I passed OW :)

[Skittl1321]

I think the vis was somewhat typical, I've heard it sometimes clears to 15 feet, which sounds fabulous. It's just a muddy bottomed rock quarry. I think the deepest it gets (if the water level is high) is around 30 feet, we found some spots about 25 feet, but mostly the bottom was 20 feet. I was just happy it was warm; my husband went last month and they had to wear hoods and gloves too.

The first day it had just rained, so I think the 3-5 vis was because of run off. The second day the vis on the platform was maybe 5-7 feet, so already much better; but the vis was worse when we swam near the bottom, or right at the top- you couldn't see above water until you were within inches of the surface (which we tried to do, because if we swam at the 10-15 ft mark, we kept finding ourselves floating to the top). The thermocline was an absolute mess for vis- like 2 feet! Under it was clearer, but since there is only a few feet to move under the thermocline to the bottom, of course OW students silted it up pretty badly!

The vis issue was something that was really surprising to me. I expected poor visibility to be like dusk- where everything is blurry. Instead, it was the things you can see you can see clear as day, and then it's like a wall and you can't see anything else. I would see fish, point them to my buddy, and she couldn't see them, and we were holding hands, so close together. Bizarre.

I guess this is also kind of a dumb observation, but one of my issues with kicking the ground was that the level of the ground kept changing! When you float in a pool, you know, it's all level, and I can be neutrally bouyant fairly well for a beginner, and be okay, and move around and stay at the same level. But in the quarry, I'd be at 20 feet, and as we were swimming we kept running into hills (because we couldn't see them approaching), my level didn't change- the ground's did. I just had never thought about that. So then as we tried to climb above them, or get turned around, we'd accidentally kick them, or sink into them on a breath, and it would get silty. Maybe this is just something easier to practice when you can see where you are going... Thankfully, I don't think much lives in the grass down there, so I don't think I'm destroying ancient marine life.

Good to know the kneeling thing actually means my weights were probably okay. It just added a lot of stress to not being able to kneel like everyone else. When my husband and I go up to the quarry, I'm going to make sure I can do all the mask skills floating; the regulator skills I don't think the position will matter as much.

 

[nimoh]

congratulations! it is a big accomplishment to complete your OW training.

It's also great that your skill evaluations went well and that you had trouble kneeling. Out of all that, kneeling is the one thing you won't need to do moving forward with your diving

 

[tracydr]

OW checkouts went WAY better than pool work (previous post about the disaster that was my first pool session; when I went back I did better, but still not great), though it was weird- in the pool I had lots of issues with regulator skills (anything that removed it from my mouth), and no issues at all with mask skills. In OW, I had no issues with regulator skills and a lot of anxiety (but no real issues once I'd do it) with mask skills. I think it was because I couldn't get myself into the kneeling position and was really anxious I would flip over while my mask was off (thus getting water up my nose...which I know shouldn't be an issue, but I swim weird where I cover my nose with my lip, so I've never had to deal with water in my nose while swimming, and I can't do that if the regulator is in my mouth, so I feel really vulnerable). I think technically we were supposed to be kneeling on the platform to do the skills, but no matter what I did, I couldn't keep myself down and hovered (I flipped over during the oral inflate for the fin tip... two breaths in and I turned sideways and went fins over head... would that mean my BCD was slightly crooked on the tank and I was off balance?)

So now I'm not sure about my weights, I'm a short, slightly overweight (but not close to obese) girl, I was wearing a 7 mm wetsuit (designed for someone like 4-6" taller than me, so I had a lot of extra fabric around my ankles, which I think accounts for the buoyancy of my feet!) in freshwater. Day 1 I wore 16 lbs of weight and the weight check they did said I was fine, but I couldn't get myself to stay on the platform so I went up to 18 today. Still couldn't (and couldn't free descend without using my arms to push myself down.) I guess it is kind of moot since saltwater in a 3 mm shorty when we go on vacation will be so differently, but I guess I thought weights were supposed to help keep you from floating off. I mean, I wasn't really rising to the surface, but I also wasn't staying down.

After we were certified and got to do our "fun" (the vis was 3-5 feet, so fun is used loosely) my buddy and I swam around in a circle for awhile (no compass, the instructors later told us they watched our bubbles go in a literal circle, we had no idea where we were going and were just trying to practice no kicking the ground...) and did a 3 minute safety stop. We managed to stay within 2 feet of the stop depth, which I thought was pretty good for a first time with no line.

I imagine this diving is going to be pretty fun when there is something to see, but I have to say, 30 minutes in the mud with like 5 fish to keep us company was a LONG dive...

We don't go on vacation until December, so I think we'll try to make 2-3 trips to the quarry before it gets to cold so my husband and I can continue to run through skills. But man, a 2 hour drive up there and back is a lot for such a crappy dive...

We have a three hour drive to train in our crappy, muddy lake and believe it or not, it's actually cold, too.
Can you maybe go to the Great Lakes for some summer dive trips? That's some good diving! Or, maybe some places in Canada?
You'll probably want to start saving for a good,used drysuit. It will open up the diving season for you, which is a great thing. Plus, will make lots of great diving much more attainable, places like Channel Islands, San Diego and Puget Sound are so wonderful if you dive dry.
Can you perhaps rent a pool every once in awhile? Our city pool is fairly inexpensive and if you could perhaps start a small club you could even get a group together to share expenses.
Again, congratulations! It's a new world out there and traveling just got a lot more exciting/more complicated!

They didn't teach you to use a compass? Shame on them!you should have at least learned to use a compass to do a straight line out and back. Make sure you buy a compass and practice this next time you go out. There are a lot of you-tube videos which can explain how to use one to help you get started.
Don't worry about the kneeling. It's going the way of dinosaur diving and you won't need it anymore, unless you want to become a PADI Divemaster with somebody who insists that you teach in a kneeling position. It appears that PADI is moving towards teaching in a more natural div.ing position.

 

[Skittl1321]

tracydr- I think the Great Lakes is a definite possibility for future diving, and our shop runs trips. Not this year though, as with the December trip to Cozumel coming up, I'm out of vacation time. Probably would want to have taken AOW before going out there too.

We do have a dive club that does a once a month outing to a quarry or lake around here (sometimes getting into private quarries we couldn't otherwise dive in), but they have a really short season. They just dive May-August.

I'm not sure what to think about drysuit. The shop has told me they don't have them small enough for me to rent, and I'm very wary about buying one before I've tried it at all... I think I'll have to follow my husband's lead. If he starts a lot of dry suit diving, then I'd need to do the same to be able to dive with him. Otherwise, I might be a vacation diver who jumps into the mud-hole a few times a year to keep up skills. (Quite honestly I'm wary about buying any equipment before I decide how much I'm going to stick with this... I think we are just going to get me a computer for now.)

 

[corvettejoe]

Congrats! I hope your next vacation dive is in clear waters

 

[Quero]

Well done! You stuck to it, overcame your roadblocks, and achieved your objective. Now just go dive as much as you can to cement all those new skills and get them to be second nature.