North Florida Scuba. Safety First. Certifications Second.

I certified as an Open Water diver in 1991, shortly before entering the US Navy as a hospital corpsman. I hold a Ph.D., have taught for more than twenty years in graduate and undergraduate settings, and I am a published author. In diving, I hold the highest instructor rank available in the recreational industry.



• IDEA Course Director, the top recreational scuba leadership rating
• SEI Instructor Trainer
• SDI Instructor
• Former US Navy hospital corpsman
• Ph.D., 20+ years teaching experience
• Pastor, First Baptist Church, Branford, Florida
• Father of three, all certified divers

I tell new divers that an Open Water certification is like a learner's permit to drive a car. It is your permission to practice. What you do with that permission is the part nobody schedules for you, so I build it into the training instead.

Wade Howell, Ph.D. — The Scuba Professor

Wade Howell, Ph.D. — The Scuba Professor

Who this is for:

• Adults learning to dive for the first time
• Families and small groups certifying together
• Divers returning after years out of the water
• Homeschool groups, private schools, and youth programs
• Visitors who want to train while in Florida

What you get:

• Private or small-group instruction, not a fixed class
• Academics online, in person, or split between the two
• Open water dives in North Florida's springs
• Equipment fitted to you rather than pulled from a bin
• The same instructor from your first session to your last

You will not be moved along a conveyor belt because a class needs to finish.

Who this is for:

• Divers ready for their first professional rating
• Working Divemasters pursuing instructor certification
• Instructors seeking Instructor Trainer status
• Instructors who want to teach without running a shop

What you get:

• Divemaster, Assistant Instructor, Instructor, and Instructor Trainer training
• Assessment by a Course Director rather than a peer
• Teaching presentations critiqued on content and delivery
• Standards, liability, and risk management taught seriously
• Access to an instructor network once you are rated

Most schools in this region stop at Divemaster. This one does not..

Teaching is a craft, and diving instruction is usually treated as a script. Twenty years in classrooms taught me that watching a skill and owning a skill are separate events, separated by repetition that most courses do not budget for. So the repetition is the plan, not the overrun.

What gets attention here:

• Buoyancy and trim, worked until hovering costs nothing
• Breathing, corrected before it becomes a habit
• Equipment, understood component by component
• Emergency skills, drilled until they are reflex
• Judgment, built by planning dives rather than following them

Success is a safe dive, not just a dive where nobody got hurt.

Three things are true of one person here, and all three are verifiable. A Ph.D. educator who has spent two decades studying how people learn. A former Navy hospital corpsman, for whom responsibility over someone else's life was a job before it was a curriculum. An IDEA Course Director, the highest rank in recreational scuba, able to certify not only divers but the instructors who teach them.

Line those up and "safety first, certifications second" stops being a slogan. It becomes the obvious consequence of who is teaching you.

Training happens across ten North Florida springs, 72 degrees year round, with visibility measured in tens of feet. I also travel for training, and if you are planning a trip to Florida we can begin the academics before you arrive.

"He was patient, knowledgeable, and went above and beyond to make every dive safe and fun. He answered every question I had."

— Verified Student · [Name and date to be added before launch]

"The Nitrox course was full of information and fun. Questions were encouraged throughout and answered with enthusiasm and expertise."

— Verified Student · [Name and date to be added before launch]