My son was certified at 12 years old a PADI junior and that was the youngest permited back thirty years ago . My son was pretty good sized but regret straping a 165 cubic foot nitrox bottle on his back . Free diving is a great way to go . Equalizing and diving down to thirty feet should be a goal . Most scuba divers can not do this . Family Always First Rumdumb
Getting my 11 y/o into diving
- Thread starter TheGintleman
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
I got certified when I was 12. Nobody really thought anything of it. I did the same stuff as everyone else in the class (even tables) and passed the same tests. It was 1986 though. Kids back then didn't seem to have as many "issues" as they do today, times are definitely much different.
It is a low pressure faber 131 cubic foot tank filled to 3500 PSI which is in the ballpark of 165
Belzelbub
Contributor
Indeed. Truly an odd choice. My daughters were tiny when they were first certified at 10. Instructor gave them an AL63 for the pool sessions and checkout dives. Even with that they needed very little weight. None for the pool, and maybe a couple pounds for the checkouts (wetsuit). At the time, I had an HP130. I’m pretty sure they would not have been able to handle climbing the steps with that strapped to them, and I believe the HP 130 was around 52 lbs full.
95ripper
Registered
I am working on getting my young daughters certified, my wife and I are but have been out of it since we had kids. We are not looking at doing anything too deep, but they have messed around in the pool and seem to love it. @Belzelbub how did it go with your young daughters?
Belzelbub
Contributor
It went well. Both are certified and both continue to enjoy diving. Their experiences, were, however quite different. The only commonality was that both had a scheduling thing that delayed things a bit, but both got it done.
Oldest was very keen on diving from the get go. Never had any apprehension, and still doesn't. She has, wisely, called off a dive before when the surface conditions were a bit much for her. She's added spearfishing to her diving, though I usually need to point out what she can shoot.
Youngest was a bit more apprehensive. Only on a new experience, though. No issue with the pool, but some hesitancy first time in actual dives. Checkouts were done at Devil's Den, which is a bit dark. She got through. Then on her first ocean dive, she was nervous. I got her to go down by letting her know that if she wants to come right back up, we will. She didn't want to. Since then she's had no issues.
95ripper
Registered
Thanks for that, we have done a ton of snorkeling and they love that and want to be able to go deeper, so it is great to hear about other experiences with this.
Similar threads
