Full List of Specialty Classes

[ppo2_diver]

I'll give you a discount on the underwater divorce specialty if you sign up for the underwater wedding specialty.

 

[Aquatic Eagle]

You can't compare buying food at a grocery store with paying for some of the ridiculous specialties that are out there. Boat diver? Cage diver? Equipment Specialist? Peak-Performance Buoyancy? All of these are topics that should either be common sense, taught in the open water class or left to experience. Some places charge $175-200 for these classes. That's ridiculous. If it weren't so popular to teach open water classes from beginning to end in one weekend, there would be time for most of these topics to be covered and the new diver would be prepared to learn something on their own without paying an arm and a leg.

 

[Air On]

You can't compare buying food at a grocery store with paying for some of the ridiculous specialties that are out there. Boat diver? Cage diver? Equipment Specialist? Peak-Performance Buoyancy? All of these are topics that should either be common sense, taught in the open water class or left to experience. Some places charge $175-200 for these classes. That's ridiculous. If it weren't so popular to teach open water classes from beginning to end in one weekend, there would be time for most of these topics to be covered and the new diver would be prepared to learn something on their own without paying an arm and a leg.

Your missing the point of the all the specialties... It keeps you taking classes, keeps you returning to the LDS, keeps you involved, and keeps you paying! Its brilliant... its like a never ending array of classes that keeps you coming back as a customer!
How do you think PADI has become the largest certification agency in the world!

Whats really funny is when the dive shops start to offer you specialties on dives you've already taken... If you pay $120 and just one more dive day you can get X specialty!

Off the long weekend of diving i did for just my open water certification under NAUI, I had a PADI instructor who went along offering me a bunch of PADI specialties just for paying the fee and no more dives!
Shore Diving, Boat diving, Salt water diving, Conservation diving (I picked up some garbage), Some wildlife observation for naming X number of animals I'd seen on my dives riding back on the bus... lol

For things I was already able to do with my basic dive card... whats the point?

For the people that like to collect patches and certificates... great. Personaly i don't want to be a classroom diver or a certificate diver who has more hours in class then diving or more certificates and patches then actual dive trips taken!

I've met a number of ADVANCED divers with lots of specialties who have less dives in then I do... Something is wrong here.

I even had a PADI instructor tell me that If I wanted to specialise in ANYTHING to let them know... I said OK... How about a specialty class on Dive computers, teach how to use it... Download them to the PC and print them out to make a log book. Then review them and see what we can learn from our dive tables...

The instructor was excited by this... I even pointed out that they could probably sell some of the download kits as promotion via the class. Then i find out the instructor has never downloaded a dive computer before and didn't know anything about using the download software... well thats interesting... I'd picked all that up myself, taught myself to use it, and had made my own log book with custom cover in a water resistant binder and everything.

Looks like I'd be the one teaching the specialty that they were giving me the option to take...lol

Don't get me wrong... I think some of the classes would be invaluable... Advanced diver, Deep diver, Dry suit, Nitrox or other mixed gasses, Wreck diver, Cave Diver, Ice diver, underwater photography/filming, etc. Anything that has new equipment that you need to learn about or new environments that need specific skills...

But a specialty for Underwater pumpkin carving.... you've got to be kidding!

 

[Cainas]

When I went with NAUI I had a lot of people tell me I shouldn't because you get what you pay for, my retort was that I didn't need a lot of patches to prove I knew what I was doing just one good instructor and that can come from anywhere, it just so happens mine is NAUI.

 

[Dan Watkins]

After I got certified (NAUI), back in the mid 90's, I wound up getting my Master Diver Cert, and Night, Deep, and Wreck specialties.

The Master Diver card was more dives, more study, another book, etc. It was a real course. Night and Deep were basically seperating me from more money, because all I had to do was dive a few deep dives, and a few night dives that I was doing anyway.

The Wreck Specialty back then did include penetration, the use of a penetration reel, required redundant air (at min, singles with bail out bottle), I also had to perform ascents using a lift bag. A lot of this stuff was cooinciding with the Master Diver course, so I guess Wreck was redundant as well, I was doing that training anyway.

Nitrox diver on the other hand is an important specialty if you want to dive Nitrox.

 

[Aquatic Eagle]

When I went with NAUI I had a lot of people tell me I shouldn't because you get what you pay for, my retort was that I didn't need a lot of patches to prove I knew what I was doing just one good instructor and that can come from anywhere, it just so happens mine is NAUI.

It is always about the instructor quality but what I like about NAUI is that if you have a good instructor, the program and standards of NAUI definitely give you what you pay for.

 

[Cainas]

Agreed, I just don't see paying a high price for something that in the end doesn't get you to your goal

 

[MBH]

No one offers all the specialty classes that are available and there is no list of all of them. Most specialty classes are actually what are called "distinctive specialties." These are instructor authored courses that have been approved by the certifying agency. They range from "Underwater Basket Weaving Diver" to Underwater Wedding Diver" to "Shark Diver." Most exist for the sole purpose of seperating the gullible from their money. If what you want to do is collect cards, you can take whatever specialty classes that your LDS has to offer. If what you want to do is learn something about diving, then find someone who is doing the kind of diving you want to do and learn from them.

What he said.