Padi Master scuba diver

[Mustard Dave]

Believe what Mustard Dave means by tangible is that without those certs you can be limited to air and 60' dives by dive operators. The rest you can pick up on your own, if you have the mind to.

It all has to do with ego, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.


Bob
------------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

Correct. There's a lot you can learn by diving with experienced divers and many you just acquire the knack. You do not need to line PADI's pockets for every skill you can learn. PADI will happily take your cash to teach you how to recognise fish - you can do that with a book. Underwater photography is another. I know published underwater photographers that run courses but they won't give you a PADI badge though to put towards your MSD. I'd much prefer to do one of their courses than go to a PADI instructor who is doing little more than teach from a syllabus.

Deep is needed if you are diving with a dive operator beyond 30m and your insurance most likely requires you to dive within the limits of your certification. You need a Nitrox ticket to acquire fills in most places. Both are often prerequisites for entry onto tech courses.

No dive operator has ever told me I can't get in the water with my camera or DSMB because I do not hold those specialities.

 

[drrich2]

If someone wanted to get a rounded education about computer systems, and took a bunch of courses at a community or technical college, then one day realized he had met all the requirements for an Associate's Degree, and that it would cost $50 processing fee to get it, I imagine he might pay & get the degree.

Even though the degree itself is not a 'course' and doesn't confer additional training/knowledge/skill. Even though he might have no 'need' for the degree.

That's not crazy.

Let's put it another way. Let's say an instructor for an agency offers a lot of standard courses - UW Navigation, Wreck Diving, Peak Performance Buoyancy, etc...,$25 cheaper per course, with the stipulation you don't get a C card or formal recognition for having completed the course.

How many people would take courses at $25 off if they didn't get an 'official' certification? Same knowledge and skills, right?

Richard.

 

[Oldbear]

... it's just paying extra money for a card that adds no extra value; don't know what's such a mystery about that

If you want to light your cigars with $50 bills go ahead but don't expect other people not to think you're crazy

I for one would never consider a person crazy for taking the MSD.

The value of the PADI MSD Challenge is driven from a person's past experience and personal beliefs in conjunction with other personal values. While there are those that feel the MSD is a waste of time and money, others hold it in high regards. Who is to say there is just one and only one "value" to be placed on the program? For me personally it was the dive specialties that have a higher value than the actual MSD card. But when I took the challenge and five specialty courses, it was in a time of my initial training that the specialties were quite valuable to me, thus the MSD card was held in higher regard with me than say now after taking more advance training. Now, some 100+ dives later, the MSD has lost some of its glimmer, but the specialty training has been a great platform to launch other training for me.

Tortuga68 I see your point that to just pay $50 for a card is not the most prudent thing to do, however, for me personally, it was financially beneficial to take the MSD as oppose to taking the five specialty courses individually.

BTW the five courses I took are Enriched Air, Deep Diver, Wreck Diver, UW Digital Photography and National Geographic Diver...and I enjoyed all of them and never regretted my decision to take these five courses.

 

[cbairdjr]

Well; some people think it is stupid to spend the money on the MSD; but we all do stuff people think are stupid; I think it is stupid for someone to spend $4 - $5 for a pack of cigarettes that causes their breath and clothes to stink and shortens their life; but people do it all the time, to each his own.

 

[rhwestfall]

No dive operator has ever told me I can't get in the water with my camera or DSMB because I do not hold those specialities.

........................................

I don't know why, put I almost wet myself reading that.......

 

[tracydr]

This has been discussed frequently. Here is my take.

In recreational diving situations, I always show an instructor card. I have never been asked to do anything described above, and I don't know anyone else who has either. In fact, it is quite the opposite. An operator with multiple boats or groups of divers will put me with the best group doing the best dives. For example, I was once on a boat with more than 20 divers in Hawai'i. We were divided into three groups. Two groups were raw beginners. In my group, we were told that every diver had at least 500 dives, and you can believe we were treated very differently from the raw beginner groups. In the raw beginner groups, there may have been some professionals who had smugly refused to show their highest card so that they wouldn't be paired with beginners. I don't know.

Not only am I regularly placed with the more advanced divers, I am given a lot more freedom and benefit of the doubt during the dives. I get to participate in collegial discussions with the staff. I get other considerations, including occasional discounts. I have never had the slightest regret about showing that card, and I have received a slew of benefits.

In general, dive operators want professionals to be happy. They want them to return, and they want them to recommend them to students. The last thing they want to do is piss them off by sticking them with a bad dive.

The only time I ever performed any professional duties on a dive were at my suggestion. At the end of a week of diving, I had gotten to know the people pretty well. They had a popular dive coming up, and one of their crew could not make it. They needed another professional in the water to meet their insurance requirements. I offered to fill that role, and they compensated me for it. If I were ever to be asked to work in any way as a professional, which I consider highly unlikely, I would demand compensation.

This is what my husband has found to be true as well. We often get discounts because he is an instructor and we always get treated very well.

 

[Oldbear]

... but we all do stuff people think are stupid; I think it is stupid for someone to spend $4 - $5 for a pack of cigarettes that causes their breath and clothes to stink and shortens their life...

Like the High Commander, Dick Soloman once said, "Sure it (smoking) shortens your life by 15 years, but those are at the end and they are really crappy anyways."

 

[Crass3000]

I'm glad now that most of you have taken classes to give you a much higher SCUBA status as in rating and understanding how to do more difficult things that you feel it's great to mock people because they want to spend $50 for something that at one point may have been a goal for them. If you are actually saying that paying $50 for the card is a big deal than I'm sure we can all agree that you probably chose the wrong sport.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

I for one would never consider a person crazy for taking the MSD.

If I understand it correctly...PADI's implementation of their MSD rating doesn't require you to take a Master Diver Class at all.

NAUI does have a specific course for their Master Diver rating. As I understand it anyway.

If this is true, then there is a big difference between a NAUI and a PADI Master Diver.

I'm all about taking the classes that one needs in order to get the knowledge they desire. Not everyone has mentors around them where the can learn things they want to. So the availability of classes is certainly nice, no doubt about it.

Despite the value to the individual student in classes like the photography one, or the National Geographic class.....I doubt they have much to do with bringing a diver up to the "Master" level.

The card DOES say "Master" on it. Are the holders of the cert taught any advanced dive planning along the way to this card being purchased?

My problem with PADI, is that when I pay for an "Advanced" class, I am not taught advanced skills, such as gas planning for instance......What I discovered was a bunch of word play, where Advanced doesn't really mean "Advanced" at all. If it's more of the same with "Master".....then there is no value in it at all. It is nothing more than marketing.
Hopefully there is value in it, and "Master" divers actually look the part, and know their stuff. Otherwise you were ripped off....beyond the mere $50 that was spent on the card.
They way the PADI Master Diver program is set up....it really does seem to be a marketing effort to appeal to those that just want a card or certificate that says "Master".......if people wanted the skill set that should be accompanying the title, they would seek out the specific course for it, no?

Just curious.....what is the knowledge base for PADI Master Divers?

All PADI Master Divers know the following:
1.)
2.)
3.)
and so on.

They possess and display the following skill set:
1.)
2.)
3.)
and so on.

Is there anything like that for the Master Divers? Or is is all just random skills and classes, combined with photography and fish I.D.

I hope that the cumulative time with all of the instructors along the way, exposes a student to the level of learning and experience, where they have actually mastered something at a high level.

At least with NAUI, if I understand it correctly, you have to actually pass a course.

With PADI......what if I started posting questions asking how many PADI Specialties I needed to take before I could pay $50 for a "Dive Master" card?

What would you, or other say about that?

Actually, I will post a thread on that one. I am very curious about how that would be perceived.

Cheers,
Mitch

 

[TMHeimer]

The PADI and NAUI Master Diver programs have been compared to death on several old threads. There may or may not be actually more dives accumulated in the PADI MSD, depending on what specialties you take. Or, as someone once pointed out, you can actually get PADI MSD by taking 5 specialties that don't require dives. On the other hand, you don't take ANY specialties with NAUI. BUT, you get the theoretical knowledge that you get with (at least the "old") PADI DM course. Now, how much of that knowledge actually makes you a better diver is debatable. How much of a university degree's knowledge do you use when actually on the job? In my career it was maybe 20%? They're just 2 different types of MSD. But, you pay $50 (was $41 for me in 2007) for the PADI card. Now THAT'S something to argue 6 more pages worth about......Oh wait, that's already been done-- at least more than once.