Category Archives: Courses

PADI Specialty Diver Courses–What are they?

Posted on by jon

Specialty Diver Courses

What are PADI Specialty Diver Courses?   When PADI developed their continuing education model, they realized that divers have a lot of varied interests.  For me, it’s underwater imaging (underwater photography and underwater videography) and dive safety.   To accommodate those interests, they started developing courses that go into more depth about a certain topic.   If you’re familiar with Adventures in Diving Program or Advanced Open Water Diver, you’ve experienced a sample of these specialty areas.

Garibaldi in the California Channel Islands

PADI has a multitude of Specialty Diver courses that can help you explore your interests in diving and the list continues to grow.   Here’s a short sample:

  • Altitude Diver
  • Boat Diver
  • Deep Diver
  • Diver Propulsion Vehicle
  • Dry Suit Diver
  • Emergency Oxygen Provider
  • Enriched Air Diver
  • Equipment Specialist
  • Fish Identification (AWARE FishID)
  • Digital Underwater Photography
  • Multilevel/Computer Diver
  • Underwater Naturalist
  • Underwater Navigator
  • Project AWARE Specialty
  • Project AWARE Coral Reef Conservation
  • Search & Recovery Diver
  • Night Diver
  • Underwater Photographer
  • Underwater Videographer
  • Wreck Diver

 

Divers using a lift bag as part of the PADI Search and Recovery Specialty

In some cases, instructors can author (or be trained ) and teach PADI Distinctive Specialty courses.  For example, here are some PADI Distinctive Specialties I can teach:

  • AWARE Shark Conservation
  • Neurological Assessment
  • AED for Scuba
  • First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries
  • Oxygen First Aid for Scuba

The last four correlate to the DAN Diving First Aid courses I teach.   Take the DAN course and get the PADI Distinctive Specialty at the same time!

 

Specialties are typically designed to give you, the diver, a safe and structured way to explore the specialty area.   After the initial dive or two, I, as the instructor, usually back off and act as a resource rather than just tell you what to do.  That way you develop the comfort to continue exploring that specialty area of diving.   For example, the PADI Altitude Diver Specialty has two dives.   The first dive involves a good amount of pre-dive planning and we compare depth gauges during the dive.   The depth gauge comparison helps you understand why we dive conservatively.   On the second dive, you plan the dive and I’m there to help and answer questions.   It can vary between specialties, of course.

Specialties are not designed to make you an expert, though.  For example, the PADI Equipment Specialist course isn’t to train you to break down and rebuild regulators.   [That requires training from the manufacturer.]   We do look at how regulators are built and how they work.  We practice basic field repairs such as repairing a wetsuit or replacing an o-ring.   The PADI Equipment Specialist course is an excellent course for all divers, as it will help you with all of your equipment purchases, long-term equipment maintenance and basic field repairs.

PADI Specialties do have an important relation with the Adventure Dives in Adventures in Diving (Adventure Diver & Advanced Open Water Diver).   The first dive in a given specialty is the same as the correlating Adventure Dive.   That means that if you’ve completed any Adventure Dives, they can count towards the correlating specialty.   If you’ve completed the Specialty, the first dive of that Specialty can count towards your Adventure Diver or Advanced Open Water certification.

PADI Continuing Education Flowchart

Specialty Diver courses also count towards your PADI Master Scuba Diver rating.  Jump over to the Master Scuba Diver page to learn more.

 

Questions about PADI Specialty Diver courses?  Contact me!

 

Rescue Diver

Posted on by admin

Rescue Diver

Rescue Divers learn to look beyond themselves and consider the safety and well being of other divers. Although this course is serious, it is an enjoyable way to build your confidence.

Scuba Diving Emergencies always have to start somewhere.   A leaky o-ring, a partially filled cylinder, over weighting.   As with any emergency, prevention and preparation are the places to start.   Imagine this: you and your buddy are getting ready to dive at the Crater  in Midway, Utah.   The water is about 93F and it’s a fairly small, contained dive site.  Since it’s so warm, you don’t need a wetsuit, which also means you only need minimal weight.   You get your gear on and enter the water.  Your buddy does the same, except he put on his normal ocean-diving weight belt with 25 pounds of lead.  He sinks like a rock.   WHOA!   A simple pre-dive safety check could have prevented this potential scuba diving emergency.   That pre-dive safety check is something you learn in your open water diver course.

Divers doing a pre-dive safety check. Rescue Divers should make sure other divers do a pre-dive check to prevent problems.

Predive safety checks can prevent diving emergencies.

If we prevent as much as we can, then we next focus on how to respond.   In the Rescue Diver course, we spend a good amount of time in the water practicing how to respond to a scuba emergency.   Let’s take a look at some of the things you’ll learn and do.

What will you learn & do?

  1. Self-rescue and diver stress
  2. AED and emergency oxygen delivery systems
  3. dive first aid
  4. swimming and non-swimming rescue techniques
  5. emergency management and equipment
  6. assembling an emergency plan
  7. panicked diver response
  8. underwater problems
  9. missing diver procedures
  10. surfacing the unconscious diver
  11. in-water rescue breathing protocols
  12. egress (exits)
  13. first aid procedures for pressure related accidents
  14. Participate in two dive accident scenarios

 

Rescue divers practicing how to respond to a scuba emergency: assisting an unresponsive, non-breathing diver at the surface.

Rescue Diver practice: responding to a scuba emergency on the surface.

As a certified Diver Medic and a DAN Instructor Trainer, I’m a big proponent of additional diving first aid training.   Why?   Simple, diving emergencies follow where the diving is.   One of the cool things about scuba is we get to explore our world, which often means we dive in remote locations.  Even diving in the States, EMS can often be a long distance away.

I encourage all divers, especially Rescue Divers, to continue their education with more training.  I typically include the DAN Oxygen Provider and PADI Oxygen Provider programs with my Rescue Diver course.    Beyond that, the DAN Hazardous Marine Life Injuries course and Neurological Assessment programs give you an expanded tool set as a Rescue Diver to handle diving emergencies.

 

Advanced Open Water & Adventure Diver

Posted on by admin

PADI Advanced Open Water Diver
PADI Adventure Diver

Prerequisites:

 

  • PADI Open Water Diver certification (or qualifying certification from another organization)
  • Minimum age: 15 (12 for PADI Junior Advanced Open Water Diver; 10 for PADI Junior Adventure Diver)

You don’t have to be an advanced diver to take the PADI Adventure Diver or PADI Advanced Open Water Diver course. Rather, you take the courses to advance your skills!

What’s involved?

  • The PADI Adventure Diver certification includes three Adventure Dives.
  • The PADI Advanced Open Water Diver certification includes the Deep Adventure Dive, the Underwater Navigator Adventure Dive and three additional adventure dives.

What does it cost?
You can sign up for an entire course or just do it dive-by-dive.

Tuition Adventure Diver
(3 dives)		 Advanced
(5 dives)		 Per Dive
Team (3-4 divers): $150/diver $250/diver $75/diver/dive
Executive (2 divers): $250/diver $350/diver $95/diver/dive
Personal rate(1 diver) $350/diver $450/diver $135/diver/dive
Materials Adventures in Diving CrewPak (NavFinder, Manual & DVD) $66
Rates do not include equipment rental.

Contact me to signup today!

Adventure dives:

 

  • Adventure Dives available to divers 10 years old and older:
    • Altitude Diver
    • AWARE Fish Identification
    • Underwater Naturalist
    • Boat Diver
    • Dry Suit Diver
    • Underwater Navigator
    • Peak Performance Buoyancy
    • Underwater Photography
    • Underwater Videography
  • Additional Adventure Dives available to divers 12 years old and older:
    • Multilevel Diver
    • Deep Diver
    • Night Diver
    • Diver Propulsion Vehicle
    • Search and Recovery Diver
    • Drift Diver
    • Wreck Diver.

Open Water Diver

Posted on by admin

PADI Open Water Diver

I want to learn to SCUBA DIVE!
Where do I start?

  • Become a PADI Open Water Diver

What’s involved?

  • Self-study (PADI eLearning online course, or the old-fashioned  book+dvd)
  • Review the material with me, take a few multiple-choice quizzes

  • Practice the skills you learned during self-study during confined-water dives.

  • Experience the open water environment–SCUBA dive! Here is where you have the opportunity to practice skills under controlled conditions in an open water environment. 4 Open Water SCUBA dives over 2 days. Continue reading →