Did you do a Discover Scuba?

[emoreira]

I did Discover Scuba Dives 2 times. The first one, back in January 1990, was in the open sea. Though it was in summer, the place has cold waters year round. The experience was pretty nice, no more than 10 meters depth, good visibility and lots of fishes.
The second one was more recently in 2007. I was in vacation in a place with beaches, but visibility makes open water dives impossible or unpleasant, so there is a shop with a large circular pool 4 meters depth and something like 12 meters diameter.
The pool is full of colourful fishes and several marine objects (anchors and the like) to make the dive nicer. Water is warmed a little, so wetsuit is still required. participants are fully equipped and are introduced to the pool by means of a semisubmerged platform with stairs.
The whole thing was very nice implemented and makes the Discover Scuba adventure a pleasant and unstressed event.
After the dive, which was something like half an hour, I was so impressed with the whole diving thing that, after returning home and back to work, I started to search information and possible diving schools, certification agencies, etc.
Every participant was supposed to be paired with a DM. From the very begining I felt pretty comfortable and unstressed, so the DM left me alone and put his attention to other participant that was not so comfortable.
After the experience I realized that scuba diving was right for me.
The positive point of this was that the pool was not a "swimming pool" used for diving, but a place for diving confined.
I understand that dive schools normally use a general purpose swimming pool for a weekly time frame. The rest of the time the pool is used for swimming, aquagym, etc.
If the place where I did my second Discover Scuba dive would have had a "normal swimmingpool", I would not have done that dive and perhaps I would not be certified.
The attached pic was taken from the operator web page (it's in spanish).

 

[divingpyrate]

Yes we did 4 discovery dives on company trips to Playa
we ferried across and met Antonio with Eagle Ray

we were certified one year later with Eagle Ray, and have now 21 dives all with the same group

Without Discovery Dives, I most likely would have never gotten certified
it introduced us to the under water world that up until that time we created in Aquariums.
We were pretty active in conservation, propagating corals from our stock and trading or selling it to slow down taking new coral from the ocean.
We also raised seahorses

Once I got into their world, I was hooked


Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk 2

 

[mizzie]

Umm... sort of. Not in actuality, I am technically certified, but it was a fast crash course taught by my uncle (worked at a dive shop at the time) while on vacation. We did the class time, videos and tests in one day, the pool time and some of the open water dives the next day and the rest of the open water the third. But going into it I had no clue about scuba diving other than you could breath under water. So, in a way, it was sort of an extended discover scuba weekend. It certainly had a HUGE influence on my desire to dive now. I don't know if I would be planning to take the class without that experience.

 

[islanddream]

One Christmas we took our kids on a cruise and one of the stops was in Cozumel. My daughter and I wanted to swim with the dolphins and my husband and other daughter wanted to do Discover Scuba (in the ocean). So he and one daughter did DS. He came back and said how cool it was and it would be great to get certified. The following year (2000) we took the family to Puerto Nueavo for Christmas where my husband and I got OW certified at Chico's Dive Shop in PV. We were hooked! And since then we've both gotten AOW and Nitrox certified wishing that we had more time and money to dive, dive, dive! (Only 10 more days until we're on our way to Cozumel....YIPPPPEEEEE!!!!)

 

[diverjen]

It has been fun to read everyone's experience.

We (Hubby and I) had been snorkeling a lot, several trips over a 3 year span all for snorkeling. My Dad had gotten certified and kept pushing us to do so. My Dad is kind of a wild guy and he would tell me stories about getting picked up and slammed down by current, freaking out diving in the dark cold waters off San Juan island and about diving with not so great DMs he paid to buddy with him. These things all scared me. I am a cautious person by nature and thought - NO WAY.

Then one time we were on Grand Cayman as a cruise stop at Eden Rock Dive Center renting lockers so we could snorkel off their ladder and saw one of the dive shop employees helping a couple setup their gear after. They hadn't been diving in a few months and he was walking them through it, giving them tips and reminding them of how to setup, not to wear gloves, etc. He was so laid back, kind, and thorough. Later on the cruise we stopped in Cozumel and went out on a boat with a diving couple and we snorkeled. The woman was having her 60th birthday and told me wonderful stories about diving and said if we loved snorkeling so much we should at least try diving. Also, her buddy was having ear problems and couldn't equalize so the DM buddied with her and no one made a fuss that he was uncomfortable and called the dive. I had a revelation that it wasn't that all diving had to be edge pushing, thrill seeking, reckless adventure (that my Dad sometimes craves), but that you could find safe people and safe conditions to dive.

We then decided to plan our next snorkel trip, and since we really like shore snorkeling, we were looking for a location that we could stay and easily snorkel from shore on our own schedule. We really loved Akumal, but wanted something with more life like Roatan and better coral like Belize. Bonaire kept popping up and we knew some folks that had been to Curacao
snorkeling too, and said it was amazing. We actually booked airfare through Curacao (major good deal popped up) and then I started doing more and more research. I was worried that the shallows had been too damaged, although I read the diving was still pretty awesome, so we decided it was time to at least do a Discover and see if we could tolerate diving. I was worried about Hubby's ear as he had an ear drum burst when he was very young and his Mom said he couldn't dive (though the Doc said it was fine to try because it had completely healed now). I was also worried if I could deal with diving just on a panic level. I am not claustrophobic, but had some anxiety about it.

Fates aligned and there was actually a 2 for 1 Discover at the LDS that we had bought all of our snorkel stuff over the past few years. We signed up right away. What I really liked:

1) Very Friendly, Patient Instructor
2) Plenty of classroom time to talk about principles (ear clearing, breathing, buoyancy, ascending, descending), answer questions, and even see who was nervous and that it was okay to be nervous
3) No Pushing to hurry. We started in the shallows and she walked us through getting gear on, purging, made sure everyone's masks were good, etc.
4) Started in the shallow end, after repeatedly checking on us said we could move to the deep end which was a gentle slope down and then there were toys to play with and rings to swim through at the bottom.
5) Play time at the end

The funny part was submerging for the first time with the regulator - I was nervous but then I was breathing underwater and it just seemed so natural I didnt even realize I was breathing through a reg (probably due to all the mouth breathing we do when we snorkeled) Overall it was the most fun 2 hours I have ever spent.

This was April-ish 2011 and in May we signed up for an OW part 1 in June, Open Water dives in July, and Nitrox in August or September I believe. Bonaire was October 2011.

I have so many snorkeling friends that don't dive and when they ask me about diving, I always tell them the Discover is the way to go, its worth $25 just to see what you think about it. Although beware - expensive addiction! In fact, we are doing a Discover Scuba with our brother and sister in law on the 13th of this month - trying to get them hooked so we have dive travel buddies!

 

[tkdgodess]

No dsd. I was skin diving for hermit crabs, putting them in the freezer to get them out of the shell, and thought why not scuba, i could stay down longer to see more stuff... i had more $ to spend than things to do in the early 90's on a family vacation in se asia. 3 days later with my dad in a private class we were certified. Im still diving and my ow instructor is still teaching. I no longer torture small sea creatures.

 

[freewillie]

I did one with my wife on the Great Barrier Reef. My wife thought that as long as we were staying on the GBR we should take advantage of the situation. That's one reason I love her so much. We watched a video about scuba and the gear. Did our pool session, and then went on a 45 minute dive. I loved it, but my wife did not. She felt claustrophobic and didn't like the weight. Once we got home I signed up for lessions and was certified.

My daughter then did DSD when we vacationed in Turks and Caicos. She also loved it, and begged to finish her certification during our vacation. She is now my new dive buddy! Very cool to share scuba with her now.

 

[grantwiscour]

My wife and I were vacationing on Oahu's North Shore and went in to rent a kayak from Surf and Sea. The guy behind the counter said he didn't want to rent me a kayak because I was obviously "too cool" for that. I've always considered myself "pretty cool" so I thought it was funny. The guy reiterated we were too cool for kayaking and said we should scuba.

The whole thought of scuba was a bit intimidating. He told us that they had some shore dives going on at Shark's Cove and we should go check out the DM and the scene...so we did. The next day we went back to the store and signed up for the Discover Scuba. We didn't know how our lives were about to change.

After the equipment and dive briefing we were in the water. It didn't take long to realize that this was much better than kayaking.

Since then we have done 125+ dives and returned many times to dive with our friends Charly and Marco on Oahu. I'm sure glad that we were talked into something "cooler" than the top of the water sports.

 

[Diver0001]

I got to thinking, after I went home, about what the experience meant to them, and I wondered: How many of you did a Discover Scuba before you got certified?

I didn't. I don't think it was an option back when I got certified. However, I would strongly recommend a Discover Scuba to anyone thinking about learning. With no performance requirements they're relaxed fun and you'll really come away with a better sense of what you're getting yourself into....

R..

 

[ScubaSam]

I got to thinking, after I went home, about what the experience meant to them, and I wondered: How many of you did a Discover Scuba before you got certified? How did it affect your decision to go on to learn to dive? What did you like about the way it was run, and what would you have had done differently? (I'm particularly interested in pool sessions, since that is what we do here in Puget Sound.)

I signed up for a Discover Scuba during the Great Barrier Reef portion of my Australia/New Zealand vacation because a co-worker told me that I could not return from the GBR without doing a dive. It was a full day on a cattle boat with a mix of 24 divers and snorkelers headed to three sites on the Great Barrier Reef. During the hour long boat ride out to the first site, the instructor briefed the other Discover Scuba student and I on what to expect during our dive, the equipment, how to equalize our ears, how to retrieve our regs if it came out of our mouth underwater, etc.

I'd never snorkel before so the instructor wanted me to snorkel at the first site to see how comfortable I was while she took the other student on his Discover Scuba dive. I did fine snorkeling at first site.

At the second site, I was the only Discover Scuba diver headed into the water with the instructor. The other Discover Scuba diver "freaked out" at the first site and called his remaining Discover Scuba dives. I was not comfortable as the instructor and I were descending because I did not trust the regulator to give me air so I called the dive. Instructor told me to snorkel again, and after lunch, if I was up to it, we'd do a Discover Scuba dive together at the third site.

At the third site, I suited up and headed into the water with the instructor. For the first five minutes underwater I was so focused on the fact that I can hear myself breath underwater (and I kept hearing Darth Varder's voice in my head) that I wasn't enjoying the view. Once I stopped focusing on the Darth Varder sounds I was making, I felt like a curtain into the underwater world of bright colors, odd shape corals, and marine life was opened. I saw for the first time all the colors, lights, shapes, and texture of the reef. I was a visitor among all the marine life in their environment and was THRILLED at the experience. I was hooked and lost my heart to scuba!

Having the instructor all to myself underwater was a huge relief. Her patience and ability to read that I was scared but curious enough helped turn my Discover Scuba into a positive experience. The captain told me after I finished my dive that he and the DMs were all rooting for me. They were amazed that I'd never snorkel before that day and that I did a Discover Scuba dive the same day.