anomalydesign
Registered
I wanted to share the recent experiences my girlfriend and I had on our checkout dives last weekend.
We did our PADI classroom and pool training in January at our LDS, and got back in the pool two weeks ago to brush-up on our skills. This was in preparation for a trip to Cayman Brac, which included plans to do our open water checkout dives with the well-regarded Reef Divers.
The morning of our first dives we were fitted for BCDs and got an orientation to the dive boat. There were about 6 other certified divers on the boat as well as 3 staff including our instructor. Going out to the dive site, it became clear that the winds were fairly strong, and creating some rough seas which was even more apparent when the boat came to a rest.
The difficulties started here. As we were there for certification, we had to assemble our gear. This was tricky given the fact that we hadn't had experience with the BCDs or Regs we were using, and doubly so when just walking on the heaving boat was a chore. Nonetheless, it was really just a matter of strapping on the tank, attaching the first stage and hooking up the LPI hose. We both suited-up and took our giant leaps into the water as we'd trained to do in our class.
What we had not been prepared for, however, was swimming in heavy surf around a boat. I swam a safe distance from the boat, but my girlfriend who is still somewhat leery of most regulators was put-off by a "wheezeiness" in her second stage. That combined with the waves and the boat that was at times heaving dangerously close to her was all too much to handle, and she requested to come back aboard.
I wanted to stay with her, but was already a little queasy from assembling our gear on the deck, and knew I'd be miserable if I had to sit on boat waiting for all of the rest of the divers to return. As one of the staff said to my girlfriend on board "He didn't want to leave you, but he REALLY didn't want to get back on the boat", so when the instructor asked if I could continue, I did.
The dive was made more difficult for us, as for the first few checkout dives you apparently have to go down holding onto the line. The line, as I learned, is at the front of the boat, so I had to do some rather difficult surface swimming in a wide arc (so as to avoid the heaving boat) from the back up to the rope at the front. The rope itself was quite an adventure, given the way the boat was moving.
The dive itself was really great at depth. It was definitely a reminder of why we're so interested in diving, and I felt comfortable in my skills and training underwater. Coming back up the rope (and especially holding on to it during the safety stop) was another adventure. Something similar to a mechanical bull ride. Before we dove, one of the dive staff said "the mooring lines aren't really designed for this kind of weather, so if you just see a frayed piece of rope when you come up, look for the boat at the next buoy closer to the shore". Looking at the condition of the rope on the way up, I could see he wasn't kidding.
Back on board, seeing my normally seasick-immune girlfriend sitting at the edge, staring at the horizon confirmed my fears of staying on the boat for the full time. It actually took her the better part of two days to feel completely better. Needless to say, when we returned to the dock we decided not to pursue the rest of the certification dives at that point.
The story was a bit lengthy, so I'll try and make some summary learned lesson points for other beginning divers who might be in a similar situation:
All that said, we have no bad feeling about diving or Reef Divers. We plan to do our certs locally at Dutch Springs (a nearby quarry) with an instructor from our LDS, and hope to go back to Cayman Brac someday when we are more experienced, and can better appreciate what they have to offer. We were just unprepared for what to expect on this trip compared to the pool/classroom work we had done to this point.
I welcome any feedback, suggestions, corrections, advice etc. This board has been a great resource for us in our learning thus far, and any discussion will I'm sure help us and other divers of similar experience/inexperience.
We did our PADI classroom and pool training in January at our LDS, and got back in the pool two weeks ago to brush-up on our skills. This was in preparation for a trip to Cayman Brac, which included plans to do our open water checkout dives with the well-regarded Reef Divers.
The morning of our first dives we were fitted for BCDs and got an orientation to the dive boat. There were about 6 other certified divers on the boat as well as 3 staff including our instructor. Going out to the dive site, it became clear that the winds were fairly strong, and creating some rough seas which was even more apparent when the boat came to a rest.
The difficulties started here. As we were there for certification, we had to assemble our gear. This was tricky given the fact that we hadn't had experience with the BCDs or Regs we were using, and doubly so when just walking on the heaving boat was a chore. Nonetheless, it was really just a matter of strapping on the tank, attaching the first stage and hooking up the LPI hose. We both suited-up and took our giant leaps into the water as we'd trained to do in our class.
What we had not been prepared for, however, was swimming in heavy surf around a boat. I swam a safe distance from the boat, but my girlfriend who is still somewhat leery of most regulators was put-off by a "wheezeiness" in her second stage. That combined with the waves and the boat that was at times heaving dangerously close to her was all too much to handle, and she requested to come back aboard.
I wanted to stay with her, but was already a little queasy from assembling our gear on the deck, and knew I'd be miserable if I had to sit on boat waiting for all of the rest of the divers to return. As one of the staff said to my girlfriend on board "He didn't want to leave you, but he REALLY didn't want to get back on the boat", so when the instructor asked if I could continue, I did.
The dive was made more difficult for us, as for the first few checkout dives you apparently have to go down holding onto the line. The line, as I learned, is at the front of the boat, so I had to do some rather difficult surface swimming in a wide arc (so as to avoid the heaving boat) from the back up to the rope at the front. The rope itself was quite an adventure, given the way the boat was moving.
The dive itself was really great at depth. It was definitely a reminder of why we're so interested in diving, and I felt comfortable in my skills and training underwater. Coming back up the rope (and especially holding on to it during the safety stop) was another adventure. Something similar to a mechanical bull ride. Before we dove, one of the dive staff said "the mooring lines aren't really designed for this kind of weather, so if you just see a frayed piece of rope when you come up, look for the boat at the next buoy closer to the shore". Looking at the condition of the rope on the way up, I could see he wasn't kidding.
Back on board, seeing my normally seasick-immune girlfriend sitting at the edge, staring at the horizon confirmed my fears of staying on the boat for the full time. It actually took her the better part of two days to feel completely better. Needless to say, when we returned to the dock we decided not to pursue the rest of the certification dives at that point.
The story was a bit lengthy, so I'll try and make some summary learned lesson points for other beginning divers who might be in a similar situation:
- Be sure to familiarize yourself with the equipment BEFORE you tasked to put it together in a difficult/time-pressed situation.
- If you have not been swimming with equipment in waves in an open ocean before (and why would you?), check the conditions, and be sure that you are comfortable with them because:
- You WILL have to swim at the surface. If we could have jumped-in and descended immediately (as the certified divers did) it would have been much easier, but swimming around to and then using the mooring line was more difficult than any of the dive training we had done to that point.
- Get away from the boat once you are in the water, especially in heavy waves! My girlfriend was hesitant to swim away from it, and got a little smacked on the legs as a result (lucky it wasn't worse).
- If possible, go on a boat that has ONLY certification students. I think the operation trying to squeeze-in our checkout dives on the same trips as certified, experienced divers on their trips put us under more time pressure and limited our options when difficulties arose.
- If you do become uncomfortable with the environment and/or conditions, call it off. You don't want to make yourself miserable or, more importantly, put yourself in danger. This trip was beyond our comfort level.
All that said, we have no bad feeling about diving or Reef Divers. We plan to do our certs locally at Dutch Springs (a nearby quarry) with an instructor from our LDS, and hope to go back to Cayman Brac someday when we are more experienced, and can better appreciate what they have to offer. We were just unprepared for what to expect on this trip compared to the pool/classroom work we had done to this point.
I welcome any feedback, suggestions, corrections, advice etc. This board has been a great resource for us in our learning thus far, and any discussion will I'm sure help us and other divers of similar experience/inexperience.
