Well I have heaps of plastic cards and they look just rosy in my dive book, but I don't drag them out for people to see unless I am particularly asked for them. As mentioned in other posts here, the real diver is in the doing bit, not the plastic cards. That you have the cards means you have done the courses involved and AT THE TIME passed minimum standards set by the various organisations. I have my cards and am glad I got them as they mean something personal to me. Now does that make me a better diver, well because I was exposed to some good instructors and some new challenges, yes I think I am better off for some of them. I was also exposed to some very ordinary instructors as well with little challenge and that did not help me develop my dive skills then, but it did help me develop my own ethics in teaching and helping others. I am determined to do what I the best instructors do and NOT do what the slack ones did.
Now in getting to where I am now in diving, its up to me to work on maintaining my skills and exposing myself to all different styles and types of diving. Some people only dive 55m vis and 30C water, and most if not all are not "Good broad brush" divers, mainly as they have not been exposed to “normal” variations in conditions as they chose not to. I haven't been exposed to ice water and know I would suck at that. Coldest I have done is 10C in 6mm wetsuit for 3 hrs. I am not a bad diver but in the area of ice cold water and those extremes I am a novice. I have been exposed to 6” visibility, strong down and cross currents, upswells, surges, badly free flowing regs, loose tank, blown HP hose, split mouthpiece all which try your skills and ability in some way (and yes I do service my regs and look after my gear, some of these faults happened a few dives after the yearly service!!!).
I have a Master Diver card and a Dive Master card and tech cards, and the ones that have tried me the most are the DM card and the tech deep card. Mainly as your level of responsibility increases many fold. In DM you are now legally responsible for others who depend on you. I do NOT wish to have a death or accident on my conscience so I take this role seriously. Thus I have to be switched on all the time. With my tech cards, now the responsibility is on both myself and my dive buddy. If we get it wrong we could be in serious trouble or die.
I guess it depends on what you want from your diving, if you want to feel good about yourself that you have achieved more than the basic diver, MD card can do that, if you want to feel you are at a level where you wish to help others, then DM or instructor is the level for you. If you want to go deep safely then tech cards are the way to go. But remember this, it’s not the card that is your training, it’s your level of knowledge and skill in you and continual practice at it. Get the card and don't dive that way for 10 years and you could pay with your life or someone else's.
I still play at removing my mask, regs and swapping, shutting down cylinders etc off and on to keep skilled up. The fin that kicks your mask off doesn't give you 30 sec warning to prepare so when it happens if you have practiced, you can cope, if you haven't done it for 5 years maybe you won’t do so well. You need the cards to be allowed to do the dives, BUT you need the skills to actually do the dives safely. I don't care if someone thinks I am a wanker if they see my MD card, but I would care if they thought I was a wanker due to my bad diving skills. I think that's the real difference. If you want to get the card and it makes you feel good, go for it (as I did), but don't expect that everyone will bow down to you as they won't. Its more for you than anyone else. If you want better skills start now, even before you go for any cert cards, make yourself a better diver by reading up, talking about it and practice, practice practice.
