Mike Boswell
Contributor
I'll add my two cents here even though it seems a bit redundant. I dove when I was younger but quit in 1983, and then took it up again in 2008, when I took the PADI OW class to get my wife certified.
As with riding a bike, the basic physical skills of diving came back to me quickly. But diving procedures have changed, and gear has changed, and the sport has changed. I had never heard of Nitrox, safety stops, back kicks, dive computers, technical diving, or liveaboards. I had never used an octopus, an SMB, a wetsuit, a BCD or ditchable weights. I had never used corrective lenses or low-volume masks, or dove blue water, or kelp, or a wreck, or been in water with less than 100-foot visibility.
There is also a whole new set of attitudes I had to learn, about safety, about buddy diving, and most notably about conservation and protection of the reefs, not just for themselves but for the benefit of the next diver who comes along.
I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that I took the courses all over again. Not only were they educational and necessary, they were a hell of a lot of fun. And they were fun because diving instruction has also changed: it is no longer a US Navy Seal Team mentality of tough young Rambos, but a kinder gentler sort of thing that suits us senior citizens a little better.
As with riding a bike, the basic physical skills of diving came back to me quickly. But diving procedures have changed, and gear has changed, and the sport has changed. I had never heard of Nitrox, safety stops, back kicks, dive computers, technical diving, or liveaboards. I had never used an octopus, an SMB, a wetsuit, a BCD or ditchable weights. I had never used corrective lenses or low-volume masks, or dove blue water, or kelp, or a wreck, or been in water with less than 100-foot visibility.
There is also a whole new set of attitudes I had to learn, about safety, about buddy diving, and most notably about conservation and protection of the reefs, not just for themselves but for the benefit of the next diver who comes along.
I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that I took the courses all over again. Not only were they educational and necessary, they were a hell of a lot of fun. And they were fun because diving instruction has also changed: it is no longer a US Navy Seal Team mentality of tough young Rambos, but a kinder gentler sort of thing that suits us senior citizens a little better.
