diverdowndh
Contributor
You've all probably heard me ranting about working towards my DM, and having to take AOW and Rescue. Well, I did the AOW this past weekend at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. I thought I would post my thoughts about the whole thing.
First, the modules selected by my instructor were 1)peak buoyancy, 2) deep dive, 3) night dive, 4) navigation dive, 5) wreck dive and 6) underwater photography. I used Rob over at Planet Scuba here in Castle Rock, Co. I'll summarize my thoughts below, hopefully this is a good place for a post like this.
LDS/instructor - Excellent! Rob was very prepared both with the course contents and equipment. He is very enthusiastic about what he is doing, I could not recommend him more. He is very personable and takes time with anyone needing explanation, etc. He made it fun and took the time to meet us for breakfast and dinners before and after diving.
Course - While initially disappointed with some of the classroom or study work, the diving part of the class itself was much better (which should not be a surprise <grin>). We did not get to do the wreck dive because of local conditions (it was cold out and the lake where the wreck was located was, oh, about 50 degrees... very cold!). My disappointment with the PADI materials was really only the knowledge reviews, it seemed like they asked silly questions or simply things that an open water certified diver should definitely know already. Of course, I've been diving for a while so that would make sense. The reading part of the PADI materials was easy to read and interesting as always. The fun we had doing the actual excercises while diving made it worthwhile. I guess I just love diving!
Location - the Blue Hole is ideal for instructional diving, especially in weather that is not the best, like this past weekend. It was supposed to be really warm but it was very windy, cloudy and not very warm. We did not do the wreck dive because the water temp of the lake was almost 15 degrees colder than the constant temp of the Blue Hole, which is around 62 degrees. At any rate, it is easy to get equipment to the water, the Blue Hole has a stair entry/exit point, and a giant stride platform. There are 2 different floating platforms hung by buoys, which help when the vis goes down (if there are a lot of divers - it isn't that big so many divers can stir it up). They fill tanks right on the site so again, a great place for instructional dives.
Now I'm ready for my Rescue course, and then onto DM!
First, the modules selected by my instructor were 1)peak buoyancy, 2) deep dive, 3) night dive, 4) navigation dive, 5) wreck dive and 6) underwater photography. I used Rob over at Planet Scuba here in Castle Rock, Co. I'll summarize my thoughts below, hopefully this is a good place for a post like this.
LDS/instructor - Excellent! Rob was very prepared both with the course contents and equipment. He is very enthusiastic about what he is doing, I could not recommend him more. He is very personable and takes time with anyone needing explanation, etc. He made it fun and took the time to meet us for breakfast and dinners before and after diving.
Course - While initially disappointed with some of the classroom or study work, the diving part of the class itself was much better (which should not be a surprise <grin>). We did not get to do the wreck dive because of local conditions (it was cold out and the lake where the wreck was located was, oh, about 50 degrees... very cold!). My disappointment with the PADI materials was really only the knowledge reviews, it seemed like they asked silly questions or simply things that an open water certified diver should definitely know already. Of course, I've been diving for a while so that would make sense. The reading part of the PADI materials was easy to read and interesting as always. The fun we had doing the actual excercises while diving made it worthwhile. I guess I just love diving!
Location - the Blue Hole is ideal for instructional diving, especially in weather that is not the best, like this past weekend. It was supposed to be really warm but it was very windy, cloudy and not very warm. We did not do the wreck dive because the water temp of the lake was almost 15 degrees colder than the constant temp of the Blue Hole, which is around 62 degrees. At any rate, it is easy to get equipment to the water, the Blue Hole has a stair entry/exit point, and a giant stride platform. There are 2 different floating platforms hung by buoys, which help when the vis goes down (if there are a lot of divers - it isn't that big so many divers can stir it up). They fill tanks right on the site so again, a great place for instructional dives.
Now I'm ready for my Rescue course, and then onto DM!
