cwhite6
Contributor
I finished my OW this past weekend thru SSI and my local shop. My instructor was very accommodating to the folks in the class's schedules. There was only five of us. He moved the dive dates for us to enable me to go to my daughter's bday party and moved classroom sessions for work stuff for us. We did our dives in the Toledo Bend Turbine channel on Saturday. It only has a max depth of 22' or so and has a mostly rock and sand bottom. All the skills went fine and the swims were fun. We had around 8' vis and almost 30' vis in a hole dug out by a spring in the channel. I chased crawfish and watched a turtle. On Sunday it was pouring down rain so we moved the dives to the main lake. Sky cleared up and we dived in. This site had VERY thick grass from about 20' from shore to about 60' from shore. Grass went from just below the surface to 25' deep. Did the skills past the grass. Then we did a navigation with compasses over the grass. For the next dive our instructor floated above us and made the buddy teams swim on the bottom thru the grass to the shore. It was very thick and vis sucked (like 1' of less), but I kept close contact with my buddy and got thru it. Jimmy (my instructor) said he wanted us to swim through it and get comfortable with it as most of our local diving here is full of the stuff he wanted us to be exposed to it and not freak out. We did a 35 minute fun dive and we were done.
Last night I took the SSI EANx class at the shop. It was very informative. Small group (5 folks) and took a few hours. I was wanting to take this one for my vacation next year and it was nice to learn something new.
The comment about the instructor makes the class I found to be very true. Jimmy has been teaching since 1972 and is a SSI Platinum Pro 5000 instructor. I am guessing he has seen a little bit of everything. He was very patient and pushed us, but not too far. He was also very clear on our limitations and to get more experience before trying anything else. We had a young guy that wanted to go jump in caves and Jimmy drilled into him to take the proper classes and get experience before even trying it. Also, being an engineer, I am very interested in the basis of alot of the scuba basics. We spent a good deal of time on the dive tables. We worked multiple different dive scenarios a few different times. He would post three or four different dives with surface intervals and we had to work through them and arrive at the final level. Last night, we did the same thing using different Nitrox mixtures and dives to do the same thing. I really enjoyed the challenge of the tables. I also am secure in them enough to do basic dives here without a computer and only diving the tables. I like that I can use them and not have to depend on a computer. I am buying a computer, but I like knowing that if it dies, I can do my next dive using the tables, my watch and depth gauge. One older guy in the class said he only does guided dives and did not need tables. His choice. I am not pairing with him on any dives. :shocked2: It also reinforced to me how I want to set up my gauges and such. I am going with a wrist console on left wrist, compass on right wrist and combo SPG/depth gauge on console clipped to chest d ring. We used AirII's on all our dives. I found out I am not a fan. Some of the folks liked them and that is cool. Just too confining for me. I will be using a 5' hose on main reg I will donate and an octo on necklace I will use.
Just my $0.02. I loved the class. Now I need to find the money to be able to purchase/rent gear and dive more!
Last night I took the SSI EANx class at the shop. It was very informative. Small group (5 folks) and took a few hours. I was wanting to take this one for my vacation next year and it was nice to learn something new.
The comment about the instructor makes the class I found to be very true. Jimmy has been teaching since 1972 and is a SSI Platinum Pro 5000 instructor. I am guessing he has seen a little bit of everything. He was very patient and pushed us, but not too far. He was also very clear on our limitations and to get more experience before trying anything else. We had a young guy that wanted to go jump in caves and Jimmy drilled into him to take the proper classes and get experience before even trying it. Also, being an engineer, I am very interested in the basis of alot of the scuba basics. We spent a good deal of time on the dive tables. We worked multiple different dive scenarios a few different times. He would post three or four different dives with surface intervals and we had to work through them and arrive at the final level. Last night, we did the same thing using different Nitrox mixtures and dives to do the same thing. I really enjoyed the challenge of the tables. I also am secure in them enough to do basic dives here without a computer and only diving the tables. I like that I can use them and not have to depend on a computer. I am buying a computer, but I like knowing that if it dies, I can do my next dive using the tables, my watch and depth gauge. One older guy in the class said he only does guided dives and did not need tables. His choice. I am not pairing with him on any dives. :shocked2: It also reinforced to me how I want to set up my gauges and such. I am going with a wrist console on left wrist, compass on right wrist and combo SPG/depth gauge on console clipped to chest d ring. We used AirII's on all our dives. I found out I am not a fan. Some of the folks liked them and that is cool. Just too confining for me. I will be using a 5' hose on main reg I will donate and an octo on necklace I will use.
Just my $0.02. I loved the class. Now I need to find the money to be able to purchase/rent gear and dive more!
