suricatasuricata
Contributor
Hi Folks,
New diver here. I have ~100 dives (mostly tropical dives in the Carribean). A PADI OW, Nitrox and IANTD's recreational essentials diver. I am trying to figure out what to do next in terms of learning and certifications. I separate the two because I realize for whatever reason I didn't really learn as much from the PADI OW + Nitrox courses that I took -- I found it incredibly hard (and rewarding) when I did the IANTD recreational essentials course.
I think there is still a lot for me to learn in terms of finning, trim, moving backwards etc. Having said this, I do also want to have fun and do more tourism dives. I found out from people I met during my most recent trip that some places (e.g. live aboards) do require an AOW certification or one that at least says that you can go deeper. So I am trying to figure out the best mix of getting that while ensuring that I learn some new skills.
I went to my LDS which is all SSI. They informed me that the way SSI works is that once I finish 4 specialities, I could get SSI's advanced adventurer cert, which I understand is comparable to PADI's AOW. Furthermore, they said that since I have a Nitrox cert (from PADI), I could "apply that" and only need to complete three more specialities to get the SSI's advanced adventurer cert. This got me thinking: I'd like to get more practice using my dry suit, get a dry suit certification as well in case I want rent one later. The Deep diving speciality does seem useful as well (both from a learning POV and a certification POV). Is it at all possible to map my IANTD's recreational essentials diver cert to something in SSI land? Closest that it seems to map to is the Perfect Buoyancy speciality from SSI, but I also can't find an "official mapping" that I can take to my LDS to talk about this.
If I can find such a mapping, seems like I can do some learning with the dry suit + deep diving specialities, get my AOW equivalent cert out of the way, then focus on taking more technical courses for learning and also maximizing my options in terms of fun dives.
Thanks in advance!
New diver here. I have ~100 dives (mostly tropical dives in the Carribean). A PADI OW, Nitrox and IANTD's recreational essentials diver. I am trying to figure out what to do next in terms of learning and certifications. I separate the two because I realize for whatever reason I didn't really learn as much from the PADI OW + Nitrox courses that I took -- I found it incredibly hard (and rewarding) when I did the IANTD recreational essentials course.
I think there is still a lot for me to learn in terms of finning, trim, moving backwards etc. Having said this, I do also want to have fun and do more tourism dives. I found out from people I met during my most recent trip that some places (e.g. live aboards) do require an AOW certification or one that at least says that you can go deeper. So I am trying to figure out the best mix of getting that while ensuring that I learn some new skills.
I went to my LDS which is all SSI. They informed me that the way SSI works is that once I finish 4 specialities, I could get SSI's advanced adventurer cert, which I understand is comparable to PADI's AOW. Furthermore, they said that since I have a Nitrox cert (from PADI), I could "apply that" and only need to complete three more specialities to get the SSI's advanced adventurer cert. This got me thinking: I'd like to get more practice using my dry suit, get a dry suit certification as well in case I want rent one later. The Deep diving speciality does seem useful as well (both from a learning POV and a certification POV). Is it at all possible to map my IANTD's recreational essentials diver cert to something in SSI land? Closest that it seems to map to is the Perfect Buoyancy speciality from SSI, but I also can't find an "official mapping" that I can take to my LDS to talk about this.
If I can find such a mapping, seems like I can do some learning with the dry suit + deep diving specialities, get my AOW equivalent cert out of the way, then focus on taking more technical courses for learning and also maximizing my options in terms of fun dives.
Thanks in advance!