MSD for PADI requires:
- Rescue (which requires AOW (which requires OW) and EFR of some sort),
- 5 other completed specialties (value depends on what you want out of it, what courses you choose to take, the instructor, etc YMMV),
- 50 logged dives, and
- a credit card.
I'm a couple of dives short of MSD, but all other requirements are there. Don't know if I will pick up the card or not. A couple of the specialties I took were wasted time and effort (underwater naturalist - I still can't figure out what the frack that had to do with scuba diving nude - and I figure I pretty much figured that one out at 3 years old in the tub all frothed up with Mr. Bubble), some not a waste (I found the
Equipment Specialist really good - a semi-serious diver kinda needs an appreciation for how our equipment evolved and how it goes together and works - aside from being better prepared to fix minor issues that may crop up on that liveaboard. It may sound like a dry, boring non-wet specialty but
I'd suggest you put that one on your list of specialty certs to get.)
I think the basic specialty programs have value in that it gets folks involved and provides a very basic amount of knowledge to build a base from.
My next adventure, in about a year, will be solo diver (probably from SDI - if nothing else to get exposure to a different cert agency and since it's been reported that there are operations that look at "Self-reliant" diver card and go "Hey, that's cute, but you don't have a card that says "Solo Diver" do you(?) so here's your newest and bestest dive buddy friend!).
After that then I'd like to do some tec learning. I don't want to be a pro, I don't want to go in caves, I don't think I want to go INTO wrecks, but I'd like to understand more about the deco process/planning, the physio models of what is happening in the body/tissues, gas requirements, equipment requirements. I would like to go a little deeper, for a little longer, than 10 minutes at 130. And I am less impressed with seeing a hard-to-find-sand-burrowing-worm or flashy colourful little fishy dandy than I am taking a look at some of our naval or maritime history and some of that is a little bit deeper.
Not to throw shade on Padi's program (or NAUI, or SSI or SDI or anyone else), but I'll likely do something more along the lines of IANTD or RAID when I actually get to that point. I am an academic nerd and lean towards the more esoteric theory side of stuff.
OMMOHY
