyond most ideal diving conditions.
I am speaking from a NAUI instructor/agency point of view where emphasis is on skill and experience not in merely “sampling” various specialties where one does not acquire real advanced diving skills in the “sampler” course. I believe that the advanced course should and must focus on the core skills that create the best background for the certified student to become a self-sufficient dive buddy who can execute dives on their own in their diving locale.
Forgetting about taking any type of a technical course (including Fundies), I'd advise taking a recreational advanced course. This advanced course should give the student more "practical" knowledge in diving including:
1. The course would concentrate on giving the student more experience in dealing with practical open water dynamics (dealing with various openwater conditions such as tides, currents, waves, etc.).
2. Advanced buoyancy control
3. Night diving
4. Advanced navigation skills
5. Proper planning procedures and skills to increase sense of prevention of issues at all levels (equipment, environment, buddy, etc.).
6. Introduction to deeper diving.
7. Better buddy diving procedures.
8. Review of rescue skills
9. Review and recognition of unsafe diving conditions and potential threats (marine life and water conditions, entry and exist points).
10. Knowledge of local marine life and its effect on divers (hunting and dangerous marine life).
11. Proper techniques for water entry and exist (shore with all of its types including sandy, rock, etc. and boat).
12. The are many other issues addressed in the advanced diver course but the ultimate goal is creating more independent skilled safe divers who have the wisdom, courage and foresight to call off a dive when they determine that the dive is unsafe for them or their dive-buddy in anyway.
My advice is to take the advanced course immediately after the entry-level course and not wait much longer after the entry-level course. In fact, I believe that delaying this advanced course to do 20 - 30 dives in between the courses is a negative thing to do. The whole point of the advanced course is to condense a dive season's worth of experience into a single course (6 - 10 dives) done under a professional instructor who will guide them to become better and safe more experienced divers. The 20-30 dives in between the courses would only manage to create a false sense of experience away from professional supervision. We all know that the dive experience gained in the entry-level course (in various degrees accounting to the difference between instructors and agencies with various levels of standards quality) is insignificant and doesn’t provide the certified student with adequate experience to manage diving on their own in anything beyond most ideal diving conditions.
I am speaking from a NAUI instructor/agency point of view where emphasis is on skill and experience not in merely “sampling” various specialties where one does not acquire real advanced diving skills in the “sampler” course. I believe that the advanced course should and must focus on the core skills that create the best background for the certified student to become a self-sufficient dive buddy who can execute dives on their own in their diving locale.
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