Specialities?

[Rickk]

I am of the school of thought that the only specialties to get are those that give you a c card required to do some types of dives that you want to do. Examples are deep, nitrox, ice, cave and wreck dives. You are likely to be asked to show your card at a reputable dive operator to do these dives. Having them may also be a requirement to maintain your insurance, for example my health insurance covers me to 40 m provided I have the necessary training and certification so I am covered because I have my deep cert.

A second specialty worth getting would be where the skills learned are beneficial and the specialty is a cost effective way to get them. In my case I took the equipment specialty and O2 specialty for that. In your individual case some others may be beneficial, search and recovery possibly?

The majority of the specialties offered, by all agencies, are skills and knowledge that you will never have to prove to do a dive and are ones that are more cost effective to get in other means.

For example boat and shore dives specialty. What can you learn on these that you will not get in a bunch of dives since every dive is either a boat or shore dive. Just pay attention to the basics that you got on your OW course and pay attention to more experienced divers and if in doubt just ask. You will quickly have the skills and ability to be competent on doing these types of dives and will have saved a couple hundred USD by not taking the course.


Same for underwater fish ID, dive against debris, drift diving, peak buoyancy etc. If you cannot get the knowledge you need by doing, doing some research and just talking to other divers then you always have the option of asking an instructor or a knowledgeable person for a couple dives dedicated to helping you. Offer to pay for a couple dives for me and I will dedicate the underwater time to helping you on your buoyancy control. Hell offer to buy me a beer post dive and that should do it.

I am not saying never take these specialties, for you it may be the best way to gain the skills, just realize that the specialty card afterwards is relatively meaningless. It won't allow you to do these types of dives, you can do them anyway. It won't gain you a lot of respect in the diving community, most likely the opposite, as it comes down to actually demonstrating the skills in the water that gets you the respect of other divers not having a wallet full of cards.

 

[TMHeimer]

Good information that will benefit a new diver. Others on SB are probably aware of these points and agree with you.
I will mention that I have dived on wrecks (not penetration) without being asked to show my Wreck card, been to 120' on a charter before I was Deep certified, and encouraged twice to go solo due to logistics without having the Solo/Self Reliant card (still don't). Also, my first boat dive after OW was to 78' before I had my AOW (this was an instructor's idea who happened to be on board teaching an AOW course). So I don't know how likely you will be asked to show certain cards.

 

[Rickk]

I am seldom asked for cards, however a reputable dive shop will (should) ask for (or about) them before taking you deep, wreck (penetration anyway), or giving you a tank of nitrox.

 

[BlueTrin]

I am seldom asked for cards, however a reputable dive shop will (should) ask for (or about) them before taking you deep, wreck (penetration anyway), or giving you a tank of nitrox.

I think it depends of the country and the way you book your dives.

 

[KenGordon]

I am of the school of thought that the only specialties to get are those that give you a c card required to do some types of dives that you want to do. Examples are deep, nitrox, ice, cave and wreck dives. You are likely to be asked to show your card at a reputable dive operator to do these dives. Having them may also be a requirement to maintain your insurance, for example my health insurance covers me to 40 m provided I have the necessary training and certification so I am covered because I have my deep cert.

A second specialty worth getting would be where the skills learned are beneficial and the specialty is a cost effective way to get them. In my case I took the equipment specialty and O2 specialty for that. In your individual case some others may be beneficial, search and recovery possibly?

The majority of the specialties offered, by all agencies, are skills and knowledge that you will never have to prove to do a dive and are ones that are more cost effective to get in other means.

For example boat and shore dives specialty. What can you learn on these that you will not get in a bunch of dives since every dive is either a boat or shore dive. Just pay attention to the basics that you got on your OW course and pay attention to more experienced divers and if in doubt just ask. You will quickly have the skills and ability to be competent on doing these types of dives and will have saved a couple hundred USD by not taking the course.


Same for underwater fish ID, dive against debris, drift diving, peak buoyancy etc. If you cannot get the knowledge you need by doing, doing some research and just talking to other divers then you always have the option of asking an instructor or a knowledgeable person for a couple dives dedicated to helping you. Offer to pay for a couple dives for me and I will dedicate the underwater time to helping you on your buoyancy control. Hell offer to buy me a beer post dive and that should do it.

I am not saying never take these specialties, for you it may be the best way to gain the skills, just realize that the specialty card afterwards is relatively meaningless. It won't allow you to do these types of dives, you can do them anyway. It won't gain you a lot of respect in the diving community, most likely the opposite, as it comes down to actually demonstrating the skills in the water that gets you the respect of other divers not having a wallet full of cards.

Setting time and dives aside just for the purpose of learning is different to picking up stuff as you go along. I teach as a volunteer and so there is no money involved, indeed if I am teaching I am using up time I might spend doing proper dives. However it is worth while taking the time to have dives dedicated to a particular skill, following a set syllabus. You get to cover a bunch of things that have been thought through more thoroughly than in a couple of minutes before jumping in. The classic example is buoyancy. After a lot of dives a new diver will improve, but by having a couple of dives dedicated just to those skills speeds that up.

 

[J-Vo]

In my opinion, the best class you can take after AOW is to find a good tech instructor to teach you skills fundamentals.

As for C cards, the only Ones I have ever been asked for are OW, Trimix, and Cave. Sport specialties are not required. Those dives typically come with the "or equivalent experience" qualifier.

 

[scubadada]

Other than OW, the only cards I've ever needed to produce for dives are AOW, nitrox, and solo. My DPV card has allowed me to rent DPVs without 1st having to do a guided/observed dive with the operator.

I have a few other cards, nobody has ever asked to see them. The best "specialty" course I've ever taken was a fish ID/behavior class called "Diving with the Naturalist", with Jerry Ligon (RIP ), in Bonaire, in 2008. The principles I learned during this class have served me faithfully for the last dozen years. There was no card associated with this class, just priceless knowledge and experience

 

[Angelo Farina]

Specialities are a modern thing. I did my training in years 1975 to 1982, and there were no specialities. I reached the maximum degree available at the time (CMAS three-stars instructor) and worked as a professional instructor until the end of 1989.
After that I continued diving till now, in several places of the world, and no one ever asked me for a speciality card. I was allowed to dive caverns, caves, wrecks, night dives, under the ice, etc... I did take part to underwater photography concourses, and I am working as a scientific diver since 20 years.
I have no plans to get any speciality course in the next future...

 

[tursiops]

A second specialty worth getting would be where the skills learned are beneficial and the specialty is a cost effective way to get them. In my case I took the equipment specialty and O2 specialty for that. In your individual case some others may be beneficial, search and recovery possibly?

The majority of the specialties offered, by all agencies, are skills and knowledge that you will never have to prove to do a dive and are ones that are more cost effective to get in other means.

You use cost-effective as your criterion. perhaps you should add time-effective, and also don't-make-dumb-mistakes-effective. In the first category might be a class like Fish or Coral Identification, where the instructor has sorted through voluminous material to pare it down to what you are most likely to see in the location where you are diving. Yes, you could learn that on your own, but the time it would take is ridiculous. The second category is a class like Search-and-Recovery, or Dry Suit, where you have the possibility of seriously hurting yourself if you screw up. To be sure, you can learn a lot by repeating dumb mistakes others have made, but it is hardly efficient and also suffers from Dunning -Kruger issues.....you don't know what you don't know.

 

[boulderjohn]

I did my training in years 1975 to 1982, and there were no specialities.

That may be true in your area, but specialties were long established by then. The master diver certification, which requires a certain number of specialties for the agencies that offer it, is about 50 years old now.