WORLD ’ s Youngest Master Scuba Diver

[rmediver2002]

How about the newly qualified local dive guide in the Red Sea or Thailand, checking your credentials upon arrival?

I am not saying it is right but to be perfectly honest my initial assessment is made when I first see the divers physical appearance and conditioning, further assessment is from looking over the condition and quality of gear the diver has, next watching them set up there kit and get dressed, listening to them talk (or as we all know...brag about past exploits)

The final assessment, (and the only one that really counts because all the others are just adding up to give you an initial overall impression) is watching them get in the water and dive...

I mean honestly, we are all making mental notes of the entire situation not focusing on any one item alone like a log book or card...

at least I do...


Jeff Lane

 

[matt_unique]

Would anyone here do that, knowing all of the above? Guess not.

>>Ha ha ha, right, of course not.

How about the newly qualified local dive guide in the Red Sea or Thailand, checking your credentials upon arrival? Knowing nothing about the standards of instructor A back home or what sort of diving conditions one has in, say, the Pacific Northwest? Or Denmark?

Would I react differently if I were travelling alone in the Red Sea or Thailand and ended up without a buddy on the dive boat, looking for one? And the diver I was giving my usual pre-dive third degree wasn't carrying his or her usual signed and numbered log book onboard but had the plastic card handy?

If diver 1 said "uh, I'm a Rescue Diver with 30 dives", diver 2 said "Ciao, I am a CMAS** with, uh, sixty or so dives I think" and the final person said "I'm a PADI MSD" and could explain which courses he'd taken ...

Which one do you think I'd go for for the first dive? Which one do you think the dive guide onboard would partner me with if I insisted on diving only with "an experienced buddy".

>>The best educated guess for you and the DM, based solely on certification level, would indeed by the MSD. The MSD would have been at least exposed to more types of diving based on the certification requirements. On a dive boat the DM would never know anything more than the cert rating anyway. What matters of course is the experience as well as the rating. Hopefully you will have a long enough boat ride such that you can talk to people to get a sense of their experience prior to the dive briefing where they assign dive buddies. That would be the best situation of course.

Subsequent dives would be based on performance in the first dive. Of course.

/Fins/

PS! Yeah, I know the CMAS* diver with 500 dives or PADI OW diver with 1132 logged and confirmed dives would be my first choice above. That's a different story, though. In this case, they're not onboard. DS.

>>Right you are!

 

[fins wake]

How about the newly qualified local dive guide in the Red Sea or Thailand, checking your credentials upon arrival?

I mean honestly, we are all making mental notes of the entire situation not focusing on any one item alone like a log book or card... at least I do...

Sure. Unfortunately, this doesn't go for all the outfits out there, whether it's Hurghada or Cozumel or Corfu. These are the places where funny initial decisions may well be based - in fact, often are, at least by some staff - on your plastic c-card.

Me, I can't always tell the difference between diver A in a silly t-shirt from Belize with a card from agency A or diver B in a silly t-shirt from Florida with a card from agency B. Sometimes these geezers set up their equipment exactly the same way, and both talk the talk ...

If in doubt, I usually go for the Italian super model or the Winona Ryder lookalike.

 

[TCDiver1]

My reasoning is PADI's MSD cert signifies nothing that isn't already shown more clearly by the 7 cards earned to qualify for the MSD, therefore it is a meaningless certification.

You got any?

Sure, i got plenty, you want some?

If it eases your mind Walter, think of those seven certs as prerequisites for MSD. If not, this too will pass. Honest, it will pass.

Have a nice day!

 

[simbrooks]

SO is the MSD from NAUI really that different from essentially an "AOW-2" course? Lots of little experiences, but no large chunk of instruction in any one area.

 

[cornfed]

The entire thread is a debate about the usefulness of MSD. My point is about the nature of certification in itself. The PADI MSD can be as useful or as useless as any other certification depending on the diver.

I don't think you understood anything I just said. Let me try again...

I too was talking about the nature of certifications and we both agree that a certification is only an indication of the lower bound. Someone can far exceed that minimum but the certification doesn't tell you that and it certainly is not a necessary condition. My claim is that for a certification to be meaningful the minimum it indicates should be sufficiently high to guarantee some level of proficiency. The problem is the bar seems way too low in this case to be a reliable indication of anything.

For example, here is one path to MSD:

• OW (4 dives)
• AOW (5 dives)
• Rescue (5 dives)
• Five specialty classes...
  • Equipment Specialist (no dives)
  • Fish Identification (2 dives)
  • Underwater Naturalist (2 dives)
  • Underwater Photographer (2 dives)
  • Coral Reef Conservation (no dive)
• 30 dives outside class

After this you qualify (as far as I can tell from reading PADI'S website) for the MSD rating because you have satisfied the minimum requirements. What have those specialty course done for you? Two of them don't require dives and one of them (reef conservation) doesn't even require you to be a certified diver! How is that making you a better diver? While they may be interesting course, are equipment specialist and UW photography helping you become a better diver? How are you any better off than if you'd stopped after rescue and logged 36 more dives (for a total of 50)? Shouldn't achieving some level of certification be an indication of your skill level? You seem to think so,

If I had to choose a buddy based solely on certification - I would go with a MSD over say a Rescue Diver. The chances of an MSD being a bad diver is less than that of a Rescue Diver for example.

Yet you claim that, "The PADI MSD can be as useful or as useless as any other certification depending on the diver" (emphasis added). Well which is more meaningful, the card or the diver? And if it's the diver what good is the certification?

Going back to your doctor analogy, you can compare doctors to each other and say that guy the finished last isn't as good as whomever finished first. However, the bar is sufficiently high that the minimum requirements for the title of 'doctor' to still mean something. If we cast the MSD issue in to the medical realm we would have everyone from people with first aid training to brain surgeons called 'doctors' and the term wouldn't be very meaningful.

I'm sure there are lots of very skilled divers out there that have earned a MSD rating. However, the bar it set to low for the certification to be meaningful by itself.

 

[DFC5343]

What about water time...time under pressure...tests showing a good level of expertise...not paying the cash and getting a card, patch and a pat on the back with a whisper in your ear..."Come on back when your ready to give me more cash".

 

[jhelmuth]

I totally agree. The standards in the industry are so low that none of these "certifications" mean anything. ...people have to prove themselves to me in the water.

I'm glad the kid found something he enjoys, but I hardly beleive that he has developed the skills necessary to be called a "master" diver. Most of the adults I see that have a "master" certification really should not be diving at all.

This from a NAUI instructor, 23 year old college student and instructor, and international man of mystery (per public profile).
Zombie - like so many others you tear others down without knowing them. I really don't mind if he has a MSD cert (or not). It doesn't belong to me, and certs are all about money (they don't prove or deny anything). It's curious that your an instructor and that you associate yourself with NAUI, but say that most MSD you meet aren't worthy to be OW qualified. Maybe the only worth wild divers are certified by you?
Maybe we should all consider that no matter what our certification say, we are only as good as what we have invested in learning and the practice to make it the best we can. Nothing more - or less. Quit tearing people down when you don't know them.
And if I'm going to follow that advice...
I'm sorry EZ - but please consider what I'm trying to get at. I may be doing a lousy job of it, but my heart tells me that stuff like this is not that productive and really shows our own faults and intollerance of such trivial things as certifications.

 

[The Chairman]

NAUI and PADI differ dramatically in their approach to Master Diver. The diving knowledge required for PADI's DM certification (or NAUI Instructor) is required for the NAUI Master Diver. NAUI Dive Master concentrates solely on leadership, whereas PADI stresses that AND all of the academics as well. NAUI also has a completely different approach to their "Rescue Diver". Rescue is introduced in OW, and by the time you get to Rescue Diver, you are building on skills previously learned (and hopefully mastered). You can not become a NAUI DM without first becoming a Master Diver (or DM in another agency). These are some of the reasons I switched agencies (I was a PADI DM, but became a NAUI instructor).

 

[Walter]

gedunk,

My mind is totally at ease. I understand the concept. You don't.