IMO, most of those certifications are not worth "progressing through" and most C-cards have no practical utility, in the sense that nobody will ever ask for them. The only thing that matters is to have someone get you out of your comfort zone and help you find the things you could improve on. If the instructor did not make that effort, I would try to initiate that conversation before signing up for the next class. Personally, I have taken little out of formal courses. I have not learned anything about navigation until I started diving solo, and had to actually look around, and pay some attention. Like others in this thread, I also find it difficult to follow compass heading in current. As far as I can tell, navigation is all about identifying and remembering waypoints, which for me at least, at my present skill level, translates to gradually getting familiar with the site by progressively exploring it.
Was my Nav course necessary?
- Thread starter richboslice
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IMO, most of those certifications are not worth "progressing through" and most C-cards have no practical utility, in the sense that nobody will ever ask for them. The only thing that matters is to have someone get you out of your comfort zone and help you find the things you could improve on. If the instructor did not make that effort, I would try to initiate that conversation before signing up for the next class. Personally, I have taken little out of formal courses. I have not learned anything about navigation until I started diving solo, and had to actually look around, and pay some attention. Like others in this thread, I also find it difficult to follow compass heading in current. As far as I can tell, navigation is all about identifying and remembering waypoints, which for me at least, at my present skill level, translates to gradually getting familiar with the site by progressively exploring it.
WarrenZ
The Ultimate Bad Example
For what it's worth any class is only what you get out of it even if it is just a class you are taking to satisfy the requirements of another class.
One example is I once got thrown out of a Deepdiver class for wearing my drysuit for a class dive without a drysuit card if I had my drysuit cert. If I had my cert card for drysuit which I saw no need for at the time it was offered to me I would have never switched agencies and followed the training path I have.
One example is I once got thrown out of a Deepdiver class for wearing my drysuit for a class dive without a drysuit card if I had my drysuit cert. If I had my cert card for drysuit which I saw no need for at the time it was offered to me I would have never switched agencies and followed the training path I have.
gcarter
Contributor
Short version: AOW and EAN are good to have to do the dives you want. Rescue is a personal growth course worth doing. Everything else depends on the instructor and what you want to get out of it.
But none of them are required.
OP
richboslice
Registered
AfterDark
Contributor
Was your nav course worth it? Probably not, especially if you are familiar with a compass already.
I learned land nav and then underwater nav by reading and doing. Learning to read the bottom, the intensity of ambient light, correcting for currents, counting fin kicks, etc. are things that are best learned and understood completely by doing. How many underwater nav classes use pace beads to keep track of distance? I don't use the beads on every dive but if I need to know how far I've gone during a search for example it's good to have them. Sitting in front of a PC taking an online class isn’t going to do much for anybody that can use a compass
I learned land nav and then underwater nav by reading and doing. Learning to read the bottom, the intensity of ambient light, correcting for currents, counting fin kicks, etc. are things that are best learned and understood completely by doing. How many underwater nav classes use pace beads to keep track of distance? I don't use the beads on every dive but if I need to know how far I've gone during a search for example it's good to have them. Sitting in front of a PC taking an online class isn’t going to do much for anybody that can use a compass
WarrenZ
The Ultimate Bad Example
I jumped from PADI to TDI. TDI didn't require the deep diver certification.
I had actually drove 4 hours to the dive site geared up and was walking into the water for deep dive dive 1. The instructor came up to me and asked to see my cert card for the drysuit I was wearing. Since I never paid for the cert card when I had my opportunity after buying the drysuit I was told that PADI standards would not allow me to dive my suit in class and I was not interested in paying the dive shops ransom in order to move on to tec I found another agency.
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WarrenZ
The Ultimate Bad Example
This is the same shop that does a combined confined and open water dive for their OW classes (1 or 2 Confined water dive exercises are done in a pool the rest are mixed in with the OW portion of the certification weekend) They have a air check proudly displayed in their shop that is over 3 years old and have no idea about how nitrox works. So it is an interesting Shop and Instructors but when you are the only shop in town......
They are not only in violation of PADI standards, but also safety standards. They should be reported and closed down. Better no shop be open than one operating like that.
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