100th dive!
- Thread starter Marie13
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OP
Some lessons for the newbies:
1. Keep diving. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, a once a year trip doesn't cut it. You don't get better without a lot of dives close together and a once a year trip doesn't allow that. If you want to dive more, you have to dive local. If that means cold water and crappy viz, so be it.
2. Buy your own equipment. I was hard to fit and felt so much better with my own stuff. Especially regs because the large mouthpiece on the rental regs set off my gag reflex something awful. AquaLung/Apeks comfobite mouthpiece works very well.
3. Find more experienced folks to dive with and folks of your own experience who seem to have gotten it. I was always very honest about my issues and found divers willing to help.
4. Don't take Advanced immediately. Go out and dive some. I had about 25 dives when I started Advanced. And don't do the danged sampler platter. The 4 specialties (SDI Advanced) really helped both my diving and comfort level. Note: my shop (DRIS) doesn't really do the sampler platter (which SDI calls Advanced Adventure Diver). It's not on the class schedule. I guess they'd do it if someone was interested, but the specialties are a better experience in my opinion. Friends that have taken a sampler platter AOW were shocked what I had to do in my Nav class. Wreck class was my absolute favorite, but that shouldn't be a surprise.
5. Just go and dive! I am to the point that I'll show up on one of the local charters without knowing anyone, just so I can dive.
1. Keep diving. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, a once a year trip doesn't cut it. You don't get better without a lot of dives close together and a once a year trip doesn't allow that. If you want to dive more, you have to dive local. If that means cold water and crappy viz, so be it.
2. Buy your own equipment. I was hard to fit and felt so much better with my own stuff. Especially regs because the large mouthpiece on the rental regs set off my gag reflex something awful. AquaLung/Apeks comfobite mouthpiece works very well.
3. Find more experienced folks to dive with and folks of your own experience who seem to have gotten it. I was always very honest about my issues and found divers willing to help.
4. Don't take Advanced immediately. Go out and dive some. I had about 25 dives when I started Advanced. And don't do the danged sampler platter. The 4 specialties (SDI Advanced) really helped both my diving and comfort level. Note: my shop (DRIS) doesn't really do the sampler platter (which SDI calls Advanced Adventure Diver). It's not on the class schedule. I guess they'd do it if someone was interested, but the specialties are a better experience in my opinion. Friends that have taken a sampler platter AOW were shocked what I had to do in my Nav class. Wreck class was my absolute favorite, but that shouldn't be a surprise.
5. Just go and dive! I am to the point that I'll show up on one of the local charters without knowing anyone, just so I can dive.
Dizzi Lizzi
Contributor
spot on advice!
Excellent advice. I had about 35 dives before I took my advanced course. I wanted to feel comfortable in the water, and with my basic skills before I added some new skills. The only way you can get comfortable is to dive a lot. Unfortunately, living in central Alberta at the time, our dive season was relatively short so it was hard to get in a lot of diving.
When I was doing my Divemaster course, we made a trip to the west coast on a long weekend. The trip was to finish certification for a group of open water divers, and for me to work on my divemaster certification. There was a another group from Alberta that was staying at the same resort, completing their open water and advanced program in the same weekend.
The advanced class was doing their night dive off the dock at the resort. With little to no experience in salt water, some debris on the bottom, and with currents, one of the advanced students got into trouble. The student wound up on the surface, and had managed to ditch their tank and BC. The student survived, and the Coast Guard found their equipment a couple of days later. Trying to cram too much into a short period of time nearly led to tragedy.
Take Marie13's advice, get some experience before trying to learn new skills.
Divegoose
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