Why bother with the PADI Deep Diver course?

Once upon a time, there wasn't much in the way of deep diver training, so was it worth doing a PADI deep diver course? Even back a long time ago, the answer is no, the question may well be, how far back? Maybe the 1970s, I doubt the 1980s and definitely not the 1990s and beyond.

Did you learn new equipment configurations? No.

Did you follow customised dive tables? No.

Learn decompression software maybe? No.

Did you learn to perform in-water decompression stops? No.

You don't even require extended safety stops.

Learnt gas planning such as rule of thirds, turn pressures, respiratory minute volume, surface air consumption? No.

What about physiological aspects of deep diving; topics such as hypercapnia, nitrogen narcosis, blood perfusion or gas diffusion? No.

Decompression theory and on-gassing, off-gassing, m-values and the half-time concept. Learn how to identify decompression sickness and treatment for suspected decompression sickness. No.

So you used standard scuba equipment, learnt no new procedures, stayed within no-decompression limits, learnt no advanced dive theory or the use of decompression tables and/or software - ouch.

Keeping in mind PADI treats any dive deeper than 18 metres as a deep dive, you may be left feeling that this deep diving course lacks substance. You can even use the deep dive from the advanced open water course as a credit so your four dive course has now been reduced to three dives - exactly what you need to learn deep diving.

I never saw much value in going down to the bottom, kneeling down and looking at colour changes at depth and performing a timed task that you already did on the surface.

The answer is a resounding no, better to take a course from Technical Diving International, a competing dive certification agency and their Intro to Tech course.