Scuba Diving Buzz

Talk about recreational diving and the names that come up are PADI and NAUI, both top-of-the-line scuba diving instructor schools. Even scuba diving experts across the world will recommend PADI or NAUI to anyone who wants to become an expert in recreational scuba diving or anyone who wants to pursue a career as a scuba diving instructor. Is there really any difference? The truth is that there is some differnece, but you are bound to get a great education with either organization. To know these courses better, let us take a walk through PADI and NAUI to know who they really are.

PADI

PADI stands for Professional Association of Diving Instructors and is considered today to be the largest scuba diving training school for recreational diving. Started in 1966 by John Cronin and Ralph Erickson, PADI headquarters is in California, USA and it has 5,300 dive centers as well as resorts across the world. PADI has a global presence, which can be felt in almost 180 countries including offices in Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, Japan, the UK, and Australia. This is one of the reasons why PADI is more popular than NAUI.

One of the distinct advantages of a PADI course is that each of the recreational scuba diving courses has several modules and each of them focuses on development of practical diving skills as well as theoretical learning. The recreational diving certifications of PADI that we offer information on include:

• PADI Junior Scuba Diver
• PADI Skin Diver (Snorkeling)
• PADI Scuba Diver
• PADI Open Water Diver
• PADI Junior Open Water Diver
• PADI Advanced Open Water Diver
• PADI Adventure Diver
• PADI Rescue Diver
• PADI Master SCUBA Diver
• PADI Speciality Courses

NAUI

NAUI stands for National Association of Underwater Instructors and it is a US based non-profit Scuba dive training and certifying organization that focuses primarily on safe scuba diving through education.  Founded in 1959 by Neal Hess and Albert Tillman, NAUI had the inventor of Aqualung, Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau on their board of advisors. Respected for high standards, NAUI is the choice for US Navy Seals as well as NASA for scuba diving.

The headquarters of NAUI is situated in Tampa, Florida (US) and has the distinction of being ISO certified in 2007 for all the 3 diver as well as instructor levels. The NAUI recreational scuba diving certifications include:

• Junior SCUBA Diver
• Junior Skindiver
• Skindiver
• Junior Advanced SCUBA Diver
• SCUBA Diver
• Advanced SCUBA Diver
• Experienced SCUBA Diver
• Master SCUBA Diver