Best and worst PADI distinctive specialties

[Peter Guy]

Best? At least around here, I'd vote for a friend's NW Critter ID -- 4 class sessions for reviewing slides of the critters and then 4 dives where you have to catalog what you see.

 

[TSandM]

One of the best classes, PERIOD, that I have taken, was a PADI distinctive specialty. It's a Puget Sound critter ID class taught through my original LDS. The guy who teaches it has over a thousand slides of the things that live here -- as juveniles, adults, mating, eating, whatever you can think of. His stated purpose is to "convince you that there is more in Puget Sound than giant Pacific octopuses and wolf eels". Taking his class added enormously to my enjoyment of every single dive here. To me, that class is a perfect example of what the distinctive specialty function was designed to allow people to do.

Somebody here, a couple of years ago, had a thread running to list all of the distinctive specialties anybody had heard of. Some of them sounded atrocious.

 

[hypertech]

Maybe I'm being unfair - natural suspicion of new age hippy stuff.

There is an interesting list of weird and wondeful specialty courses here:-

Distinctive Specialties | PADI Instructor News

I was also rather amazed by "Frogfish specialist" and "Indo-Pacific Nudibranch Specialty".

But I didn't want to turn this into a PADI-bash. I like the fact that there are really good distinctive specialties that ought to more mainstream.

Haha. I almost want to take the Underwater Basket Weaving so that I can have a card that says I am certified in Underwater Basket Weaving.

Anyone know where I can sign up?

 

[ameneon]

PADI Great Lake Monster Diver

Never taken the course, but I am guessing this must be the most useless course available...

 

[DiveNav]

...... - Underwater model (sheer genius!) ......

what is it?

 

[AndyNZ]

AndyNZ has a specialty titled something like "Self-Reliant Diver" that I think would be great.

Thanks, it is!!

If I'm ever in your area, I'll run you through the course!

I also now teach a PADI Advanced Wreck DS, though in reality it's more "intermediate" than advanced.

These are obviously the two best I have heard of!

I also quite like the idea of a Kayak Diver course.


Golf ball diver, sheeeeesh. Definitely the worst.

What about really good ones? I thought twin-set diver was a brilliant idea. Can't believe PADI haven't copied that generally.

It eats into the DSAT offerings - though maybe now that the DSAT brand is being removed from the TecRec courses there may be a bit more of a blurring of the boundaries.

 

[Aquatic Eagle]

i will add one that I have... "Aquarium Diver" the only upshot was the back end fish ID and education that came along with it.

That actually has the potential to be a great course for divers interested in what aquarium exhibit divers and aquarists do for a living. I've considered writing a course like that with actual aquarium dives included, background on scientific diving, education about the typical tasks done by aquarium divers, cleaning equipment and food prep and feeding procedures.

 

[idocsteve]

On my "to do" list is Bonn Terre Mine in St. Louis.

Reading the site I see a course is available for "Mine Certification".

My first and only thought that it's yet another way to squeeze a few bucks out of an unsuspecting diver for something they will never need.

 

[akdeepdiver]

I once saw a course that a shop was offering as "SMB Diver Specialty". The most humorous part was that after you shelled out the bucks for the class, you still needed to buy the safety sausage. They didnt provide it.

 

[Van Isle]

Every time I find myself laughing inside at a specialty diver of some sort, I meet a diver who has an honest to goodness need to be shown the ropes of that particular expertise and have everything explained to them for every different aspect of diving that they do, be it shore, boat, drift, night, deep, low vis, etc.

These divers I've met are safe, conservative, and dive well with in the limits that they have been taught. They have no time or inclination to be shop rats and therefore don't glean the kind of knowledge that you and I may take for granted just hanging around. If someone finds it worthwhile to spend $$$ X for education Y, power up. Be happy you don't have to.

VI