New to diving-Quick question

[kidspot]

Congrats on entering a whole new world! Let us know how your first dives go

[marci]

congrats! now tell us about the course you picked & how it went for you.

dutch springs in november in a wetsuit is the coldest i've ever been, i think...

[Jord]

Well..it was kind of like any other Open Water course I guess...except no classroom sessions.

You see, the SDI Open Water program lets you do all of the work (bookwork) on the computer, which makes it easy I guess but I really didn't care whether it was a book or not. We had to read the first 6 chapters by the first pool session, which introuduced us to diving and told us about Boyle's law and all of that stuff. I eventually finished all 16 online chapters...and had 4 pool sessions total which taught us most of the skills. 3/4 of the pools were privates.

Throughout the span of the course I bought a BC, first stage and regs, 3mm wetsuit, 3mm shorty (which didn't help because I was cold in the pool and is the reason why I got the wetsuit), an air integrated computer, and an SPG..I probably missed something but not sure.

Anyway, the first weekend of the certification dives went well...except I had a lot packed in the car, a cooler, tent, tarp, and all of my equipment (reg bags...travel bag which I got for free because the dive shop owner appreciated my business ) We practiced gearing up in buddy teams, buddy checks, giant strides, becoming neutrally buoyant and did some Reg recovery skills and mask clears. I had a bit too much weight on me the first dive so we took off 2 for the next dive, which was pretty much a fun swim around since we covered everything for that week in the first dive I guess. Oh yeah, and we also did different descents/ascents (vertical line..etc)


The next week we arrived at 7 30 AM and set up. It's a pain in the butt when you can't even wet your straps without an instructor....but anyway set up and once we were ready we briefed and then went out for our first dive of the day. Conditions were great both weeks by the way, 70's air temp, 60's water temp (was wearing a 2 piece 7mm), 40+ ft of vis both weeks. The first dive we did a free descent using the line as a visual reference. Once we were all on the platform, we did a mask removal and replacement, weight belt remove and replace, all the "fun" skills we didn't do yet. During the surface interval we debriefed and logged our dive. My buddy had to redo the weight belt remove and replace one more time the next dive. During the next dive, we did a neutrally buoyant swim, my buddy did the weight belt removal and replacement again (which went well this time) and then after the swim our instructor did an out of air ascent with each of us, leaving one of us down there at a time with the other divemaster. On the surface we debriefed again, logged and were congratulated by pretty much the whole shop on completion of the Open Water course and were given our temporary C-cards.

I missed a LOT in this report and it was probably confusing to read. Forgive me, as I had little time to write this but I just had to post

[Tom H]

I agree with the many about doing the 6 weekdays/nights, etc. over the weekend version. That's the way I did it. As a DM candidate I recently assisted in a weekend course (Sat./Sun. all classes and pool--the following weekend 4 OW dives). I am so glad I took the spread out version. The weekend one would have been an awful lot for me to digest at once.

[scubamountaingirl]

Jord, sorry i am so late to this party....i was busy all of the summer and rarely on the board. I dive dutch all the time...

i am so glad you had a good class and made the choice you did. keep diving as much as possible and i will see you at PA in the spring.

wendy