Are you an EXPERIENCED recreational diver?

[OTF]

Keep a 20" piece of paracord somewhere and you should be able to fashion up enough of a strap to keep the fin secure in an emergency.

Straying off topic, but this is good advice and I'm surprised so few people seem to carry a general purpose piece of cordage with them underwater. It's great for jury rigging all sorts of stuff without having to cut up your spool, or sometimes you need something stronger than cave line. I've used mine for jury rigging broken mask/fin straps, jury rigging slings to lift stuff with my SMB, makeshift jon line, camera and light lanyard, tying gear to the tag line, securing gear on the boat, tying extra weights or whatever to the flag spool among other things.

 

[Dody]

What is important to me is that you don't over or under sell your capabilities. Someone showing up with an AOW, Rescue, Deep, or bluetooth fin qualified card should not be treated as more experienced. A conversation needs to happen between buddies, or operators and divers about relative experience with no shaming or boasting involved.

Good point. I started diving on nov 3rd. Got certified on nov 20th. The dive count is 32. I love reading ( I’ve read the equivalent of several books on SB alone ), love learning especially when it is science related and as my background is fluid dynamics, I take all the training that is of interest to me. I dive between 2 and 6 times a week. But mainly in calm warm waters with little current and cloudless weather. Next week, after I complete deep diving training as my 4th specialty (what’s the point as I have already dived at over 30 meters in a handful of occasions), I will be AOW. I want to do Stress and Rescue in January so I will automatically be Master Diver as I will have 50+ dives under my belt. Later in 2021, I plan to go diving in Thailand. I don’t want people to believe that I am more than what I really am where I have to present my Master Diver C card with 8 specialties but only a couple of real challenging diving situations.

 

[mc42]

Keep up building your body of core skills and you can apply them to new situations, so not having direct experience will be less of a concern.

With regards to site-specific skills, often you won't need much other than a good guide/buddy/boat captain/DM to show you a specific way to enter or exit a dive site, and if your core skills are good, you should be fine. For example, my first back roll entry was off a boat in Mexico in rough seas. Others on the boat hadn't done it either, and everybody did it just fine after 20 seconds of briefing.

Even if you're doing easy dives, find ways of adding task loading safely, because the majority of the situations you will encounter as you push your boundaries will require excellent personal buoyancy control when dealing with something else (an equipment failure, tough current, out of gas, etc.). Refine your buoyancy to +/- 1' when holding a stop, then add challenges like ascending in 10' stops and holding, removing and securing items like lights or pocket contents, launching an SMB, etc. Then start thinking about gas utilization - how much you use, predicting where you'll be in 5 minutes, etc. Then you can investigate different finning techniques. There are so many mini-challenges you can set yourself on every dive, and even better with a buddy with the same mindset.

It sounds like you're off to a good start with all the extra reading and training. You will know how much the Master Diver is worth once you've gone through it so choose your dive buddies accordingly. Humility is a good characteristic of a safe diver - the more you learn, the more you learn you don't know. Happy diving!

 

[scubadada]

...I dive between 2 and 6 times a week. But mainly in calm warm waters with little current and cloudless weather...

In the Netherlands?

 

[Dody]

In the Netherlands?

I am currently in Cape Verde.

 

[scubadada]

I am currently in Cape Verde.

Nice

 

[David Novo]

Good point. I started diving on nov 3rd. Got certified on nov 20th. The dive count is 32. I love reading ( I’ve read the equivalent of several books on SB alone ), love learning especially when it is science related and as my background is fluid dynamics, I take all the training that is of interest to me. I dive between 2 and 6 times a week. But mainly in calm warm waters with little current and cloudless weather. Next week, after I complete deep diving training as my 4th specialty (what’s the point as I have already dived at over 30 meters in a handful of occasions), I will be AOW. I want to do Stress and Rescue in January so I will automatically be Master Diver as I will have 50+ dives under my belt. Later in 2021, I plan to go diving in Thailand. I don’t want people to believe that I am more than what I really am where I have to present my Master Diver C card with 8 specialties but only a couple of real challenging diving situations.

Did you do any dives outside of a course? IMHO you should dive a bit with what you have, instead of collecting courses.

Don't take it as a negative comment. I had the same aim of reaching master diver when I started.

 

[Dody]

Most of my dives are now fun dives but still with either one of the two instructors who trained me. My wife also dives with us. Out of the 32, only 4 for OW and 3 for Perfect Buoyancy were courses. I will have 3 more for deep diving next week, 4 fun dives during the week-end and 6 fun dives on 25/26/27 when we will go to our first diving trip to a shop we don’t know.

 

[scubadada]

Most of my dives are now fun dives but still with either one of the two instructors who trained me. My wife also dives with us. Out of the 32, only 4 for OW and 3 for Perfect Buoyancy were courses. I will have 3 more for deep diving next week, 4 fun dives during the week-end and 6 fun dives on 25/26/27 when we will go to our first diving trip to a shop we don’t know.

Enjoy your diving, you have a long way to go to experienced diver

 

[Marie13]

Most of my dives are now fun dives but still with either one of the two instructors who trained me. My wife also dives with us. Out of the 32, only 4 for OW and 3 for Perfect Buoyancy were courses. I will have 3 more for deep diving next week, 4 fun dives during the week-end and 6 fun dives on 25/26/27 when we will go to our first diving trip to a shop we don’t know.

Wait - you've never gone diving on your own with just a buddy yet? Is that normal where you are?