Your favourite specialty courses

[Meggie66]

Hi everyone

I'm doing my Rescue Diver course shortly, and also want to do some specialties. What's the best specialty course you've done? I know favourite courses will depend on each individual's interests, but my problem is I want to do them all but need to prioritise because of cost/time. Love to hear your thoughts!

All the best
M

 

[RJP]

Hi everyone

I'm doing my Rescue Diver course shortly, and also want to do some specialties. What's the best specialty course you've done? I know favourite courses will depend on each individual's interests, but my problem is I want to do them all but need to prioritise because of cost/time. Love to hear your thoughts!

All the more reason to focus on your individual interests!

Do wrecks appeal to you? How about caves? No? Maybe photography! Or Search and Recovery? Dive in cold water - perhaps Dry Suit? Deep is always useful...if you currently or plan on diving deep. Navigation is a great skill to hone. With the right instructor Peak Performance Buoyancy can be a great class - one that the vast majority of divers could do well to take.

There's really so much you CAN do, that you really oughta start by focusing on what you WANT to do!

 

[Rescue Diver68]

I thought both wreck and Search & Recovery were great and great fun. What interests you?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Depending on how they're taught, Peak Performance Buoyancy and Deep Diver can be both fun and informative specialty classes.

But the choice really depends on what you're trying to get out of them.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[dkktsunami]

If buoyancy control is taught I think this would be the most important skill to learn and would have a positive effect on any other pursuit underwater. You can't really be taught photography or wreck diving in a dive or two but a good instructor can teach you proper buoyancy pretty quickly. And you aren't going to be very good at the other skills (photography, wreck, cave, etc.) without proper buoyancy. Also good buoyancy control will improve other areas of your diving, for example, reducing the amount of weight that you need to carry, increasing your comfort and control in the water, and reducing the amount of air that you use during the dive.

 

[TSandM]

I think navigation is a very good one, because navigation is a part of every dive. And even taught to the minimums, the navigation specialty has some useful practice in it.

The deep specialty could be a really instructive one, if it were taught beyond the prescribed minimum content. Frankly, most of the specialties, if taught to minimums, are pretty dubious.

 

[Bob DBF]

Buoyancy, Navigation, and Deep and Nitrox if you are going to use them.

I agree with TSandM "Frankly, most of the specialties, if taught to minimums, are pretty dubious." However, if you use them as a start, make your instructor work for his pay, and work with your buddies to perfect the skills, that would be called diving.

Bob
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I may be old but I'm not dead yet.

 

[H2O 70]

I don't know if you'd call rescue a specialty course, but for me that was by fun the funnest.

 

[goaliemn]

I really liked the equipment specialist. My instructor went through alot of the physics of how and why the gear do what they do, as well as equipment we could take apart and look at the insides easily. I'm a geek and loved the geeky info behind the gear

 

[Garrobo]

Boat dive.