Diving Knowledge at Pro Level
As a professional, your knowledge is in demand
When you’re out with guests as a Divemaster or accompanying students in courses, you’re often the first point of contact for all kinds of questions: Why was my no-decompression limit over, but the other person still had 5 minutes? What can I do to improve my air consumption? How much weight should I take? And if I’d like to learn more, what would be the best next course?
You should be prepared for this and have a really good understanding of all areas of diving theory. Of course, not everyone needs to know everything perfectly; you’ll certainly have some topics that interest you more than others. That’s good: become a specialist in one area, whether it’s Deco, marine biology, equipment and simple repairs, dive medicine, or another field. And make sure you have at least a solid basic knowledge in all areas.
As an Instructor, this becomes even more important. You need to be able to explain things to divers in the different courses at a higher level, and you are allowed to directly teach Science of Diving. In that case, the content really needs to be solid.
Refresh your theory
Here you will find plenty of links to materials that will help you refresh and expand your knowledge.
If you want to know where you currently stand, you can take our Diving Theory – Pro Check Quiz. This is not an exam – it simply shows you which areas you might want to brush up on, and what you’re particularly good at.
Science of Diving
The basics of complete diving theory can be found in your SSI Science of Diving course. You should review it again and ask yourself: Have I understood this well enough to explain it to others?
Additionally, you will find several pages here that explain individual topics in different ways.
Decompression Theory
As a dive professional, you need to understand more about Deco than just being able to read your computer. How is desaturation modeled? What are the limits of supersaturation? What distinguishes computer algorithms from each other? And what happens in the body?
You can acquire this knowledge in our own Deco theory course.
Punkfish Academy on YouTube
The basics of complete diving theory can be found in your SSI Science of Diving course. You should review it again and ask yourself: Have I understood this well enough to explain it to others?
Additionally, you will find several pages here that explain individual topics in different ways.
Punkfish Library
A look beyond the horizon: In our library, we collect freely accessible research publications. Here you will find current guidelines on diving accidents, consensus papers from specialist medicine, studies on various questions, and much more.
Know the SSI Training System
In addition to basic diving theory, which is quite similar across all agencies, as an SSI professional, you must also know and be able to explain your training agency’s system well. Your advice is sought after when guests are considering a course after a try dive, or if they want to further their education.
If you’ve done most of your training through SSI so far, you’ll already have picked up quite a lot. If not, take some time to understand the structure.
Not sure how well you know your way around? Then you can use a short quiz to test where you stand.
SSI Professional Exam
Before starting any Pro training, you need to familiarize yourself with the SSI Training Standards. As soon as you start a Pro-level course, you’ll see the “SSI Professional Final Exam” in your courses. The name is a bit confusing: the program includes an overview of the most relevant standards, plus an exam on them. Everyone has to take this exam before a Pro certification, in addition to the actual program. You can easily include this part in your preparation and don’t have to wait until just before the end of the course.
The SSI system
On this page you’ll find an overview of the different components of the SSI training system. As a Divemaster, it’s enough to get an initial overview here; as an Instructor, you’ll find pointers to many things you’ll regularly need in your day-to-day work.
