One of the great aspects of scuba is that you’re always learning, progressing, and evolving as a diver. There’s so much to learn, and the various recognition levels of scuba diving continuing education is the path to advancing your skills and abilities.
SSI offers ten scuba diving certification levels to help you progress in a methodical, safe, and effective way. What’s great about this approach is that the first four levels require a combination of both training and real diving experiences. It’s the application of new knowledge that proves that you’ve completed each level and are ready for the next SSI specialty scuba diving certification.
As you progress through the fifth level and beyond, the levels are focused on logged experience and numbers of dives, all the way through the ultimate scuba diving certification accomplishment – the Platinum Pro 5000 Diver!
The ten SSI scuba diving certification levels are:
Level One: Open Water Diver – six logged dives (one snorkel, four training, one “fun” dive)
Level Two: Specialty Diver – 12 logged dives, two specialty classes
Level Three: Advanced Open Water Diver – 24 logged dives, four specialty classes
Level Four: Master Diver – 50 logged dives, five specialty classes, including Stress & Rescue
Level Five: Century 100 Diver – 100 logged dives
Level Six: 200 Diver – 200 logged dives
Level Seven: Silver 300 Diver – 300 logged dives
Level Eight: Gold 500 Diver – 500 logged dives
Level Nine: Platinum 1000 Diver – 1,000 logged dives
Level Ten: Platinum Pro 5000 Diver – 5,000 logged dives
Although any one of the scuba diving recognition levels will progress your skills and abilities underwater, we highly recommend the Master Diver program as an important goal. It’s an ideal scuba diving certification program that’s designed to give you a powerful combination of real-world dives and useful knowledge. Also, our scuba instructors have found that divers tend to become more comfortable and confident with every dive after at least 50 logged dives.
If you look at each dive as increasing “strength” in your diving “muscles,” logging at least fifty dives is akin to reaching a high level of diving fitness that will help you to leverage all you’ve learned in the specialty course education. It’ a great way to increase your diving confidence and skills for better experiences with every dive!