Which PADI specialties are useful and which ones are "underwater basket weaving"?

[Taliena]

Totally useless: PADI Cuttlefish, Squid & Octopus Specialty (given in the Netherlands)

usefull (not difficult, in my opinion make this together with OW or AOW, one chapter to learn extra): nitrox

[Brandon]

IMHO: OW / AOW / Rescue / Nitrox / Drysuit / DM.

The rest are fluff.

-B

[Hostage]

I am planning on doing Nitrox and Wreck Diving for sure. I think one of the guys who teaches wreck diving, discovered a wreck near Rochester. Depending on how cold I get, I might do drysuit specialty, though I have no intention of doing ice diving. When we did the deep dive on my AOW, we went down to 86ft. While we were there he made us do a math problem to compare to a math problem we did on the surface. I was the same on the surface. Does the deep dive allow you to go to the 100-130ft range?

The Rescue diver seems interesting, though I am not sure if i want to go as far as Dive Master. It seems like there is a surplus of DM up here.

[Steve50]

many people take a class if they want to weave a good basket without making a bunch of needless mistakes.

[RU4SKUBA]

As a lifeguarding professional I felt like Rescue was fluff, but again, it truly is about the instructor. Most of my Rescue class was done in 4 ft of water (both in pool and on lakeshore) and I personally didn't feel like he was well enough trained to be teaching any rescue course and managed the class badly. It was really hard to get over, and to make matters worse, he hid his inadequacies poorly.

There was a kid in my IDC who kept finding excuses not to practice Rescue #7 and eventually only ever performed it once, at the IE, and butchered it but passed. I was shaking my head the whole time secretly hoping he'd have to repeat. I imagine anybody who takes Rescue from him will get an experience like mine: a very watered-down Rescue course.

I took Deep and Nitrox from a very thorough instructor who had ties to GUE and technical diving, so I got excellent bang-for-buck on those. Drysuit I found helpful because I didn't know anybody who ever got to dive with a drysuit, much less owned one, so there was no mentor for me.

[Brandon]

many people take a class if they want to weave a good basket without making a bunch of needless mistakes.

Others learn how to weave good baskets in the same way humans have learned new skills since the dawn of time - mentorship and prudent self-study.

I'll add that I needed to make some mistakes along the way - otherwise I wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn from them =)

[String]

Nitrox.

Sometimes Deep can be useful, but only as pre-requisite to certain Tech Courses.

Ice Diver should be pretty good..... although there is an Urban Legend that an Egyptian Instructor (who has never left Egypt) has this Specialty rating. So shop around.

I know the guy in question but ive never actually seen the card to prove it...
It does show the issue though in a way - i've self certified for quite a few specialities but have never once been asked for log books or verification of relevant experience. I had to show my Adv. Trimix card applying for self-reliant instructor but that's it. Everything else immediately approved.


As for specs, Nitrox BUT id say get the old crew pack with tables (you can still buy). Far better materials with the formulae you need before they dumbed it down. You're still allowed to teach if the student has the older materials and tables.

Deep IF you've got a good instructor - basic standards aren't that high but a decent instructor will push you and add a lot more.

Otherwise depends on your interests. Search and Recovery can be good if you like that sort of thing. DUP again if you like that AND have a good instructor who will put work in above the standards.
Self-Reliant is new but looking quite useful not just as a solo course but for better buddy diving as it includes a large chunk of proper gas planning, redundant gas source use, dive planning and other issues. It combines well with deep if you want a solid grounding in dive planning, conduct and redundancy.

Id echo what others have said and Rescue although its not a spec is probably the best one to get.

Pick an instructor who is passionate about the areas you want to learn in and not just some random dive shop assigned one. You'll get far more out of the course that way.

[the wart]

I know the guy in question but ive never actually seen the card to prove it...
It does show the issue though in a way - i've self certified for quite a few specialities but have never once been asked for log books or verification of relevant experience. I had to show my Adv. Trimix card applying for self-reliant instructor but that's it. Everything else immediately approved.

Yes I know the guy. Can't remember who told me the story, seeing him in action around Dahab you could well believe it!

You got self-reliant diver through you trimix cert? Well that may be one to add to bag.

The only time PADI have asked for proof was my cross over to DSAT, they wanted a: My Instructor card from IANTD b: copies of certs c: 20 logged deco dives....
... I did have hard time with the logged dives seeing as I stopped logging 6 years ago! Word of warning OP never stop filling in your logbook, it will com back to bite you in the ass sooner or later.

[Dive-aholic]

Last year I was thinking about doing wreck specialty. My instructor told me that it was pretty much a waste of time so I didn't do it.
However in the past I did Nitrox, Ice diving and drysuit and they were all useful. Rescue is also a must. Beside that, other specialties look to me as basket weaving

Can your instructor teach the wreck specialty. My guess is either no, or he just doesn't like diving wrecks.

I am planning on doing Nitrox and Wreck Diving for sure. I think one of the guys who teaches wreck diving, discovered a wreck near Rochester.

Just because someone dives wrecks, or has found a wreck, doesn't mean he knows how to teach the class. I know great cave divers that have no idea how to teach cave diving because they're just not teachers.

As a lifeguarding professional I felt like Rescue was fluff, but again, it truly is about the instructor. Most of my Rescue class was done in 4 ft of water (both in pool and on lakeshore) and I personally didn't feel like he was well enough trained to be teaching any rescue course and managed the class badly. It was really hard to get over, and to make matters worse, he hid his inadequacies poorly.

I've seen Rescue courses in which the instructor stood on shore and read the cue cards verbatim, including the "secret" parts and those were the scenario set ups. I was fortunate enough to have taken a great rescue course that was realistic. It was a camp out and we were eating breakfast when the final scenario began. Most of the drills were unannounced. The rescue course I now teach is very similar to that rescue course. That's the one really good thing my old recreational dive shop did.

[Rhone Man]

I have a boat load of specialties, but I am not sure how useful most of there are. Probably my favourites would be:
- Nitrox, because it lets me use nitrox
- U/W Navigation, because it really helped me refine my skills at the right stage of my development as a diver
- Drysuit, really enjoyed the challenges of something completely new in terms of bouyancy
- Wreck, mostly because I got to "know what I didn't know" about wrecks and penetration.

Most disappointing ones:
- Night
- Deep

One that I really wish was a deeper and more comprehensive course was U/W photography. It was fun, and I learned something. But I really felt a big subject got terribly superficial treatment. Why not stretch it to a 4 dive course?