Snowbear:... and it involved 6 dives over 2 days...Yes, it was a PADI class. How did you demonstrate bringing an unresponsive diver to the surface or doing a search pattern without diving? I've said before that my rescue class didn't improve my actual dive skills much, but it was definitely a worthwhile class. And it involved diving
I took Rescue with NAUI, and the only time we actually used SCUBA was for the submerged rescue. That takes a couple minutes. Everything else is on the surface. During one of the open water sessions there's an opportunity to actually log a dive, if you count sitting in a ring on the bottom for ten minutes demonstrating rescue ascents. Yeah!
I'd argue that the better your Rescue course, the LESS diving you do. Maybe PADI's program's a tad different. What on earth do you DO during these six PADI-mandated dives, besides take time away from all the surface work?
Oh well, I retract my facetious argument that PADI Rescue isn't an actual diving specialty. At the very least you strap on a tank.