Master.........Really?

[boulderjohn]

Please remember that when the program was created....

• Cave diving was in its infancy and there was no real formal training yet
• Technical diving was in its infancy and there was no real formal training for it
• Only a handful of agencies existed
• A diver who completed the requirements for the Master Diver certification had taken pretty much all the training possible.

 

[100days-a-year]

John,what year was the MSD first recognized?I didn't hear of it til 2000something.

 

[boulderjohn]

John,what year was the MSD first recognized?I didn't hear of it til 2000something.

According to the 4th quarter 2015 edition of The Undersea Journal, which reviewed PADI's 50 year history, the Master Scuba Diver certification was added in 1973 (p. 61).

 

[boulderjohn]

Please remember that when the program was created....

• Cave diving was in its infancy and there was no real formal training yet
• Technical diving was in its infancy and there was no real formal training for it
• Only a handful of agencies existed
• A diver who completed the requirements for the Master Diver certification had taken pretty much all the training possible.

I thought I would add some more specific information to this post to give people a better perspective on the history of more advanced diving instruction and certification.


The Master Scuba Diver certification was created in 1973, when PADI was 7 years old. The overwhelming majority of specialty and more advanced courses we have today did not then exist anywhere.

The National Association of Cave Divers (NACD) had been founded in 1968, but the instruction was still being figured out and is nothing like it is today. The equipment and methods taught today did not exist then. The National Speleological Society-Cave Diving Section (NSS-CDS) was formed in 1973 and did not begin instruction for cave diving until 1979. PADI offered cave diving instruction briefly in the mid-1970s but abandoned it because it was considered too dangerous. (Cave diving instruction was revolutionized largely through the work done by Sheck Exley in the late 1970s.) GUE was not formed until 1998.

Technical diving as we know it did not begin until the late 1980s and early 1990s. The man usually credited with inventing the term, Michael Menduno, did not really start using it until the 1990s. The term actually was used to some extent a little earlier than that. Some of the more well known technical diving agencies and their founding dates are:

• TDI: 1994
• IANTD: 1985
• ANDI: 1988
• PSAI: According to the history in its web site, PSAI was founded in the 1960s, but its instruction in technical diving came later, starting in the mid 1980s and 1990s.
• GUE: 1998
• UTD: 2009

 

[boulderjohn]

My previous post took my thoughts to the modern era, and I wondered about the status of an MSD diver relative to the full range of divers. ScubaBoard is not remotely reflective of divers in general--how many of them do you think spend significant portions of their time participating in online scuba discussions? What percentage of divers go on to AOW, Rescue, etc? I thought back upon my own experiences (I was only certified a little less than 20 years ago) with the general diving population for a clue. I pulled out my old logs to check.

1. With 2 years of experience, AOW certification, and 33 total dives done almost exclusively in Cozumel, I was in Fiji, where I was very much the most experienced diver with the first operator I used. I then did some dives with a boat full of vacationing New Zealand instructors, and I felt perfectly at home diving with them. We had a great time together, in fact. I then went from Fiji to Australia, where I did a liveaboard for 3 days. Only 2 divers on the boat had more dives than I, and none had higher certification than I.

2. I then returned to Cozumel, where I joined a dive operator who had a lot of boats and separated its customers by experience. With my AOW certification and 55 dives, I was put in the top group doing the best dives at the best sites.

3. I completed Rescue Diver 4 years after my initial certification, on dive #110. I don't pretend to know the experience of all the divers in all the recreational dive trips I have taken, but I don't think more than a handful had more than 110 dives.

4. A couple years ago, in preparation for our trip to Australia, I certified two friends of mine. A few months later, I certified them AOW. A few months later, we were diving in Australia. Our first day doing so was on a day boat, and I was amazed as the DM/instructor assigned to our group (there had to be 100 divers on the boat) essentially reviewed the entire OW class on the way out to the reef. When I took our DM aside afterward and told her I had a different regulator setup (long hose and alternate bungeed around the neck) she said, "Why in the world would you do that?" I showed her the setup, and she was doubtful. She conferred with others who determined it would be OK for me to use it. During the day, all the other instructors came by to check out my bizarre setup. None had ever seen it before or even heard of it. After that day, we got on a liveaboard. We all did a checkout dive, after which we were assigned to groups by perceived ability. My two brand new diving friends and I were the only ones assigned to the group that could dive unsupervised by a DM.

Thinking this through, I think that even today, someone who has achieved the MSD certification might very well be in the top 10% of divers in terms of training and experience.

 

[dberry]

If the goal is to attract a younger demographic to scuba, then they should drop the Master Diver label and go with... UBER. Everyone under 25 would love to be officially labeled "Uber-Diver". (Not to be confused with "Uber-Driver".)

I had to sit the BSAC buoyancy test, I attained black level which is +/-0.1m change in depth in the ocean mid water carrying out a task (smb deployment in my case).

Now THAT is a skill I can only hope I can attain someday. +/- 0.1m mid water while deploying an SMB? That is impressive. No, that is Uber control (IMO.) Or maybe I'm too easily impressed.

Now can I attain that +/-0.1m in normal diving, no. It takes enormous concentration - but I can if I put my mind to it.

Thank goodness (the part about not doing that on every random dive.)

 

[Shotmaster]

If the goal is to attract a younger demographic to scuba, then they should drop the Master Diver label and go with... UBER. Everyone under 25 would love to be officially labeled "Uber-Diver". (Not to be confused with "Uber-Driver".)



Now THAT is a skill I can only hope I can attain someday. +/- 0.1m mid water while deploying an SMB? That is impressive. No, that is Uber control (IMO.) Or maybe I'm too easily impressed.


Thank goodness (the part about not doing that on every random dive.)

I started diving before BCD's were invented. You had to get your weight setup right so that you were neutral. This was so you could maintain your depth at will and control your decent/ascent. If you were too negative you would have to work hard to not decend. With the advent of the BCD, you could compensate for poor weighting by just adding more air. The focus on proper weight set ups became less emphasized, mainly due to less time available in training and some people not thinking it was important to new divers. With all the different cylinders and their inherent buoyancy swings from full to empty, and types of BCDs available to us now, I think that teaching proper weight setup is just as important as back then. When you can obtain proper balance and trim, your diving will be more controlled and enjoyable. I have seen people screwing around trying to get their BCD inflated and maintain depth. This is because as you descend the Air in your BCD compresses and loses buoyancy. I don't put air in my BCD unless I intend to have my head out if the water. If they take the time to get and know their weight setup for different diving, rash guard, or 3mm, 5mm wetsuit, then it is just a simple matter to add or subtract a weight when you change gear.

 

[boulderjohn]

I started diving before BCD's were invented. You had to get your weight setup right so that you were neutral. This was so you could maintain your depth at will and control your decent/ascent. If you were too negative you would have to work hard to not decend. With the advent of the BCD, you could compensate for poor weighting by just adding more air. The focus on proper weight set ups became less emphasized, mainly due to less time available in training and some people not thinking it was important to new divers. With all the different cylinders and their inherent buoyancy swings from full to empty, and types of BCDs available to us now, I think that teaching proper weight setup is just as important as back then. When you can obtain proper balance and trim, your diving will be more controlled and enjoyable. I have seen people screwing around trying to get their BCD inflated and maintain depth. This is because as you descend the Air in your BCD compresses and loses buoyancy. I don't put air in my BCD unless I intend to have my head out if the water. If they take the time to get and know their weight setup for different diving, rash guard, or 3mm, 5mm wetsuit, then it is just a simple matter to add or subtract a weight when you change gear.

Is it your impression that this is not supposed to be taught in OW classes today?

 

[dberry]

I dive a BP/W and without much neoprene (like in Bonaire last week) I don't have much air in the wing. I think I've got weight dialed in fairly well, but I was commenting on the +/- 0.1m while doing a task. A 3" swing in open ocean still seems impressive to me (I'm assuming he was breathing and not holding his breath!) OTOH, I've got lots more to learn and experience to gain. (Anyone have tips on how to back-fin without moving feet-up from horizontal? - Sorry that's a rhetorical question, not an attempt to go more off-topic.)

 

[Shotmaster]

How could you deduct that question from comment? I was just sharing that I had to learn proper weighting and that is was important to dive enjoyment as well as dive safety pre-BCD. I also shared my observation of the progression of technology and it's impact on training, and that in my opinion proper weighting had been either glossed over, neglected or eliminated from training, or if they were trained they didn't retain it. I surmised that by observation only after having witnessed fellow divers porpoising their BCDs. I also opined that proper weight setup is just/or more important today. I only owned aluminum tanks for a brief period, i didn't like the buoyancy swing. So I only dive steel.