Yes that’s meare you the same person as @edhjr? And are there specific challenges that you are having that require extra pool sessions?
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Yes that’s meare you the same person as @edhjr? And are there specific challenges that you are having that require extra pool sessions?
As many other said, it is very location-dependentI paid in excess of $800.00 for eLearning, OWC, Drysuit and Nitrox Computer certification. The cost included 4 paid pool sessions. I had to buy a different BCD, Mask and Fins using 3 of the 4 pool sessions without any skills training. I am paying $50.00 for 2 hour weekly pool session not knowing how I have to pay before I can begin open water training.
Not knowing the total cost of pool sessions and the length time it will take is disturbing. It’s like throwing money to the wind not knowing where it will land. Other than this I have no complaints.
I paid in excess of $800.00 for eLearning, OWC, Drysuit and Nitrox Computer certification. The cost included 4 paid pool sessions. I had to buy a different BCD, Mask and Fins using 3 of the 4 pool sessions without any skills training. I am paying $50.00 for 2 hour weekly pool session not knowing how I have to pay before I can begin open water training.
Not knowing the total cost of pool sessions and the length time it will take is disturbing. It’s like throwing money to the wind not knowing where it will land. Other than this I have no complaints.
As many other said, it is very location-dependent
Are not diving clubs in your area? When I started diving, I did so at the local diving club. Instructors were not paid (volunteers), and with a minimal yearly fee (the equivalent of 50 USD) you had free access to the pools for 2h/week, all year around; renting the club's equipment (tanks and regulators) was incredibly cheap.
The OW course was more costly, the equivalent of 200 USD, more or less, but it lasted 6 months, and included training to deco diving with twin tanks, and CC rebreathers (pure oxygen). It also did include deep free diving and a lot of additional knowledge which is taught is separate expensive courses held by for-profit shops...
Of course this way you do not get a PADI cert, but a CMAS or BSAC cert, which indeed has the same, or better, value.
Glad you have recovered from your surgery. Like others said, I don't think $800 is necessarily out of line for OW, Dry Suit and Nitrox classes. However, I think you should have some idea of how long this goes.I started over with SDI and lived happily ever after with minor setbacks.
I am comfortable in and under the water. I don’t have the leg strength I once had but I manage ok. I want to thank everyone for your thoughts and advice, it is all very helpful.
I was talking about this with a newer diver guy I just met online two nights ago. He received my calendar in the mail and it has some images from a wreck I kinda found and haven't disclosed the location. It's not super deep, but it's beyond that magical "recreational limit" line. He's logged 100 dives or so and is eventually wanting to dive some of our deeper (200+) wrecks. He'd spoken to a couple of shops about how to get from "there to here" and was floored by the cost of the training, let alone the gear. He has a somewhat modest job where he's never likely to earn more than "just enough".
I suppose diving has never been cheap, but it just seems like there are so many classes now, all designed to boost the coffers of the major training organizations. Ya I'm old, but I took a "Basic SCUBA" course, then an AI after a few hundred dives, became and instructor shortly after and taught for 20-odd years. Somewhere along the way after I'd retired from teaching, other instructor friends "granted" advanced nitrox and solo to me, since I'd been using it and diving like that for decades. The rest we figured out on our own, including trimix. Forty Seven years and 6000 dives later, I just keep plugging away.
I'm not suggesting this is an ideal scenario, but perhaps something in the middle. This sport is slowly withering away and I think a HUGE part of that is because it's become a rich persons activity. For a young person to get serious about it, it just requires massive sums of money. There is a great deal of competition for recreational dollars from all sectors and I think diving is slowly but surely pricing itself out of existence. In my dive town, Tobermory, we have done from four shops to one. Because Tobermory is home to a national marine park, diver visits are tracked, and they're a fraction of what they were 30 years ago.
I guess I'm just a cynical old bastard, but some of the courses are just BS, and seem like they're designed to fix the problems that were left from the previous training. Peak Buoyancy comes to mind. Why isn't that just part of an entry level program? Oh right, because the "basic" programs cover "just enough" to get a new diver in over his head.... Why train 'em properly, when you can just keep charging them.
Anyway, I'll shut up.