In Reply to: Re: AAUS Class? Share some info with the unenlightened. posted by Josh.C on November 08, 2005 at 13:13:32:

I learned so much about diving in the 100 hours course at UCSB. Dennis Divins, recently retired, was my instructor and one of the finest people that it has been my pleasure to be acquainted with over the last 22 years of diving. He and a few other folks in SB were very kind to a neophyte diver and taught me much. I have tried to pay it back by participating in what Don Barthlemess at the SBCC Dive Program calls the "community of practice" wherein the beginners learn from the more experienced.

The Scientific Diving cert can also be a ticket to a lot of opporunities, most unpaid, but an adventure none-the-less and a real alternative to diving the same spots off the same cattle boats. When I gave up divemastering and running decks for boats from Port Hueneme to SB in 1988, the opportunities opened for me by the scientifc diving cert were phenomenal.