Your favourite specialty courses

[Meggie66]

Hi, thanks so much for the responses, certainly some food for thought there. Sounds like bouyancy is the way to go.

All the best
M

 

[Herk_Man]

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

I think you meant to say, "... by fun the farthest."

 

[Druid]

If you have any interest in moving on to Dive Master, look at what specialties are required for that as a guide.

Off the top of my head, PADI requires as a pre-requisite Night and Limited Vis, Deep and Navigation.

The only prerequisites for DM are AOW and Rescue. Deep and Navigation dives are required for AOW, but you don't need to do the full speciality. Night dives are no longer required for AOW, but they were until a few years ago.

For my money, the only PADI speciality that's worth the money is nitrox, and possibly PPB. Spend the money on diving instead.

 

[OldNSalty]

If you live in Australia do you need Dry Suit?

I think night diving was fun-it was part of my AOW and I enjoyed that dive the most out of what was taught in that course.

 

[Meggie66]

If you live in Australia do you need Dry Suit?

I think night diving was fun-it was part of my AOW and I enjoyed that dive the most out of what was taught in that course.

Hoping I won't need a drysuit. I have a 6mm semi, yesterday the water temp was 18 degrees celcius (about 64 F) and I was just a mite chilly for comfort, but I'm hoping to get away with diving wet all winter by adding a shark skin and a hood. This'll be my first winter diving, so we'll see if I need to go dry or not - some do in Sydney. I'm told water temp gets down to 15/59 degrees.

All the best M

 

[Monkey_Gland]

My tuppence..

Drysuit so you can dive all year round
Nitrox for the extended bottom times and safety margin
Deep for your insurance company

 

[dwhthediver]

Meggie, to parrot a bunch of others, I would recommend starting with Peak Performance bouyancy, good bouyancy is the foundation for all diving, and with good bouyancy, a lot of other specialties are more fun. I love teaching PPB, deep, wreck, search and recovery, and photography, but everyone has different interests, and do what interests you

 

[Cave Diver]

Deep for your insurance company

[hijack]What difference does a deep specialty make in regards to insurance?[/hijack]

 

[UCFKnightDiver]

For that matter, what if anything does the deep specialty certification teach you about going deep?

 

[Sas]

I had to do four specialties to do my AOW (for SSI) and I did Night, Drift, Deep, Navigation.

I did nitrox later on seperately.

Basically, the specialties I did I could have learned on my own or with a mentor. Night and drift especially, you seriously don't need someone to teach you how to do it, just go with someone who has done it before. Deep was good in that it got me a card for charters, but seriously learning to dive to 40m with no deco training is pointless really. I never, even after having the card, ended up diving below 30m until I got deco training and redundant air supply. And navigation was just poorly taught for me, could be helpful if taught better - in the end I got taught by a friend so again it is something you can learn how to do without doing a course.

If I had to pick again I would pick:
-Fish ID - I love IDing fish and learning about them. It has been a slow process teaching myself though, so would have been nice to get a head start with a marine biologist (most courses I have seen are run by marine biologists or people who know heaps about marine life)
-Underwater photography - I taught myself how to take photos mainly and still have no idea about all the settings so would be nice to get experienced photographer to help
-Nitrox - card to show shops, nitrox theory I learned off the net but I got the card to show shops
-Boat Diver - 100% for the laughs.