Andrew Donn's SCUBA Diving Web Site

Dive Training

The first stop in anyone's voyage to explore the underwater world should of course be proper training. I can't possibly emphasize this enough. SCUBA diving is a potentially dangerous activity which could yes...Kill you. You are entering into an environment that does not support life as you and I know it. What keeps you alive more than any piece of equipment are the skills that you have learned along the way. If you are thinking about getting into diving and considering a course to take (please don't be foolish enough to let your brothers friends cousins boyfriend teach you what he learned by watching the discovery channel) chances are the subject of training agencies will come up. The training agencies are organizations that write the standards to which the instructors teach. These standards spell out the minimum requirements that a student must demonstrate in order for that instructor to issue you a certification card. Here is a list of the major agencies in the states.

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NAUI National Association of Underwater Instructors: This is the agency that I teach all levels of recreational diving through. They have the highest standards of the industry and provide excellent training materials for their instructors. PADI Professional Association of Diving Instructors: This is the largest training agency in the US. Their standards are not quite a high and they are more geared towards dive destinations and resorts. YMCA The Y has a separate division devoted to SCUBA training. They are the oldest of the agencies and have very high standards. They are much smaller than the other two agencies. On-line Skills Workshop Think you are an expert diver? Follow the link to the left to enter the on-line skills workshop to polish up your diving skills and make diving more enjoyable as well as safer.

What is far more important than the training agency selected is the quality of the instructor. All of the agencies turn out both good and bad instructors. It is up to the individual to select a course that will give him or her the best training most suited to their individual needs and goals. Beware of the quickie $99 SCUBA special that promises to have you certified in a weeks time. I have often had to retrain students as part of more advanced courses because they lacked the skills that should have been taught to them in their introductory course. If you can, meet the instructor who will be teaching the course. Find out what the ratio of students to instructors and/or assistants will be. Find out how much time you will be spending in the classroom and more importantly in the water both in the pool and open water. Try to find a course that will teach you in the environment that most closely resembles where you want to dive. How applicable will a course be to you if you want to dive out in the ocean if the only training dives that you do are in a quarry? Sure a lot of it will be the same but a lot will be different. The best time to experience new and unknown things is under the supervision of a qualified instructor, hopefully somebody that knows what it going on. A lot of what I do as an instructor after my students have mastered the basic skills is what is called guided discovery. This is basically introducing students to new environments, telling them a few of the Dos and Don'ts, supervise them as they dive and make sure they follow those Do's and Don'ts and understand why and maybe giving them a few pointers after the fact to correct things that they do wrong and point out things they could do better.

Don't think that once you finish your first course that the learning stops there. I've been diving for 13 years and done all sorts of crazy dives, taken a bunch of classes, taught a whole lot more than that and I still learn things. Your SCUBA education doesn't all have to be formal. You can learn things from other divers with more experience or just different experience than yourself. Local divers are a great source of information if you are diving in a new area. Seek out dive masters on boats that can point out interesting things on dives to you and give you a few pointers. I learn things from the people I dive with; I take seminars to keep current on what is going on out there. I even take a class now and then. All of the training agencies above have continuing education courses that will teach you new skills in a more formal environment. Keep in mind that certain types of diving require additional training. Diving such as Cave Diving or Penetration Wreck Diving, the subject of much of this web site, is know as technical diving and requires advanced skills and equipment that can't be learned by trial and error. Be aware of what your individual skill level is and dive within it. More divers, even trained cave and deep divers, die as a result of diving beyond their training and ability. With that being said, below are a few examples of additional training classes that are taught.

• SCUBA Diver: Sometimes called Open Water I, this id your introductory SCUBA course. This class will teach you the basics of SCUBA diving. The course is broken down into academic sessions in the classroom coupled with water work. The wet portion of the class is broken down into confined water sessions usually taught in a pool where students learn and practice the basic skills that they will need when they move into the next portion of the class, which is open water sessions. Usually the depth of these open water dives is limited to 60 feet and shallower.
• Advanced Scuba Diver: This course sometimes teaches some more academics but is more of an experience course. During this course, most instructors introduce their students to slightly more advanced forms of diving. Your dives might include dives to a little bit deeper depths, up to what is considered the sport diving limit of 130 feet. They might include a night dive, diving in limited visibility, current or any number of challenging environments.
• Specialty courses: These courses focus on a particular area of diving that might be of particular interest to you. One example might be Non-penetration wreck diving.
• Master SCUBA Diver: This course is heavy on both the academics and the diving. This course will teach you more in depth about the subjects that you just scratched the surface on in you basic course. The academics of this course will get you ready for Leadership courses if you decide to go that route. The diving requirements are usually more advanced than you would find in your advanced course. You will have to do more of them and demonstrate a higher skill level than before.
• Advanced Specialty courses: These courses focus on areas of diving that require advanced training in order to participate in these activities. These courses such as Penetration wreck diving, Cave diving, Deep diving (over 130 feet). These areas of diving entail a higher level of risk and require additional skills and training in order to conduct them safely.
• Leadership Courses: These courses are for people who want to get involved in diving leadership and include Dive Master: a diver that is certified to lead groups of certified divers on dives, Skin Diving Instructor: certifies an individual to teach the non SCUBA portion of a diving class and Assistant Instructor who would be certified to assist a certified instructor in teaching a SCUBA course.
• If you have taken all of these courses and still want more there is always the Instructor level course, which is less of a course and more of an evaluation of your knowledge and skills and your ability to teach them to others.

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