When to dive unsupervised? (w/o dm)

[BlueGirlGoes]

We'll definitely start with a DM and buy the Shore Diving book. Wish it was available for purchase over the internet.

Charley, I liked your comparison to driving a car. That's what I was trying to express. The worst thing about what you don't know is ... that you don't know what you don't know. As new divers, we *think* our skills are OK, but they've never been tested alone, in the field as it were. We don't have our own regs or BCs yet, so we can't get 100% comfortable with our equipment in advance.

Our (PADI) pool training was quite rushed. We never went over any different sorts of kicks and I wouldn't know what to do with a leaky o-ring underwater if it bit me. I'm really not sure even how to "plan a dive." I'm assuming it's something like what the DMs went over in Borneo: We'll anchor here, and follow along this reef keeping it at our right, the depth will be X and we'll start our ascent when someone gets to 1,000 psi.

I've read enough reports of very experienced divers dying to have a healthy respect for the activity. Not fear: respect. Drowning would take a lot of the fun out things.

We may try to schedule an AOW class while we're there. Is there a skills video anyone would recommend? Living in Missouri, we're not going to have a lot of opportunities to practice between trips.

Thanks,
Cyn

 

[DennisS]

Ditch the divemaster. If you're certified and have 15 dives with a DM it's time to put that learners permit to use. Pick up an U/W navigation book, it's not that difficult. Get out and learn to navigate, you'd be surprised how many divers lack basic navigation skills. Returning to the boat using U/W navigation can be tricky, lots of people have to surface and get a bearing. Returning to the shore is quite a bit easier. Try doing a triangle and return to your entry point without surfacing. If you miss your entry point the shore is a pretty hard target to miss. When you dive with a divemaster you are playing follow the leader. When you dive independently, you are calling the shots. Keep it fairly shallow, worse case scenario-you surface and back kick in. Have fun!!!

 

[BlueGirlGoes]

for navigation books and training aids?

 

[Charlie99]

BlueGirlGoes once bubbled...
for navigation books and training aids?

A good place to start is to pick up a copy of the book for PADI AOW course from your local diveshop.

It has a little bit on a lot of different subjects .. navigation, night diving, ....

 

[BlueGirlGoes]

DennisS once bubbled...
Ditch the divemaster..... Keep it fairly shallow, worse case scenario-you surface and back kick in.

Actually, I think that the worse case scenario could be worse than that. But we may consider going on our own after a few rounds with a DM.

I got my husband into scuba diving and while he's absorbed the basics he is not a very good swimmer. I don't plan to lose him first time out because we think we know what we're doing. It is hard to gauge one's own level of expertise, don't you think?

 

[Genesis]

was "unsupervised" - with a "boat assigned buddy" to boot.

I had no trouble with that arrangement. I would have likely dove without a C-card if it had not been more difficult to get fills and gear.

Once I figured out that I really liked the sport, even that did not matter, since I proceeded to buy my own hardware and ultimately my own compressor and such - now I can dive any time, and my C-cards are irrelavent.

Ok, not 100% so - I had to flash one to dive at Epcot this summer (which was an interesting experience, although nowhere near as "goo goo gah gah" as some of the folks who were there for the second time around had said it would be!)

It was interesting to dive among all the others in the tank, including a couple of DMs, who didn't have the first clue about horizontal trim. I bought the tape of the dive more as a means of showing off how bad divers can be - including "professionals" - than anything else (it was offered AFTER we saw it and had completed the dive.)

If you are not comfortable in the water following your OW course and cert then you did not get what you paid for. What it takes to be comfortable varies from person to person, but you DID buy that in the class, and should have received it.

 

[Davey Diverson]

BlueGirlGoes once bubbled...

Our (PADI) pool training was quite rushed. We never went over any different sorts of kicks and I wouldn't know what to do with a leaky o-ring underwater if it bit me. I'm really not sure even how to "plan a dive."

Wow. I guess the best thing you could do is start planning them, then. When you are at the shop, ask about local conditions, and find a nice shallow, low current shore dive. Then go do it.

Gaining confidence is merely a matter of practice. So go practice.

We may try to schedule an AOW class while we're there.

That may help, but consider: If you made it out of OW and don't know how to plan a dive, what do you hope to gain from an AOW course?

Living in Missouri, we're not going to have a lot of opportunities to practice between trips.

Here I think you sell yourself short. Practice is what you need, and while MO may not have the best diving, I have to believe there is a lake or resevoir you can dive in to help gain that experience, and with it, confidence.

Good luck!

 

[H2OHead]

Charlie99 once bubbled...
She is asking some very reasonable questions.

I wasn’t implying that the question was ‘unreasonable”. Since I can’t think for others or read minds, I only have my personal experience from which I base any answers I provide. Keeping that in mind, I thought that I might feel somewhat slighted if I finished a program (any program, physics, astrology, cosmetology, etc) that ended with me wondering if I should even attempt to perform my new skills in the absence of my trainer. I thought maybe she didn’t get her money’s worth. I know it’d be a shock to everyone to find that there actually are instructors going through the motions and churning graduates out of the diver mill just for money and certify folks with questionable skills.

The driving comparison is way off. A newly certified OW diver shouldn’t be planning the diving equivalent of the 24 hours at Le Mans and I don’t think that was her intent (again, I’m a lot of things to a lot of people, but I’m not psychic).

 

[JamieZ]

Here's a couple of easy questions you can ask yourself to see if your ready.

1. If your buddy has a problem, do you feel comfortable enough to beable to save his/her life?

2. If you have a problem, do you think your buddy is capable of saving your life?

If you have doubt, you should go practice skills in a pool or shallow water.

 

[DeputyDan]

(after completing certification) that had a DM in the water.

My 12 year old and I did a dive off S.C. (around our 15th dive) where we felt uncomfortable on the first dive - chose to come up and hang around on the hang line on the first dive and then not do the second dive.

This is one time a DM would have been welcomed.