Badges Can Be Misleading

When you first qualify to dive and become an Open Water Diver, you are encouraged to take a second course and become an Advanced Open Water Diver. If you do, you have "advanced" a little from the beginning but are still not an advanced diver. Webster's defines it as 'being beyond the elementary or introductory level."

When divers proudly boast they are an Advanced Open Water Diver, most other divers know this doesn't amount to much unless they have made scores of dives in varied conditions.

So what's a PADI 'Master Scuba Diver'? A master is defined as someone showing great skills and proficiency.

Eyebrows were raised when, in early February, a 12-year-old East Greenwich girl, Mia Dupont, became New England's youngest Junior Master Scuba Diver. She's the second 12-year-old to gain the certification in the U.S.

To qualify, one must log 50 hours underwater, be certified as a PADI Rescue Diver, and have studied the PADI Encyclopedia. Mia topped it off with 20 hours underwater on a trip to Cozumel.

I wouldn't argue with her that her certification didn't mean she was capable of diving in all sorts of environments because she is also a blackbelt at judo. However, I doubt that she is a highly capable diver. After all, every parent knows that no matter how capable, competent, and smart their 12-year-old child is, they have a long way to go to become emotionally mature and have solid judgment, both of which are essential to safe diving.

Is this just another example of over-hyped PADI certification titles? Mia's an ambitious young woman, and I wish her well with her diving career. Most of us long in the tooth know that we continue to learn on every dive we do, and it's when things don't go according to plan our mettle is tested. Master Scuba Diver is a lofty title that could lead to over-confidence.

I hope she doesn't experience any character-building moments such as I've faced (such as a newly certified dive when I found myself alone in a wreck at 60 feet with a rented upstream regulator that had jammed shut) before she is mature enough to handle them.

What do you think?

-- John Bantin

Write to BenDDavison@undercurrent.org