Are PADI Specialties worth it?!?!

[nimoh]

You will very highly likely to be disappointed by AOW after Primer experience unless you find a extreme high level PADI instructor. AOW requirement is NOT advanced in any way. In the general case, PP in AOW is a joke compared to what you get in GUE. Navigation, yeah, I can see some usefulness in it if it is taught well. Deep dive is all about gas planning, which should be well covered in Primer (I think).

Again, this is a general case. The main issue with AOW is one instructor will bring out 6 students, doing one dive per skill listed above. How much can you learn in PP and navi in that limited amount of time with such large student to instructor ratio?? If I were in your situation, I will go for PADI rescue with a good instructor. AOW isn't worth a while in your case anymore

isn't PADI AOW a pre-requisite for PADI Rescue? It was when I took it.

 

[eelnoraa]

isn't PADI AOW a pre-requisite for PADI Rescue? It was when I took it.

I think they just change it. OW->rescue is possible now. Can someone confirm?

 

[Hawkwood]

I think they just change it. OW->rescue is possible now. Can someone confirm?

PADI Open Water Divers can take the Knowledge Development portion as well as the Rescue Exercises in confined water only.

AOW is no longer a requirement for the open water portion of Rescue. At a minimum you must have the Adventure Diver certification (3 Adventure Dives), with one of the dives being the Underwater Navigation Adventure Dive.

 

[fjpatrum]

isn't PADI AOW a pre-requisite for PADI Rescue? It was when I took it.

PADI AOW hasn't been a pre-requisite for rescue since I got certified 3 years ago. It was always "adventure diver" or 25 dives or something like that but not AOW. A lot of shops wouldn't teach it without AOW though. It's part of the reason I haven't taken rescue yet... though I think most of the agencies have something similar.

 

[goflyplanes]

Not that that came out the size I wanted, but yeah only adventure diver is required to complete the exercises in confined water. Personally though I'd be a little hesitant to certify anyone who only completes a rescue course in a pool. You are epically missing any realistic bit of a rescue situation. Again personally I would suggest to a diver that they complete their last two dives of AOW and suggest maybe we do search and recovery as one of them.

As far as specialities go, I am a HUGE advocate of PPB. I think it is fantastic if taught correctly. My last student actually decided to do her PPB spec after doing the PPB adventure dive purely because we took her from 10k to 5k (yes she was grossly over weighted, but not my fault). There is a lot too be learned with learning how to adjust to different weights and ascending and descending and there's all sorts of games you can play with it to make it fun. In face PPB is one of my favorite things to teach!

As far as the other specs go; deep, wreck, cave, and nitrox all do serve a practical purpose. Ice, altitude, and drysuit also all have a purpose but it's a bit more audience limited...It's really your choice but unless you have that Master Scuba diver goal in mind, collecting specs isn't going to get you anywhere.

Oh and I believe someone said earlier in the thread that you should get them because then you can teach them as an instructor. That's actually untrue. There are some (Nitrox I'm sure of) that require you to have the spec before you can get the instructor speciality, but your diver specs don't translate to instructor specs right off.

 

[Hawkwood]

.... Personally though I'd be a little hesitant to certify anyone who only completes a rescue course in a pool. ..

Please understand the IM that you quoted.

PADI Open Water Divers can take the Knowledge Development portion as well as the Rescue Exercises in confined water only. They will not obtain a Rescue Certificate until they are able to complete the Open Water Scenarios.

 

[boulderjohn]

Oh and I believe someone said earlier in the thread that you should get them because then you can teach them as an instructor. That's actually untrue. There are some (Nitrox I'm sure of) that require you to have the spec before you can get the instructor speciality, but your diver specs don't translate to instructor specs right off.

Or ever.

I don't feel the urge to look it up, but I don't believe there are many specialties that require you to have the specialty before you teach it. You are free to get the training and experience elsewhere. I teach quite a few specialties, and I only actually have two of the specialties I teach (nitrox and dry suit). That is because I have used a lot of different ways to gain my advanced training. For example, I think my technical diving training qualifies me to teach the deep diver specialty. Conversely, having the specialty alone does not necessarily qualify you to teach it. In the case of one specialty I "earned," I thought the course was so uninformative that I would not put myself in the role of teaching it without a lot more independent study. It should have been a great and worthwhile course, and I am about to go out and make up for what was missing.

Ironically, despite all the specialties I teach, I don't have enough specialties myself to qualify for the Master Scuba Diver certification. That does not mean I don't think the specialties are worth the effort. As I said, they can be very useful with the right instructor--I like to think I provide a pretty decent experience myself. It's just that I found other ways to get the training I wanted, and there is nothing wrong with that.