The first Certification for a Scuba Diver is called Open Water Diver

In this course you will learn the fundamentals of Scuba Diving including good basic skills to successfully and safely dive, equipment basics and finally understand some of the effects scuba diving has on us physically.

The course is a combination of online academics, basic skills and gear instruction and finally your first Open Water dives where you get to demonstrate what you have learned.

Perfect Buoyancy will pickup where Open Water left off. We will focus on dialing in your weight and trim. We will focus on how your gear and your breathing effect you in the water column.

Since diving is all about buoyancy and we care deeply about the reefs on which we dive, this course will improve your control of yourself while diving.

Since finding our way back to our boat is pretty important to us, we then turn our attention to Navigation. While you learned the basics of using a compass underwater to find your way around, this course will provide the opportunity to practice with more difficult navigation problems, as well as introducing the effects of current on our diving – yes Set/Drift matter underwater. We will also learn how to use underwater landmarks to guide us to and from our objectives.

Diver Stress and Rescue is the course where we get to explore scenarios involving when things don’t go so well and how to safely recover from that situation. It’s a great course for a couple or a family to take to work as a team and build confidence in each other as you work through the various problems. Again we will focus the scenarios around your boat so you can incorporate those lessons learned into your own diving procedures.

The React Right course is paired with Stress and Rescue as it focuses on CPR, First Aid and O2. It also will prepare you to use an AED. We will talk about the AED as part of your boat kit. Everyone should be certified to administer CPR and since you will likely want O2 on board to handle emergencies, this course will provide the necessary certification to buy and have O2 cylinders filled. This course can be taught as either an initial certification or a refresher (every 2 years). Your insurance company may even give you a bit of a break on your premium based on having this course

Night & Limited Visibility

This is one of my favorite diving activities. I love watching critters and at night the reef residents completely change as the daylight critters seek places to hide to rest and the night time residents emerge. This is the time to see lobsters, crabs, shrimp and octopus.

But since this is a more risky environment, it’s important we get some more training to go into it safely!

Waves, Tides & Currents

This specialty is designed to prepare you to safely dive in water that is moving. We all know how dangerous a Rip current can be. We will often be diving in water that has some flow to it and when that’s the case we need to take special precautions to enable us to safely get back to our boat!

Wreck Diving

What’s cooler than exploring the remains of someone else’s misfortune? Everyone loves a great story of how some vessel met its watery demise and to go see the remains of that vessel years later is pretty amazing. Brownie and I have amazing memories of diving on a U-Boat from World War II off of Moorehead City in North Carolina.

Diving on wrecks is very dangerous. These 2 specialties are designed to make you aware of those dangers, and to learn the use of special gear and procedures to safely explore a wreck inside and out!

Search and Recovery

We have all donated stuff to Neptune from our boats. This is the course to learn how to dive search patterns and then, for heavy items, how to safely lift them to the surface.

Finding something lost overboard is exhilarating and can frankly save some money. Having said that, there are plenty of occasions when something is lost overboard even in a shallow calm anchorage and all the searching possible simply wasn’t enough to find it. But let’s focus on the positive and this is the course to give you the best chance of success!

Fish ID

This course is focused on how to figure out if that was a Wrasse, Shark or Angel Fish…..

Shark Ecology

Sharks have gotten a bad rap over the years especially after the wild success of the Jaws movies.

Unfortunately for our oceans, that led to shark hunting for sport and Shark Fin soup.

Sharks are a vital part of the overall marine ecosystem and without them, our reefs and oceans will become very unhealthy.

We will also learn how to dive safely with them.

Coral Identification

This is a fascinating course as we explore what coral is (and is not), its importance to the health of the oceans and our planet. We also get to explore the different types of coral, their place in the ecosystem and how to properly interact with a coral reef.

Sea Turtle Ecology

We are all aware of how endangered Sea Turtles are. It is illegal to capture, kill and eat Sea Turtles now in most countries.

Encountering a turtle in the water is exciting and if you want to win a photo contest involving underwater critters with other divers, you can’t go wrong with a great pic of a sea turtle.

We will learn about the life and times of the various types of sea turtles we are likely to encounter while diving.

Manta & Ray Ecology

Manta & Ray Ecology delves into the world of the Manta, Sting and Eagle Rays as well as some of the other lesser known members of this part of the marine animal kingdom.

Rays and their close relatives, sharks, have been around for hundreds of millions of years. Some species emerged long before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, yet we know surprisingly little about these majestic creatures including how old they get, when they mature, and how far they migrate. When you think of a ray, what image comes to mind? Is it a southern stingray lurking beneath the pearl white sand, or a majestic spotted eagle ray hovering over a large coral block? Perhaps it’s the grandfather of them all, the giant manta ray, which can measure six meters from fin tip to fin tip and glides through the open ocean like an owl cutting through the silence of an evening chill.

In this program, you’ll explore what makes a ray a ray, distinguish how they differ from sharks, locate where they live, discover what they eat, and learn how to identify one ray from the next.

Marine Invertebrate Ecology

Invertebrates are animals that lack a spine. They were the first animals to exist on Earth and have been here for over 500 million years. They make up most life found on the planet and are an important part of the health and well-being of our planet. In this program, we will look at the different types of invertebrates that are found in the ocean and discover why these creatures are an integral part of their ecosystems.

Scientists estimate that invertebrates
make up between 90% and
97% of all life on Earth.

Marine invertebrates remove
parasites from fish, clean algae
from coral reefs, filter particles
and debris from the water, assist
in the cycling of nutrients, and
fulfill many other important
roles in their ecosystems.

Marine Mammal Ecology

Marine mammals are a diverse group of animals that inhabit all of the world’s oceans. They are united by their common dependence on the ocean and their reliance on marine environments for feeding and survival. In this program, you’ll explore the great diversity of marine mammals, what makes a marine mammal distinct, distinguish how they differ from land based mammals, locate where they live, discover what they eat, learn how to identify one marine mammal from the next and discover how we can protect marine mammals.

Science of Diving

OK this is going to sound strange, but this is one of my favorite classes to teach. We get to pull the covers back and look at the Physics and Physiology of diving in greater detail. Why is this important? Well you are going to run across those situations where you are going to see or experience something and the big WHY???? is going to be screaming at you from behind your mask. We are going to take the time to explore the how, so when you get to the why question, you will already know the answer!

Besides, this course will delve into the why behind the theory, so you will be a more informed diver.

Full Face Mask Diving

So believe it or not, this is one of my favorite pieces of my kit. It allows me to nose breath, have better visibility and virtually no water inside my mask. If it’s fitted with a comm transmitter, I can even talk to another diver underwater.

Dry Suit Diving

OK so I don’t expect to get too many takers on this one while we are in the Caribbean due to the temps of the water, but if you are going somewhere where the water is less than 70 and certainly less than 60 degrees a Dry Suit should be something you want to learn how to use. I hate being cold. My dry suit is my go to piece of gear anytime I need 5mil or more of wetsuit protection.

Enriched Air Nitrox

Most other divers looking at this page have wondered why this course isn’t featured much earlier. Well for those of us diving off of our own boats, Nitrox is not something we can make easily on our own. Yes if we pay someone to provide tanks, they can provide us nitrox, but the point is to be diving for next to nothing on our own boat!

Yes, I can teach nitrox, but we will need access to nitrox filled cylinders and an analyzer to complete the course.

Oh, for the rest of you, the gas known as Nitrox is composed of a higher percentage of oxygen than our atmosphere. Since there is less nitrogen present (more oxygen instead), we accumulate nitrogen in our systems slower, thus giving us more bottom time. We just can’t go as deep. I will explain all of that in detail in this course as well as Science of Diving.

By the way – when Brownie and I are doing lots of repetitive diving on a dive vacation, we use Nitrox.

Independent Diving

This is the controversial course. All of our training to date has focused on the need for a dive buddy. Well this course is going to focus how to safely and successfully dive on your own – no buddy. It takes special (and extra) gear, special precautions and has a prerequisite of 50 logged open water dives.

Photo and Video

This is the starting point of what I have found to be the most challenging and rewarding activity I can do underwater. This course will focus on the basics of light, buoyancy, the camera and its use and how adding a camera effects your task loading.

I do ask that you save this course for a bit later in your training so that you have the instilled in your underwater experience great skills and habits so that when we place a camera in your hands you can continue to be a safe diver that can operate in a delicate environment without damaging it. No picture is worth dying for or damaging reef that will take centuries to recover.

I am also a stickler on your picture composition involves no touching! If the composition isn’t exactly right, you don’t get to reach down and move something!

Dive Guide

This certification was created to create professional dive guides without the need to take Science of Diving. A dive guide can only lead certified divers, they can not provide any instruction. This certification was created to meet the needs of dive shops in places where local divers did not have access to the education to enable them to be successful with the Science of Diving course material but grew up diving and likely have more dives than most of us combined.

Divemaster

So really the only difference between Divemaster and Dive Guide is that Divemaster requires completing the Science of Diving course.

Now having said that, Divemasters can teach certified divers some specialties and can assist instructors with some of the skills during Open Water training.

Towards that end, if you wish to become a Divemaster, we are going to be spending a lot of time learning how to present instructional material the SSI way and also improving your diving skills and their underwater presentation so that you are providing the best example to new students that you can possibly be.

I look forward to helping you start on your professional journey!