Scuba - Diving Instruction and Certification
Early in your exploration of scuba diving you’ll run across the term ‘certification’. What is that, and do you need it?
Certification is the process of obtaining a certificate from a recognized diving school with authorized instructors. It’s the result of taking courses that teach scuba diving. Simple. Deciding whether you will want to invest the time and money to get certified is a little less so.
The two major diver training organizations are NAUI (National Association of Underwater Instructors) and PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors). Both have been in existence for decades and have approved facilities across the country.
NAUI was founded in 1959 and held its first Instructor Certification course in 1960. Those instructors then went on to teach others, who became instructors, and so on to the present day. Jacques Cousteau was at one time on the Board of Advisors, as have been many celebrities - such as Lloyd Bridges of early TV’s Sea Hunt fame - and divers renowned in the scuba diving world.
But what’s important is not the names that NAUI advertisements can display, but the quality of instruction in NAUI-certified schools. And, like any large organization, these vary. For the most part schools have highly qualified instructors with thousands of hours of real-life underwater experience.
On top of real diving experience, NAUI instructors themselves have attended and passed an array of courses. Those courses cover the breadth of diving - recreational, sport, technical… you name it. Instructors will acquire knowledge in the physics and physiology of underwater diving, equipment and its use, safety and all the other topics essential to good diving.
Instructions for students is a combination of self-study, classroom theory and practical guidance in pools and open water areas. Courses are offered at every level from absolute beginner to advanced technical diving of the sort U.S. Navy Seals receive.
Occasionally someone will hang up a shingle advertising themselves as a ‘qualified instructor’. But only NAUI-certified instructors are authorized to display or use in advertising the fact that they are NAUI certified.
Ditto for PADI-certified courses and instructors. PADI members teach the majority of recreational divers and issue almost a million certificates per year.
If you plan to take a class look for that, at minimum.
Anyone who ‘just wants to get into the water’ can do that. There are no laws against it. Although some dive shops won’t fill your tanks without seeing a certificate. But no one can stop you from committing suicide either though, oddly, there are laws against that in some jurisdictions.
Consider carefully whether you can experience a safe, enjoyable dive without some instruction. Diving is risky, even in lakes or smaller bodies of water. The risks of nitrogen narcosis, decompression sickness - not to mention the potential for unfriendly creatures or conditions underwater - and a host of other dangers are real and even likely to those who venture out without guidance.
At minimum, a novice diver should have an experienced buddy who can and will explain at least enough to minimize the risk of serious injury or worse. After all, you’re not born knowing that it isn’t safe to ascend from a 50-foot dive faster than 30 feet per minute.
It’s your life and it’s irreplaceable. Getting some instruction is well worth the few hours and a few hundred dollars it will cost you. Certification is good for life and good for your life.
Also See: Scuba Flippers
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