Another new member on board!

[Espresso Explorer]

Hey there!

I've been reading the forums for some time, and finally decided to join the action.

I was never interested in diving. I can swim but spending time in the water certainly hasn't been a passion for me. I'm lucky to be able to travel a lot for both work and fun. For some reason I signed up for Open water in October 2022 and got immediately hooked. I've been diving and training regularly since that. Most of my dives I've done in Tanzania. Screenshot from Garmin dive log can be seen attached to get a rough idea of the other locations. I think I'll have roughly 180 dives done three years from my initial Open water (168 now).

Certification history:
10/2022 Open water (PADI), Cyprus
1/2023 Advanced open water (PADI), Kenya
6/2023 Deep + Nitrox (PADI), Greece
8/2023 Freediver (SSI), Croatia
12/2023 Rescue (PADI), Thailand
2/2024 Emergency Oxygen provider (PADI), Tanzania
7/2024 3* + dry suit (CMAS), Finland

 

[JakeDiver]

So cool that you were able to get your certs all in different places. Great Memories!

 

[TX_Doc]

Nice! Welcome! What a blessing you get to travel and do all that!

 

[chillyinCanada]

Welcome to Scubaboard! We look forward to your participation

 

[Tief*]

Welcome to SB! That is an impressive amount of diving locations.

 

[scoobyluu]

Welcome!

 

[Thibaut27]

Welcome to SB ! How was diving in Kenya for the AOW ?

 

[mailliam]

Wow, that's a lot of dives in a ton of different places. Can't wait to get to that point someday

 

[Espresso Explorer]

Welcome to SB ! How was diving in Kenya for the AOW ?

A disaster.

Not because of Kenya, but because of the chosen dive shop. I didn't know what to look for at the time, so I chose a PADI center operating at a nice hotel offering AOW for a competitive price.

The rental gear was average at best. BCD buttons had problems because of sand, the lock on my mask strap didn't work properly under water...

Biggest issue was just a single instructor. So on two dives we had people doing fun dives, OW training and me doing AOW at the same time. Initially we were supposed to do interesting dives well suited for AOW, but because of depth limits for OWD students and OWD certified vacation divers it was not possible. My deep dive for AOW was 18,9 meters (62 feet). Technically it's a deep dive, but I'm not sure if that really prepares the student to dive to up to 30 meters / 98 feet. Rest of the dives were more shallow.

I got my certification. The instructor had to log in to PADI using my phone to certify me because he was having trouble with internet. He didn't log out, so I had complete access to his PADI account before logging out myself.

I understood the valuable lessons. 1) it's the instructor, not the organization that matters, and 2) get your own basic scuba equipment to travel with.

After AOW I've done several nice dives in Kenya with a different company where things are properly run. Dive sites in Mombasa area are ok. Worth diving if you're already there, but not worth to travel for diving from another continent.

 

[Cheddardawg]

Bummer about your AOW. This is a great place to find recommendations for future trips. Welcome!