So, I turn up at Fort Lauderdale's ProDive operation bright and early one Saturday morning, having flown into Miami forty hours earlier, spent the intermediate time doing some serious shopping (had to empty my suitcase and bring it down to the car to unload all the goodies, including a second bag to carry it all home). ProDive has a tidy setup with training room and reasonably stocked dive shop, but man was it difficult to find. I was told next to the Swimming Hall of Fame (yes there is such a place - it's a running joke with the regulars who visit FLL annually that one day someone will go in there and find out what's inside - no one ever has!), but ProDive is actually inside a grey building called the Florida Tap Room with no external signage for ProDive itself. I was also mislead by spotting their dive boat (Prodiver II - wonder what happened to Prodiver I? Was it ever found?) parked on the opposite side of the SHoF. Eventually I saw a guy with 'Scuba Instructor' on the back of his jacket who pointed me in the right direction.
Once inside I was quickly and efficiently relived of my credit card number by Master Instructor Rich and introduced to Tom S. from Ohio who would also take the course. A third student was expected but never showed up and the body was never found, so that was alright. We took a quick dip in a local hotel's pool (ProDive usually use the SHoF pool, but this weekend the YMCA were holding some unspeakable ritual in there, so we got bumped down the street). Things were cool and breezy, water temp. was 20 Celsius [BRRRR!] and I learned not to let go of the poolside with a weight belt and no BCD/fins [GLUG]. Back to the classroom and Rich went to consult Da Captain about the weather - things were breezy out of the NE, waves were around 1.5-2m and the skipper was not happy about hauling soggy divers out of the drink with that size ripple. Diving cancelled 8^(
Secretly relived - I would have more time to complete the assessment tests in the AOW book - I actually got another two days of breezy weather to study (and shop) before lessons could resume. Tom had been scheduled to return home Tuesday, I think, but rejigged his flight to stay on and complete the course on Tuesday and Wednesday.
By Tuesday Rich had found some Rescue divers to drown, so in stepped Shannon who dragged us out with compasses to practice navigation on a nearby green space. Turning through 90 degrees involves stopping, sticking right arm out to the side and turning the body until the right arm is in front. For all the world, at this point, we looked like a rally from 1930s Berlin or a Bush Family Reunion.
Finally onto the boat and out on a shallow reef day to get the Navigation and Peak Performance Buoyancy out of the way. Seas were still at around 1.5m and even though I had taken Dramamine it was a real puke-fest: One good point was that I was able to confirm my LDS's assertion that I could puke in my AT40 reg. without harm =8^O=
Navigation: Shannon runs out a 100m reel of line and from somewhere in the murk signalled us to begin swimming at a comfortable pace to determine our time and distance - it took us both around 50 kick cycles and just under a minute. This gives us a basis for estimating distances travelled in future. After managing to swim a compass-directed square and - to my amazement, and probably Shannon's - winding up back where we started, we were done with Navigation.
Peak Performance Buoyancy: To be honest, I don't remember a lot about this, other than the usual fin pivots and sitting cross-legged (something I haven't done since school assemblies) in mid-water. Still, Shannon declared us fit to float and looking much better in the water. I'm old-school and consider it rude to argue when an attractive young woman tells me I look good.
Drift Dive: Five Minute SI and jump back in with the same tank for a short drift dive. Shannon hauls a float and we try to keep up without being swept out to sea and/or eaten. We covered a couple of hundred metres and spent about 15 minutes on the surface waiting for the boat to finish hauling in the survivors of the main group before cruising over to pick us up. Anothe dive boat kindly stopped by to see if we were okay/check us out for salvage value, but we were busy snorkelling and watching all the little fishies that congregated around ushoping for a feed.
Back on the boat and the Dramamine finally took hold for the trip back to base, I happily munched on my traditional post-dive apple feeling quite contented to have survived half the course. On the way back into FLL we passed a ship moored up under the 17th Street Bridge called the Newfoundland Explorer with a huge Canadian maple leak on the funnel and we joked that she was clearly lost. The next week there was a news story of a boat fire and when they mentioned the name Newfoundland Exploer I trotted over to my landward hotel window and sure enough there was a pall of smoke over the port. She burned for something like 3 days, trapping a fire crew (who all got out okay), reigniting at least twice and melting the marina's sign about 10m from her bow. If anyone wants a real cheap dive boat/fixer-upper, see pic. below.
Late start Wednesday - good job too, I'd been up half the night finishing the assessments in the book. The weather-induced change in schedule caused the Night Dive (which I had completed in the book) to be abandoned and Search and Recovery substituted. This time I tanked up on the shop's recommended Triptone instead of Dramamine and that, combined with quieter waters (<1m), meant we all felt much better.
Deep Dive: The tasks associated with this speciality are a) survive b) complete a timed task (addition) and compare with surface performance (16 second vs 12 second) and c) compare depth gauge readings (my console 22m, my mossie 22.3m, Shannon's console 21.6m). The dive was on the wreck of the Tracy (22.3m max. but did not count as both Deep and Wreck dive 8^( ), so we tooled about it a bit and spotted the wreck's resident huge barracuda.
Search and Recovery: This was the substitute speciality that I wasn't too keen on despite my proclivity for dropping stuff overboard at home - with an average depth of about 1m, tools tend to be recovered with a magnet on a string rather than full scuba gear. Shannon put us on the end of a steadily increasing length of line as we swam in circles until we found the 'lost' weight belt and recovered it with lift bag. Objective achieved we had time to trot around the ledge locating a porcupine fish lodged inside a barrel sponge and another much larger specimen in the reef, scorpionfish, trumpetfish and a huge lobster lurking under a ledge.
Back ashore we handed in the assessment pages from our books and received the much anticipated temp. AOW card.
I managed to fit another six dives in between work and departure. On two dives I was buddied up with Jill who seemed to know her way around pretty well - she ought to, turns out she was married to Instructor Rich from day one! At the Caves, Shannon was parked on the bottom surrounded by a group of OW students in a circle around her as I swam by poking my nose into the reef and following Jill who had already found a scorpion fish and a free swimming porcupine fish when I glanced over my shoulder and double took on huge diver-sized shape buzzing by the OW class. The first impression was of a shark, but even to me there was something not right. I was hammering on my tank to get Jill's attention, but she was intent on something in the ledge and it was Shannon who later identified it as a cobia, an impressive fish in it's own right.
the last three days, including a trip to Tenneco Towers, were written off by the weather again so I was stuck in Fort Lauderdale with nothing to do during the Sabre Rattling weekend [YAWN]. Next time I'll look into making backup plans, maybe taking one or two-day trips down to the keys
All in all the ProDive team (and their spouses) were excellent, friendly and patient. I'm not sure I actually learned a great deal from the course. Obviously there is the reading materials in the book, but underwater skills are pretty much just an introduction to those skills with little opportunity for repeated practice - it's very much like the way doctors are trained: "see one, do one, teach one" (if that frightens you... good, be afraid and bear it in mind next time you're face-to-face with someone about to yank your appendix or some such). What the AOW did for me, someone who got his OW diving off a floating dustpan in Jamaica four months before, was to build confidence, possibly misplaced but also in context. Dive boats are not full of five-star divemasters just waiting to humiliate you, they have divers of all ages, shapes, sizes, abilities and puking range; so long as you don't jump in without your tank or try and reboard with your head stuck up a dolphins backside then you'll be okay. Take the AOW as soon as you can, or care to, after OW and use it as a foundation for developing the style of diving that best suits and most interests you.
Cheers,
K.
Once inside I was quickly and efficiently relived of my credit card number by Master Instructor Rich and introduced to Tom S. from Ohio who would also take the course. A third student was expected but never showed up and the body was never found, so that was alright. We took a quick dip in a local hotel's pool (ProDive usually use the SHoF pool, but this weekend the YMCA were holding some unspeakable ritual in there, so we got bumped down the street). Things were cool and breezy, water temp. was 20 Celsius [BRRRR!] and I learned not to let go of the poolside with a weight belt and no BCD/fins [GLUG]. Back to the classroom and Rich went to consult Da Captain about the weather - things were breezy out of the NE, waves were around 1.5-2m and the skipper was not happy about hauling soggy divers out of the drink with that size ripple. Diving cancelled 8^(
Secretly relived - I would have more time to complete the assessment tests in the AOW book - I actually got another two days of breezy weather to study (and shop) before lessons could resume. Tom had been scheduled to return home Tuesday, I think, but rejigged his flight to stay on and complete the course on Tuesday and Wednesday.
By Tuesday Rich had found some Rescue divers to drown, so in stepped Shannon who dragged us out with compasses to practice navigation on a nearby green space. Turning through 90 degrees involves stopping, sticking right arm out to the side and turning the body until the right arm is in front. For all the world, at this point, we looked like a rally from 1930s Berlin or a Bush Family Reunion.
Finally onto the boat and out on a shallow reef day to get the Navigation and Peak Performance Buoyancy out of the way. Seas were still at around 1.5m and even though I had taken Dramamine it was a real puke-fest: One good point was that I was able to confirm my LDS's assertion that I could puke in my AT40 reg. without harm =8^O=
Navigation: Shannon runs out a 100m reel of line and from somewhere in the murk signalled us to begin swimming at a comfortable pace to determine our time and distance - it took us both around 50 kick cycles and just under a minute. This gives us a basis for estimating distances travelled in future. After managing to swim a compass-directed square and - to my amazement, and probably Shannon's - winding up back where we started, we were done with Navigation.
Peak Performance Buoyancy: To be honest, I don't remember a lot about this, other than the usual fin pivots and sitting cross-legged (something I haven't done since school assemblies) in mid-water. Still, Shannon declared us fit to float and looking much better in the water. I'm old-school and consider it rude to argue when an attractive young woman tells me I look good.
Drift Dive: Five Minute SI and jump back in with the same tank for a short drift dive. Shannon hauls a float and we try to keep up without being swept out to sea and/or eaten. We covered a couple of hundred metres and spent about 15 minutes on the surface waiting for the boat to finish hauling in the survivors of the main group before cruising over to pick us up. Anothe dive boat kindly stopped by to see if we were okay/check us out for salvage value, but we were busy snorkelling and watching all the little fishies that congregated around ushoping for a feed.
Back on the boat and the Dramamine finally took hold for the trip back to base, I happily munched on my traditional post-dive apple feeling quite contented to have survived half the course. On the way back into FLL we passed a ship moored up under the 17th Street Bridge called the Newfoundland Explorer with a huge Canadian maple leak on the funnel and we joked that she was clearly lost. The next week there was a news story of a boat fire and when they mentioned the name Newfoundland Exploer I trotted over to my landward hotel window and sure enough there was a pall of smoke over the port. She burned for something like 3 days, trapping a fire crew (who all got out okay), reigniting at least twice and melting the marina's sign about 10m from her bow. If anyone wants a real cheap dive boat/fixer-upper, see pic. below.
Late start Wednesday - good job too, I'd been up half the night finishing the assessments in the book. The weather-induced change in schedule caused the Night Dive (which I had completed in the book) to be abandoned and Search and Recovery substituted. This time I tanked up on the shop's recommended Triptone instead of Dramamine and that, combined with quieter waters (<1m), meant we all felt much better.
Deep Dive: The tasks associated with this speciality are a) survive b) complete a timed task (addition) and compare with surface performance (16 second vs 12 second) and c) compare depth gauge readings (my console 22m, my mossie 22.3m, Shannon's console 21.6m). The dive was on the wreck of the Tracy (22.3m max. but did not count as both Deep and Wreck dive 8^( ), so we tooled about it a bit and spotted the wreck's resident huge barracuda.
Search and Recovery: This was the substitute speciality that I wasn't too keen on despite my proclivity for dropping stuff overboard at home - with an average depth of about 1m, tools tend to be recovered with a magnet on a string rather than full scuba gear. Shannon put us on the end of a steadily increasing length of line as we swam in circles until we found the 'lost' weight belt and recovered it with lift bag. Objective achieved we had time to trot around the ledge locating a porcupine fish lodged inside a barrel sponge and another much larger specimen in the reef, scorpionfish, trumpetfish and a huge lobster lurking under a ledge.
Back ashore we handed in the assessment pages from our books and received the much anticipated temp. AOW card.
I managed to fit another six dives in between work and departure. On two dives I was buddied up with Jill who seemed to know her way around pretty well - she ought to, turns out she was married to Instructor Rich from day one! At the Caves, Shannon was parked on the bottom surrounded by a group of OW students in a circle around her as I swam by poking my nose into the reef and following Jill who had already found a scorpion fish and a free swimming porcupine fish when I glanced over my shoulder and double took on huge diver-sized shape buzzing by the OW class. The first impression was of a shark, but even to me there was something not right. I was hammering on my tank to get Jill's attention, but she was intent on something in the ledge and it was Shannon who later identified it as a cobia, an impressive fish in it's own right.
the last three days, including a trip to Tenneco Towers, were written off by the weather again so I was stuck in Fort Lauderdale with nothing to do during the Sabre Rattling weekend [YAWN]. Next time I'll look into making backup plans, maybe taking one or two-day trips down to the keys
All in all the ProDive team (and their spouses) were excellent, friendly and patient. I'm not sure I actually learned a great deal from the course. Obviously there is the reading materials in the book, but underwater skills are pretty much just an introduction to those skills with little opportunity for repeated practice - it's very much like the way doctors are trained: "see one, do one, teach one" (if that frightens you... good, be afraid and bear it in mind next time you're face-to-face with someone about to yank your appendix or some such). What the AOW did for me, someone who got his OW diving off a floating dustpan in Jamaica four months before, was to build confidence, possibly misplaced but also in context. Dive boats are not full of five-star divemasters just waiting to humiliate you, they have divers of all ages, shapes, sizes, abilities and puking range; so long as you don't jump in without your tank or try and reboard with your head stuck up a dolphins backside then you'll be okay. Take the AOW as soon as you can, or care to, after OW and use it as a foundation for developing the style of diving that best suits and most interests you.
Cheers,
K.
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