i couldn’t agree more. padi requires you to choose five specialties for your aow certification. They also require that deep and navigation be two of those five. at our shop, we require that peak bouyancy be one of your three choices. something else that really chaps my hide is the people who get a digital camera and now they are Stan waterman or stephen frink !!! they kick up and over everthing down there. not to mention crashing into other divers.
another thing that should be discussed is what my wife & i call the "human bait ball". there have been several times that she hovers over "something" cool to look at. she’ll call me over to let me look at it. All of a sudden, a mass of other divers just have to see what we are looking at and come crashing into me/her/both. we’ve been knocked into the reef and even had equipment knock awry. i now dive with a spare mask because of having my mask kicked off during one of those "bait balls". when we take customers on a trip, we avoid big groups and make sure to plan plenty of "private" diving for ourselves.
that’s just the beginning.....there are sooo many other things that need to be discussed. this may need to be put into a series, lol.
sorry, i’ll get off my soapbox now
bouyancy is EVERTHING........almost.