What is your highest certification?

[Doby45]

DEMA is in Europe not as famous as the Boot show. Maybe he was not from the US?

DEMA is the professional scuba trade show that is held here in the US. It normally rotates between Orlando and Vegas. He was from the US.

 

[100days-a-year]

I don't consider anything in that column past AOW as any sign of the advancement of skill.Some of the worst divers I've had the displeasure of diving with were DM or INST and I consider MSD a joke.

I would have added technical certification rather than instructor track certifications as possible indicators of advanced skills particularly the GUE guys.

 

[AJ]

I would have added technical certification rather than instructor track certifications as possible indicators of advanced skills particularly the GUE guys.

In my experience DM and instructor have been trained for teaching non divers diving skills. That does not mean automaitcally in any way they have better skills than OW/AOW. Tech divers, being cave or deep tech divers with a good deal of experience, are something else when it comes to skills. I have met TDI/SDI, IANTD and GUE divers with very good skills that really impressed me. However, I also met tech divers and even tech instructors with skills that did not impress me at all.

IMO in the end, it's the diver that makes a good diver. Not the agency, nor the certification level.

 

[TMHeimer]

PADI (and probably all others) Instructors and DMs must be able to perform the 24 skills to "demonstration" level, so logically they must have better skills than OW divers. Unless we are referring to the basics like buoyancy, finning, etc.
I have found that those I worked with were also very good divers. I have read at times that this is not always the case.

 

[Doby45]

As someone that is both an instructor and a technical (cave) diver. I put more stock in my Cave card than I do my Instructor card. Even just instructor to instructor, I have seen instructors that I would not allow to turn my tank on. I once watched an instructor teaching an OW class at the Blue Grotto go to town with his butterfly hands and practically standing on the platform.

 

[TMHeimer]

As someone that is both an instructor and a technical (cave) diver. I put more stock in my Cave card than I do my Instructor card. Even just instructor to instructor, I have seen instructors that I would not allow to turn my tank on. I once watched an instructor teaching an OW class at the Blue Grotto go to town with his butterfly hands and practically standing on the platform.

Was he trying to hover?

 

[Doby45]

Was he trying to hover?

There was no attempt at a "hover". Like I said he was practically standing on the platform and was using the butterfly hands to keep from falling over.

 

[TMHeimer]

Oh... I didn't figure that.

 

[Foothills]

I am an inactive instructor, but an active tech diver, and found the training tracks for each to be useful and different. Instructor track teaches you to teach, but does help you get your "open water" basic skills to a higher level of performance. Tech adds skills (in and out of water) that you apply to a different diving environment. I am reluctant to draw a direct comparison between the 2 trajning/certification tracks.

I learned more from the tech training, but that is partially attributable to going from the tech basics (deco & adv nitrox, back when I started) to trimix (there was only hypoxic certification available in my region when I took it), to full cave & sump.

But it does appear that active members here are highly likely to take training beyond OW. Which I believe it what this poll is trying to put some numbers to.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I barely qualify to take this poll because I took my scuba course decades ago. When I asked NAUI for a C-card with updated terminology (something more impressive than "Scuba Diver") they sent me a Master Scuba Diver card based upon my previous instruction from the 60s. Recently I took the PADI Coral Reef Conservation course. There certainly was no such training in my original course

I suppose you could say my "OW" course was actually a "MSD" course and the advanced course I took was the Reef Restoration course. If ever need be I might take a NITROX course some day but that's probably about it unless they come up with a Geriatrics specialty