Spent the weekend at Blue Hole, NM diving. Completed my Divemaster candidacy on Saturday, and yesterday I finished 3 more specialties, and will get the Master Scuba Diver rating. And the final milestone, I made dive #100!

Wasn't going to bother with the MSD rating, but it looks good to students, and I believe in leadership by example. Since I'm going to be an instructor, it'll be an added thing to show students they can do.

I'll post pictures later, when I'm on a wifi signal.

...you can do all that on100 logged dives these days?

Divemaster requires 40 to start, 60 to complete. I had around 70 when I started the DM program. Master Scuba diver requires 50 dives, and 5 specialties.

Like I said, I wasn't really going to bother with MSD, but it's a good example for students. I'll be going into the Instructor Development Course at the end of August.

I watched a team of Sheriff's deputies go from Rescue and no Specialties to Master's in a single day. I don't think you should be able to start DM with less then 200 dives,  but people lie anyway.

Where are you going for your IDC?

I'm taking it with my local shop, Underwater Connection. It's part of the VA Program. I'm going to miss the Sept. IE, so I'll DM and AI till the Nov. IE.

Great work. Which specialties did you do for your MSD?


If you do the same specialty dives you did for AOW, you have a good portion of your MSD knocked out in advance.
MSD is 5 (or more) specialties. Not to take anything away from the accomplishment, just saying it's like the merit badge collector scuba diver.

I'm not sure dive count is the most accurate way to determine someone's readiness for DM. I've seen some assed up DM's (and instructors) with far more than 200 and I've seen AOWs with less than 200 who are great in the water.

If someone is certifying people in Rescue, Specialties, and MSD in a single day, and they're PADI, I'm pretty sure they're violating General Standards & Procedures for linking courses by doing that.

They had rescue.  4 in water specialties and equipment specialist.  Yes, they were violating standards.  Yes,  they were reported. No,  PADI didn't care.

I specifically hate logging my dives. I hate paperwork. Logging dives feels like work. The part I hate most about teaching is the paperwork. I love teaching, hate paperwork.

I wouldn't log dives if I had to hand jam them into a book.
Fortunately most computers worth their salt connect to your PC and dump all of the information for you.

I haven't started teaching yet but I know I'm going to hate the paperwork already.

[url=http://www.ar15.com/member/user.html?id=28096]pathfinder74[/url] so far I've done Deep, Altitude, PPB, EANx, Night and Multilevel. As part of the VA program, our shop mandates 10 specialties. The ones that I have left are Drysuit, Search and Recovery, Navigation and Equipment. I'll have all of those wrapped up by Aug 5.

Before the IDC, I plan on DM'ing as much as I can swing, building more experience.

Good DMs and instructors are great at customer service. Listening and adjusting to the student's needs regardless if they are the most frustrating people in the world. Knowing when they need more direct interaction vs alone practice time. Guiding people to the equipment they need and works for them not the one that will get you the highest commission.

I won't be working directly in the sales area, but of course, customers always ask what gear we prefer to dive with. Thankfully, I've had years of customer service experience, so it's not something new to me. Amazing whato listening to a customer, and knowing the gear you sell, can do to make someone happy.