jewelofnile69
Contributor
Hi Everyone!
DH and I took our AOW and Enriched Air certifications this weekend with a great instructor. He was very competent, patient and super funny. We had a great weekend of diving. We had a total of 4 of us in class and a girlfriend of ours joined in for day 2 to get her nitrox cert. I'm really glad that we waited awhile after OW to take AOW. I had a little over 30 dives under my belt at the start of AOW and think I got a lot more out of it than I would have if we went right from OW into it or even after 10 or 15 dives.
We did day 1 of diving up at Devil's Lake which included PPB and navigation. My husband and I have been doing lake diving a lot over the last 2 months so we had been really working on buoyancy and trim over the course of that time so the buoyancy part went well. We have plenty of weight (DH just got 40lbs of weight and a bag for $20 on craigslist to add to our already 25lbs) and were lucky we brought it all because the instructor forgot his. We had enough for everyone. I did learn a few new tricks for buoyancy and got much better over hte course of the weekend with using my breathing to better control my buoyancy. I don't need much weight to get down in "warm" lake water wearing a 3mm and found out that I do much better with trim when I added a little bit of weight to my tank strap and don't have it all in my integrated BC. Wore a 7mm on day 2 and buoyancy went well (but I'd been using the 7mm most of the summer up here and figured out my weight easily). Same went for my husband. The vis on day 1 was about 5-10 feet (10 feet max). Did the navigation dive 2nd on that day. That didn't go the best. While I was out doing my kick cycle count I couldn't see the end piece and overshot it...luckily I did a 180 and got back. I had to literally be almost touching the bottom to see the line the 2nd time around and I did it 4 times and my kick cycle for 100 is about 25-27 kicks (but I'm not sure this is useful for knowledge for me as I mostly swim for pleasure and frog kick). Then he had us do 3 different patterns but we only could go like 3 kick cycles for each because of the vis. (My navigation wasn't the best and I overshot my starting point while doing the box (I suck at counting kick cycles because I don't pay attention....more on navigation for me later...it got better.) Also, 1 guy was pretty bad with air so the instructor was being concious of that (hence another reason for keeping our navigation quick and small). The good news is that on all dives (both days) I always had the most air remaining...which means I'm getting much better with my breathing/buoyancy. DH had 2nd most air left. We finished Day 1 with the full knowledge review of the 5 dives we were completing that weekend at the bar/pub down the road and then enjoyed a beer together. We went home completely wiped out.
Day 2 was up at Wazee Lake by Black River Falls (deepest inland lake/quarry in WI...375 ft or something like that). As I said above, a girlfriend of ours joined in with us that day as she wanted to get her enriched air cert (she's going to Bonaire with us in February). So on the way up we picked her up, dropped the dog off at MIL's and headed up. The weather was pretty crappy (70 and cloudy with a chance of rain (which is cool compared to the 90s and sunny we had been having)...but who cares, we were going to be underwater anyway, right?) and we brought a canopy just in case it rained during our surface intervals. We stopped at one of the local LDS' (there are 2 up there) and got our nitrox fills for our enriched air dives (that took forever...and included the checking and confirming the contents of the tank) and then headed to the shoreline. The nice part was there was barely anyone there the entire day. The first (and only) time we'd been up at Wazee this summer (it's a 2.5 hr drive from our house and there is another quarry that is much closer) the vis was NOT good so Jon and I weren't looking forward to doing our deep dive there (or search and recovery for that matter). We were pleasantly surprised at the visibility...I bet it was a good 30 feet. So we did our deep dive first. Got out to the buoy with the platform that was at 65 feet. Instructor went down and secured the hang tank, came back up and gave us one more briefing one last time of what was going to happen on the dive. So we started to descend down the line. Below the surface the water temp was about 75 (maybe at 10/15 ft). Got to about 30 feet and it quickly dropped to 68. 40 feet I started to realize I wasn't enjoying myself one bit because I was already freezing and it was quickly getting darker and the temperature was now like 60. Also, on a side note, I tend to get anxious when other people are doing stupid/dangerous things...so I'm going to have to sidebar on this before going on and tell even another side story.
We did the search and recovery dive next on the other side of the lake. We also were doing this one with nitrox so our girlfriend joined in as well (although she just swam around with the instructor while the 4 of us did the S&R). So we went over programing our dive computers for nitrox and tying the knots for the search and recovery. DH and I have our own lift bag and so of course we buddied up and the other guys did as well. The instructor sunk two anchors and we took turns navigating and doing the tie and lift. DH did the expanding square and I did the u pattern. Found our anchors pretty quickly and both did the knots well and the lift well. That was a lot of fun. After that we did the "wreck" dive. There is a sunken cabin cruiser there so we did the briefing for that and had to identify "hazards" while down there. There was a nice large swim through so we all did that a bunch of times and I had a slate on so I "mapped" the wreck.
The last two dives were nice and "warm." After we got done (it's 7pm now) we took the enriched air test and then headed home. It was a long and yet fast weekend.
We didn't do these classes just to "have the cards." We took them to help us become better divers and to be more concious of ourselves (and each other).
A few things I want to point out:
1) A dive slate is nice to have so you can swear at people under water or ask "where's so and so." The finger doesn't always do the job.
2) Young adults can be utterly annoying (I'm sure I was at that age)...especially when they try to 1-up every story you tell them. Note to self (for him...not me): If you are 22 and haven't lived, don't try and 1 up a soldier in her late 30s who has taken shrapnel to the ankle while deployed and who has interview hundreds of soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines after a battle.
3) DH is my best friend...and a great dive buddy!
4) It's great to do these kind of classes to meet other divers (less guy mentioned in #2 above). I'm pretty sure we'll dive again with our instructor who isn't just a nice guy but is good in the water who can teach us a thing or two (and not necessarily in a classroom setting) and one of the other guys in the class who isn't experienced but maybe DH and I can teach a thing or two to.
5) Every instructor is different (both for good and bad reasons) and I've been lucky to so far have 2 great instructors.
6) Most importantly - I LOVE to scuba!!!
Thanks for listening!
DH and I took our AOW and Enriched Air certifications this weekend with a great instructor. He was very competent, patient and super funny. We had a great weekend of diving. We had a total of 4 of us in class and a girlfriend of ours joined in for day 2 to get her nitrox cert. I'm really glad that we waited awhile after OW to take AOW. I had a little over 30 dives under my belt at the start of AOW and think I got a lot more out of it than I would have if we went right from OW into it or even after 10 or 15 dives.
We did day 1 of diving up at Devil's Lake which included PPB and navigation. My husband and I have been doing lake diving a lot over the last 2 months so we had been really working on buoyancy and trim over the course of that time so the buoyancy part went well. We have plenty of weight (DH just got 40lbs of weight and a bag for $20 on craigslist to add to our already 25lbs) and were lucky we brought it all because the instructor forgot his. We had enough for everyone. I did learn a few new tricks for buoyancy and got much better over hte course of the weekend with using my breathing to better control my buoyancy. I don't need much weight to get down in "warm" lake water wearing a 3mm and found out that I do much better with trim when I added a little bit of weight to my tank strap and don't have it all in my integrated BC. Wore a 7mm on day 2 and buoyancy went well (but I'd been using the 7mm most of the summer up here and figured out my weight easily). Same went for my husband. The vis on day 1 was about 5-10 feet (10 feet max). Did the navigation dive 2nd on that day. That didn't go the best. While I was out doing my kick cycle count I couldn't see the end piece and overshot it...luckily I did a 180 and got back. I had to literally be almost touching the bottom to see the line the 2nd time around and I did it 4 times and my kick cycle for 100 is about 25-27 kicks (but I'm not sure this is useful for knowledge for me as I mostly swim for pleasure and frog kick). Then he had us do 3 different patterns but we only could go like 3 kick cycles for each because of the vis. (My navigation wasn't the best and I overshot my starting point while doing the box (I suck at counting kick cycles because I don't pay attention....more on navigation for me later...it got better.) Also, 1 guy was pretty bad with air so the instructor was being concious of that (hence another reason for keeping our navigation quick and small). The good news is that on all dives (both days) I always had the most air remaining...which means I'm getting much better with my breathing/buoyancy. DH had 2nd most air left. We finished Day 1 with the full knowledge review of the 5 dives we were completing that weekend at the bar/pub down the road and then enjoyed a beer together. We went home completely wiped out.
Day 2 was up at Wazee Lake by Black River Falls (deepest inland lake/quarry in WI...375 ft or something like that). As I said above, a girlfriend of ours joined in with us that day as she wanted to get her enriched air cert (she's going to Bonaire with us in February). So on the way up we picked her up, dropped the dog off at MIL's and headed up. The weather was pretty crappy (70 and cloudy with a chance of rain (which is cool compared to the 90s and sunny we had been having)...but who cares, we were going to be underwater anyway, right?) and we brought a canopy just in case it rained during our surface intervals. We stopped at one of the local LDS' (there are 2 up there) and got our nitrox fills for our enriched air dives (that took forever...and included the checking and confirming the contents of the tank) and then headed to the shoreline. The nice part was there was barely anyone there the entire day. The first (and only) time we'd been up at Wazee this summer (it's a 2.5 hr drive from our house and there is another quarry that is much closer) the vis was NOT good so Jon and I weren't looking forward to doing our deep dive there (or search and recovery for that matter). We were pleasantly surprised at the visibility...I bet it was a good 30 feet. So we did our deep dive first. Got out to the buoy with the platform that was at 65 feet. Instructor went down and secured the hang tank, came back up and gave us one more briefing one last time of what was going to happen on the dive. So we started to descend down the line. Below the surface the water temp was about 75 (maybe at 10/15 ft). Got to about 30 feet and it quickly dropped to 68. 40 feet I started to realize I wasn't enjoying myself one bit because I was already freezing and it was quickly getting darker and the temperature was now like 60. Also, on a side note, I tend to get anxious when other people are doing stupid/dangerous things...so I'm going to have to sidebar on this before going on and tell even another side story.
Three weeks ago DH, a friend and I took the friend's brother and SIL out diving because they hadn't dove since their OW last year and were getting ready to go to Hawaii where they were going to dive. There is a bus sunken in this quarry we were at. Our friend did a swim through of the bus (vis was about 5-7 feet so you couldn't see the back of the bus from the front) but was ok because with his skill he's good. His brother decides to follow him (and I gave DH and friend's brother the signal of NO, don't do it) and of course he kept getting stuck and was freaking out and we all had to help him by putting our hands through the open windows of the bus...and then I start freaking out and have to calm myself down because he's an idiot and I'm a worry-wart. So anyway, back to our AOW deep dive...instructor tells us all to either descend down using the line or at least descend with the line itself clearly visible to them (meaning the instructor could keep track of all of us). Well, the one guy (who granted, was the least experienced) kept drifting far enough out where you couldn't see him at all (with yellow fins and all) and instructor had to keep going over and bringing him back. I get frustrated with people and nervous for them and that's what causes some of my anxiousness when diving. OK, enough on that (but that happened to be going on right at about 40ft when I was already getting cold).
So, now down to 50 feet and it's about 55 degrees and then by the time we got to the 65ft platform it was like 48 degrees or something. So I'm freezing but we all made it safely to the bottom (and there really was enough light and good vis to see each other so I had calmed down). We do some things like view the difference between colors with and without light, what happens to objects (plastic bottle and tennis ball) under pressure and 1 easy math problem. After that he asks us if we are cold. I say yes (but that didn't get through) and I'm literally freezing my butt off (mainly my toes and fingers) and am ready to go up....but now we go on a little navigation swim. We get down to about 80ft and now it's like 43 degrees. So I'm hanging in there and we are just hanging out and then the instructor gives the "circle the troops and head back" sign (both he and I are former Army officers so the whole weekend entailed military references) and I give that immediately and we head back. We then do a controlled ascent and get to the hang tank at 15 feet. He then gives each of us the "out of air" sign and we each grab a regulator from the hang tank and do our 3 minute safety stop there. All-in-all it was a good dive....I'm glad I did it and got passed that. But boy, 75 feet in the carribbean is COMPLETELY different than 75 feet in a cold, fresh water quarry!!! We had a nice chuckle about how cold 43# is in the water and about how quickly I followed with the turn around sign.
We did the search and recovery dive next on the other side of the lake. We also were doing this one with nitrox so our girlfriend joined in as well (although she just swam around with the instructor while the 4 of us did the S&R). So we went over programing our dive computers for nitrox and tying the knots for the search and recovery. DH and I have our own lift bag and so of course we buddied up and the other guys did as well. The instructor sunk two anchors and we took turns navigating and doing the tie and lift. DH did the expanding square and I did the u pattern. Found our anchors pretty quickly and both did the knots well and the lift well. That was a lot of fun. After that we did the "wreck" dive. There is a sunken cabin cruiser there so we did the briefing for that and had to identify "hazards" while down there. There was a nice large swim through so we all did that a bunch of times and I had a slate on so I "mapped" the wreck.
The last two dives were nice and "warm."
After we got done (it's 7pm now) we took the enriched air test and then headed home. It was a long and yet fast weekend. We didn't do these classes just to "have the cards." We took them to help us become better divers and to be more concious of ourselves (and each other).
A few things I want to point out:
1) A dive slate is nice to have so you can swear at people under water or ask "where's so and so."
The finger doesn't always do the job.2) Young adults can be utterly annoying (I'm sure I was at that age)...especially when they try to 1-up every story you tell them. Note to self (for him...not me): If you are 22 and haven't lived, don't try and 1 up a soldier in her late 30s who has taken shrapnel to the ankle while deployed and who has interview hundreds of soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines after a battle.
3) DH is my best friend...and a great dive buddy!
4) It's great to do these kind of classes to meet other divers (less guy mentioned in #2 above). I'm pretty sure we'll dive again with our instructor who isn't just a nice guy but is good in the water who can teach us a thing or two (and not necessarily in a classroom setting) and one of the other guys in the class who isn't experienced but maybe DH and I can teach a thing or two to.
5) Every instructor is different (both for good and bad reasons) and I've been lucky to so far have 2 great instructors.
6) Most importantly - I LOVE to scuba!!!
Thanks for listening!
