Diving w/ a Junior OW diver in T&C

[jhspb]

I'll be with my soon to be jr. certified 11 year old son in Provo for the new year holiday. I'm looking for any advice on kid friendly ops, well really kid friendly DMs.

Aside from dive op recommendation, my real is that, while I look forward to diving the shallow dives w him, I want to have the freedom to go deep as well. That's going to depend on a DM going in and guiding 2 shallow dives, which I think is an unreasonable expectation on my part.

Would you all stay shallow for all dives, ask your son to sit out the first dive, or hire a DM to join you to supervise a shallow dive while you went deep?

Joe

 

[jhspb]

New idea:

We're considering having our son do the open water testing on a referral basis when we get to Provo. This would provide better supervision for a new young diver (with 40 dives logged, I'm not all that comfortable guiding a new junior diver w/out other more experienced support), and would give more flexibility to my wife and I for multilevel dive plans.

I know the #1 board recommendation for ops in Provo is Caicos Adventures. Do you believe this to also be true with a young new diver included in the plans?

Joe

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

When I dove with Caicos Adventures in February of last year there was a father and 12 year old son diving. On at least one dive the father dove deep while trusting his son with Asa, one of the DMs. Asa puttered around within sight of the boat with the young diver and never seemed to exceed about fifty feet (est.). He seemed really competent and very caring. After diving with him for a week I would trust him and recommend him. I also note that Fifi (the owner) has two young children who dive with him when they are on the island. I think he would be very receptive to another parent and their concerns. I would recommend tipping the sh*t out of Asa the first day and being very specific with your instructions as to limits. Good luck!

 

[jhspb]

Thanks Tim

I agree with you about the tipping. Appreciation for excellent service or anticipated excellent service always helps any situation.


You may not know the answer to this, but do you know if the dad formally hired Asa through Fifi or was he on the boat as part of the normal crew complement?

If he was on the boat per normal plan (i.e. the dad didn't hire extra support) how did Asa manage to fit in the extra level of effort necessary to dive a 12 year old profile as well as meet his other service obligations?

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

Please forgive me if my recollection is fading. What I recall is that the day in question there were two DM's on board. Fifi and Asa. Fifi stayed on board and Asa was the DM for the rest of the group. We had been diving with this group for most of the week and Fifi announced that for the three tank trip to French Cay we were basically on our own unless someone specifically wanted a guided dive. He gave a very good dive briefing, told us he would be checking computers when we got back on board and stated that Asa would be in the water but would be around the boat with the junior diver. This was presented as an option and he made it clear that if anyone wanted a guided dive he would re-arrange things to accommodate. Everyone on the boat was happy so that's the way it went. It was a very good navigation dive since the anchor was about twenty-five feet from the sheer wall. Pick your landmark on the lip of the wall, go deep down the wall til you have 1500 PSI come up to the top of the wall and look for the landmark on return to find the anchor. I remember coming back to the anchor and seeing Asa and the young diver playing tic-tac-toe on his slate at about 35 feet. I think they were doing an extended safety stop and waiting for dad. I am sure that you could hire your own DM to stay with your child during the your deep dive. In fact, as a parent, it is the way I would do it. You could also talk to Fifi ahead of time and make sure that he has a plan for the day that would accommodate your situation. I don't think the foregoing scenario would have worked if it had not been a situation where he had a group of divers he knew were competent and did not need a guided dive. Good luck and let me know if I can be of any other help.