Available Learning Opportunities
Dive4Vets offers a variety of diver training and certificaiton courses. These include:
Open Water Diver
The Open Water Diver course is the first step in learning how to explore the 70 percent of our planet that is underwater.
- Vets who can master all of the required skills can become fully certified divers. This includes many paraplegics and those will limited use of one or more limbs.
- Those who cannot meet all the requirements for certification can still qualify to dive with a divemaster or instructor.
Almost any disabled vet can participate in diving at some level. Our mission is to help vets find that level and maximize the reward they get from the experience.
Refresher Training
Why is refresher training important?
- Many vets became certified divers prior to serving, only to have their diving careers interrupted by their time in uniform or the need for treatment afterward.
- Still others became certified after serving but have not been able to get in the water for up to a year or more.
In either case, it’s important to understand that:
- Diving is not like riding a bike. You cannot simply get on and start riding again without substantial risk.
- Added to this is the fact that if a vet has not been diving since being injured, he may need to learn new ways of performing what used to be common underwater tasks.
Refresher training is important for anyone who has been away from diving for six months or more. It is especially important for vets who may need to learn how to adapt to new physical limitations underwater.
Continuing Education
The Open Water Diver course is to scuba what basic training is to a serviceman’s time in uniform. It teaches the fundamentals and helps ensure a level of consistency on which to build. But it doesn’t really do much more than to prepare divers to be underwater sightseers who must be led around by others.
So, just as each brand of the service offers specialized training following basic, the dive community offers a variety of continuing education courses designed to tailor each diver’s knowledge and skills to their specific needs. These can cover topics ranging from underwater photography and video to wreck exploration and more.
Some disabled veterans have even gone on to become dive instructors, sharing their love of the underwater world with others.
You can get a better idea of what continuing education courses are available by clicking the button below.