Biggybacking on @Eric Sedletzky thread here;
Is dive certification really necessary?
If you feel the need to roast me, go for it. I have 4 younger boys ages 22, 16, 14, and 9 (Edit; he's 11...not sure where 9 came from, lol). After diving for the last couple years I have taken them all diving at least a few times whether in the pool or in the local mud hole. They all love it. We've gone over the basics, the really important stuff, and I never go diving with more than 1 at a time. Obviously the older the kid the less "babysitting" I do, but I can always see them, and the dives are very benign. The deepest I've gone with one was the 22 yr old, and that was 28'. I get them to setup their own gear as much as they can always going over the why's and the how's and watch them the entire time. I've had some of the best conversations with my kids after a 10' dive just floating around on the surface talking.
I am not an instructor, nor do I want to be, but my kids are getting to the point where it's time to get them certified. To me, it really is just a card to start learning or continue learning without having to hide. They're all young enough (except for the 22 yr old) that they would only ever go diving with me, which is basically what we're doing now. I don't feel like they're going to get anything out of a class except maybe some experience and confidence doing it with someone else.
With that said, I want to get them all certified the absolute cheapest route that I can. To me the plastic card at the end is the same so why not. I know that I could pay good money and have them all look like little frog men coming out of the class, but honestly they're not interested in that. They just want to dive and have fun.
We're driving to FL in a couple months and I was thinking about signing them up while we're there as there own little group. It would be a good memory for them all to have. So far I've got a price of $500 / kid for everything including charter / checkout dives. This would be 1-2 days of pool stuff and then the OW checkout dives on day 3.
Looking for some other options / opinions / even some criticisms if you like. I know this whole idea is a bit taboo, so I'm ready for it.
I've had the privilege to dive and talk to a lot of instructors in the last few years. Some of you are amazing, but some of you quite frankly just got a piece of plastic yourself. Not impressive at all. I once had an instructor with over 1200 dives argue with me why an AL80 is far superior to a steel 100HP in every way.... to dive to 120'
now I know that's not the norm on SB. If you're here, you're probably really into diving, but they are out there.
I'm not 100% committed to this, it's just an idea that I have rolling around in my head. Part of me thinks it'll eat up too much time from our trip, but part of me says it would be fun for them to do during the day together...kind of like a group activity that will let the wife and I stroll the beach or something....thoughts?
Is dive certification really necessary?
If you feel the need to roast me, go for it. I have 4 younger boys ages 22, 16, 14, and 9 (Edit; he's 11...not sure where 9 came from, lol). After diving for the last couple years I have taken them all diving at least a few times whether in the pool or in the local mud hole. They all love it. We've gone over the basics, the really important stuff, and I never go diving with more than 1 at a time. Obviously the older the kid the less "babysitting" I do, but I can always see them, and the dives are very benign. The deepest I've gone with one was the 22 yr old, and that was 28'. I get them to setup their own gear as much as they can always going over the why's and the how's and watch them the entire time. I've had some of the best conversations with my kids after a 10' dive just floating around on the surface talking.
I am not an instructor, nor do I want to be, but my kids are getting to the point where it's time to get them certified. To me, it really is just a card to start learning or continue learning without having to hide. They're all young enough (except for the 22 yr old) that they would only ever go diving with me, which is basically what we're doing now. I don't feel like they're going to get anything out of a class except maybe some experience and confidence doing it with someone else.
With that said, I want to get them all certified the absolute cheapest route that I can. To me the plastic card at the end is the same so why not. I know that I could pay good money and have them all look like little frog men coming out of the class, but honestly they're not interested in that. They just want to dive and have fun.
We're driving to FL in a couple months and I was thinking about signing them up while we're there as there own little group. It would be a good memory for them all to have. So far I've got a price of $500 / kid for everything including charter / checkout dives. This would be 1-2 days of pool stuff and then the OW checkout dives on day 3.
Looking for some other options / opinions / even some criticisms if you like. I know this whole idea is a bit taboo, so I'm ready for it.
I've had the privilege to dive and talk to a lot of instructors in the last few years. Some of you are amazing, but some of you quite frankly just got a piece of plastic yourself. Not impressive at all. I once had an instructor with over 1200 dives argue with me why an AL80 is far superior to a steel 100HP in every way.... to dive to 120'
now I know that's not the norm on SB. If you're here, you're probably really into diving, but they are out there.I'm not 100% committed to this, it's just an idea that I have rolling around in my head. Part of me thinks it'll eat up too much time from our trip, but part of me says it would be fun for them to do during the day together...kind of like a group activity that will let the wife and I stroll the beach or something....thoughts?
