Do the divemaster course?

I'm wondering whether to do the DiveMaster course. I don't really have any interest in teaching so the question is, is it worth doing for the dive skills you learn, or is there a better training route for someone who simply wants to improve their dive skills.

Hi Barry, do you intend or want to lead dives? Doesn't have to be in a paid role but in a club situation or with your buddy will also apply. The skills from the dm course will help you to do this safely and effectively.

If you are not looking to lead dives or to go on to teaching at a later date, there are other courses that are likely to be more focussed to your needs. With PADI you can look at specialities that fit your intended diving in the future. For example, if you plan to dive deeper, the deep diving course can give you the skills and knowledge to dive deeper than the advanced course trains you too.

message me if you want any details on particular courses.

BarryNL:

I'm wondering whether to do the DiveMaster course. I don't really have any interest in teaching so the question is, is it worth doing for the dive skills you learn, or is there a better training route for someone who simply wants to improve their dive skills.

Click to expand...

If you become a DM and don't teach then your skills aren't going to get any better from just taking the course. If you teach as a DM then your basic skills will become cleaner looking over time because you have a lot of opportunities to practice them in the pool. So in other words becoming a DM doesn't help your skills but working as a DM does.

What you do pick up in the DM course is a fair amount of theory. Much of it is theory that you have had in various forms already but they go into it in a little more depth. If I'm not mistaken most diveshops will sell you the CD's without you having to take the course.

The main thing you're coming up against is that you've been taught most of the skills you will ever need as a recreational diver already. You can expand that a little bit by taking more specialties but there isn't much more than what you've already learned. Refinement, perfection, application, pushing boundaries in terms of which dives you're doing, yes. More skills..... it's limited in terms of what you can pick up in more specialties.

So which specialties do I think are most useful for an active Dutch diver (from the PADI list)?

Altitude diver - HA! in Holland?
Boat Diver - preparation for North Sea diving and for dive vacations in, for example, Egypt
Drift Diver - A must have for every Dutch diver. Chances are you had it already in AOW
Deep Diver - Prep for N Sea diving, a must
Dry Suit Diver - Prep for N Sea diving and lengthens your dive season significantly. A must for for any Dutch diver.
Diver Propulsion Vehicle - Not unless you really need to use one
Enriched Air diver - Mandatory for N Sea diving.
Equipment specialist - Handy for every self sufficient diver.
Ice diver - Waste of time in Holland
Multilevel Diver - With a good computer you're not going to get much out of this
Night Diver - You probably had this in your AOW, otherwise a must
Peak Performance Buoyancy - if you think your buoyancy control could use a little TLC. otherwise a waste of time.
The rebreather specialties - Only if you have more money than you can shake a stick at. I'm personally biased against rebreathers but some people swear by them. Divers who do a lot of video or photography could benefit from this.
Search and Recovery Diver - Handy for N. Sea diving
Underwater Naturalist - I think this is a handy course. It gives you some grip for identifying underwater life.
Underwater Videographer - If you think you'll be doing this.
Underwater Photographer - If you think you'll be doing this.
Underwater Navigator - Navigation isn't a big drama in Holland but it's handing in combination with the search and recovery specialty. You've already had the navigation adventure dive.
AWARE Fish Identification - like the underwater naturalist, I think it's handy if you're the type of person who likes to know what it is you're looking at.
Wreck Diver - Prep for N. Sea diving.

I think that's the whole list. Maybe this will give you some ideas.

If you're at the point where you're not interested in any more specialties and your dive skills are already totally squared away then there are some technical specialties you can take. One of the most useful for Dutch diving is Advanced EANx. In Holland that's usually combined with the IANTD deep diver specialty and it teaches you the basics of staged decompression diving. The reason it's so useful for Dutch divers has everything to do with the N. Sea. It's all perfect depths for making technical Nitrox dives and you can pretty much double your bottom time for these dives. Even on shore dives you can extend your dive time from an hour (typical for the Oosterschelde or Grevelingen) to 2 hours or more. At the same time, you're making bigger dives and getting home earlier than you were on two tank days...... Just a thought. For me this was relevant.

The down side of going technical is the money. Depending on what you have on gear at the moment you'll be out a pretty penny by the time you're ready to do the dives. On the other hand it also opens up all kinds of new possibilities.

Does that help?

R..

I am going to say it first. I have to.

The DIR-F course is possibly the most comprehensive, basic skills course available. If your looking for nothing but becoming a safer, more competent diver I don't think you'll find a course more suited to your needs.

You can rent stuff to meet the gear requirements.

I agree with the comments above. I took the course to increase my diving knowledge under a mentoring environment and got a lot out of it. In retrospect, I would have probably gotten equal benefit from reading the Encyclopedia of Diving Knowledge and working through the questions in the Diving Knowledge Workbook.

For me, it was a good decision, since working on my knowldege within the course framework helped me organize my activities and forced me to do the things that I kept putting off, like stamina swims and underwater mapping.

And I agree, at least in principle, about DIR-F. I love the book but haven't had the opportunity to take the course yet. It's planned for the future, though...

Safe ascents,
Grier

Why not just become a Master Scuba Diver instead?

JimC:

I am going to say it first. I have to.

The DIR-F course is possibly the most comprehensive, basic skills course available. If your looking for nothing but becoming a safer, more competent diver I don't think you'll find a course more suited to your needs.

You can rent stuff to meet the gear requirements.

Click to expand...

The original questoin was about acquiring new skills. You translated that into becoming a safer more competent diver. I wonder if that's the same thing....

DIR-F has a place but in acquiring specific new skills for practical diving application I'm not sure it's always the best choice. I know it's a standard answer to these kinds of situations but specialties may just be more to the point depending on what he's after.

Anoter difficulty in the Netherlands is that DIR-F isn't given very often and the Dutch DIR crowd are by and large a pretty isolated group so finding DIR buddies is next to impossible unless you commit to pretty much stop diving with anyone else.

R..

BrianS:

Why not just become a Master Scuba Diver instead?

Click to expand...

I was going to say the same. The Master Diver program will require you to complete 5 specialties and if you choose the meaty courses with a good instructor you would learn a lot more than you would through a DM program. You would be exposed to more diving environments and more instructors in most cases. Seek out those with expertise in the given specialty.

--Matt

My personal opinon is if your not going to become an instructor or professional dive master don't spend your time and money.

If you want experience...go get wet

Diver0001:

The original questoin was about acquiring new skills. You translated that into becoming a safer more competent diver. I wonder if that's the same thing....

Click to expand...

..

or is there a better training route for someone who simply wants to improve their dive skills.

Click to expand...

I answered this question. DIR-F is exactly that, a way to improve dive skills. I don't think any one will refute that DIR-F does that.

Takeing a GUE course does not force you to stop diving with anyone. Take it for what it is, learn what you can from it and make your own choices when your done. Most divers will take something from the course, even if they decide to leave most of it on the cutting floor. Having passed a DIR-F, my primary dive buddy is still a computer wearing, flutter kicking diver that does not pratice her skills near often enough.