Specialties
A pathway, not a catalog.
None of these came from me sitting down to invent a course. Each began as a question from someone I was teaching — and then a lot of work to make it real. Taken in order they build on one another: what a coral is and how to read its condition first, then the reef's structure, then its life, then the water all of it sits in, and finally the record that holds the four together.
It is eco diving, done as measurement. Not awareness, not a cleanup — a repeatable method, an honest uncertainty, and a rule for telling real change from noise.
Where the pathway stands
All 5 are approved and taught. Each was written, submitted to PADI and approved on its own, and each stands alone — a diver can take any one of them without the others. What is not yet in place is the recognition at the end: Master Reef Science Diver is intended as a dedicated PADI Master Scuba Diver rating and is not yet formally established with PADI.
One of the five is not mine. The CoralWatch Coral Health Chart Distinctive Specialty is authored by CoralWatch at The University of Queensland; I teach it under their written permission, and it opens the pathway because it gives a diver what a coral and a reef are before any of the measurement courses begin.
CoralWatch Coral Health Chart
By CoralWatch, The University of Queensland
Match coral color against the Coral Health Chart, colony by colony — lightest, darkest, growth form — and upload at least twenty to a global database. Authored by CoralWatch at The University of Queensland; taught here under their permission.
Read moreReef Cartographer
Georeferenced reef maps from consumer sonar and photogrammetry, built around no-contact conservation and repeatable change detection.
Read moreReef Demographer
A repeatable, relative-index census of reef life from 360° capture, AI-assisted counting you confirm by hand, and iNaturalist species IDs.
Read moreReef Hydrocaster
A diver-powered hydrocast: occupy a station on a mapped reef and profile its temperature, light and clarity, with every value carrying a measured uncertainty rather than an assumed one.
Read moreReef Chronicler
A dated record of one reef station: two permanent photo points, four forensic scales in every frame, and form, life, water and appearance filed side by side for whoever returns.
Read moreMaster Reef Science Diver
All 5 approved — the rating itself is not yet established with PADI
Not a sixth course. Intended as a dedicated PADI Master Scuba Diver rating for divers who finish the sequence — read a coral's condition, map the reef, count what lives on it, profile the water over it, and leave a record a stranger can re-occupy years later. Not yet formally established with PADI.
Also taught — outside the pathway
One course of its own.
A PADI Distinctive Specialty that stands alone. It is not part of the Master Reef Science Diver sequence and is not required for it.
For instructor candidates
IDC Workshops.
Working forms for the Instructor Development workshops I run — peer evaluations that follow the PADI rubrics and ask, for every element, when you heard it and what was said.
Interested in taking any of these courses? Drop me a note.