Taking PADI Courses at Night?

[JipThePeople]

I OW (PADI), AOW (NAUI), and Night Diver (PADI) Specialty - Does PADI allow me to take other specialty courses (wreck, navigation, search and recovery, etc.) at night since I have the night certification?

[thesmoothdome]

I don't think there's anything against it. I've never really heard of instructors doing skill dives at night outside of night diver though.

[Vercingetorix]

This just begs the question: Why would you want to do that?

[obrules15]

The issue is having an instructor take you out. It seems to me to be overkill. Isn't it best to learn in optimal conditions and then expand your horizens once you get a little practice in. Personally I am not fond of night diving even though it is beautiful because I don't like the cold and dark but once you take the specialties there is no reason you couldn't go back and practice the skills at night.

[bsktcase93]

sometimes learing in the worst conditions makes you a better at what your training

[navyhmc]

One of the most important things about learning to dive and then advancing yourself beyond OW, no matter what organization you go with is to not get into task overload. If you think about it, with the exception of very few folks, if you started a OW class with having the students do everything that's required of them in the first dive of their open water check out, probably near 100% will fail and 70% would not return for the next class. That to me is the most important thing in the instruction, go at a pace that the average student will learn and retain the lessons. Do not task overload.

Given that you would be just learning the skills in the courses you want to take, wanting to do the dives at night will in and of itself put you into task overload. I will admit that the last dives of the navigation and search and recovery course would lend themselves to a night dive, I would not start with the first dives at night.

And with the wreck diving course? While I have not taken it, I would venture a guess that trying to do the training dives for this specialty at night would be very fool hardy given the nature of the risks involved even while taking the training during the day.

Not questioning your skills or abilities, just my thoughts on the matter.

And all that said, good luck and I hope you do well and enjoy the courses.

[Dive-aholic]

Once you have gained experience in night diving, there isn't a particular standards that disallows doing other training dives at night. However, the particular specialties you list aren't practical dives to be doing at night.

It's not likely you will get a boat to head out to a wreck at night. I have done wreck dives at night, but those were either from a liveaboard or a chartered night dive off the Jersey coast. The wreck specialty is a 4 dive course. It's not likely you'll find an instructor who will be willing to head out 4 different nights to complete the course.

The navigation specialty requires you to swim a few different courses, the first 2 in which you must find your starting point and the third where you must follow an unknown course set up by your instructor. It can be a difficult course during the day. It's not likely you would find the marker at night with a standard OW recreational dive light.

The S&R specialty requires bringing objects to the surface. Dives like this are not done by experience search & recovery divers at night because of the risks involved. It's not likely you'll find an instructor willing to teach it at night.

You might be able to complete a buoyancy, naturalist, fish ID, photography, etc specialties at night, just not the ones you have listed. But good luck finding an instructor that willing to work into the night, and a dive site in your area that will stay open that late.

[SynCitizen]

I know its not quite what the OP was asking, but... can you overlap courses?
IE., doing night specialty dives in conjunction with dry suit or nitrox at the same time? Or would that be situational overloading as well?

[CompuDude]

Originally Posted by SynCitizen

I know its not quite what the OP was asking, but... can you overlap courses?
IE., doing night specialty dives in conjunction with dry suit or nitrox at the same time? Or would that be situational overloading as well?

Yes, it's done all the time, especially with Nitrox. Aside from keeping track of your depth more closely, there's no difference between diving air and Nitrox. I doubt many courses are done in conjunction with the Night specialty, however, for the reasons others have given above. Wreck-Nitrox-Drysuit is a combo I've seen many times before, but not at night.

[navyhmc]

Originally Posted by SynCitizen

I know its not quite what the OP was asking, but... can you overlap courses?
IE., doing night specialty dives in conjunction with dry suit or nitrox at the same time? Or would that be situational overloading as well?

An instructor should chime in on this issue, but my understanding is that the same dive can not be used for multiple courses. Now since at least the PADI Nitrox class is a no dive, you could take the Nitrox class and deep or other course at the same time.

That said, some of the dives in an AOW can be used for the specialties that were explored during AOW, but that's the only caveat I am aware of to that rule.

If I am wrong, please let me know, but that's what I have been told forever.