New Diver Advice

[Doomnova]

Well I did my open water diver cert last month while on my honeymoon. I hadn't planned on doing it as I was just going to try the resort course to see if I liked diving (I love snorkeling at home for scallops so this was the next logical step), but when I got there and met the friendly dive staff I decided to do it right then and there. Now that I'm back home in the extremely cold water of the North Atlantic, with not a single soul locally that I know who dives, I'm in a bit of a predicament.

Those of you who trained while on holiday, did you have issues finding dive buddies when returning? I know this is totally regional and I have hit up the local dive group and will likely attend some of their dives in the spring, but I have a bit of hesitation joining an established group as a newbie who only has 4 dives under his belt. Is this a common problem for new open water divers? Also how dangerous is diving solo in <25' water? I usually snorkel from my kayak in the summer and dive down to collect scallops and if I could do my collecting on the bottom instead that would be so much better, but none of my buddies want to drop the cash to get certified. If only doing shallow water short dives would a pony bottle be better to take than a full sized tank?

And finally one question I can't seem to find an answer to online. If you were at say 20' for 5-10 minutes and had an uncontrolled ascent to the surface for whatever reason, but kept breathing, would you be in any danger?

Most dive groups are usually open to having new people join them and hell it makes it a blast to have someone mentor you and well make a set of friends who want to do something you love. Best be would be to man up and just ask them you might not be able to got on every dive as some might be current deep or night dives which I wouldn't do till I was more experienced and have taken my AOW.

As for solo diving eh not when your new to diving too many issues you may not see coming so I would kill that thought right there.

For the uncontrolled ascent keep exhaling and your air way open and you'll be fine.

for your next post honestly I would skip the 7mm and get a drysuit. Honestly I think the statisitc will would be something like 75-85% of people diving in cold northern waters end up in dry suits inside of a year. Also those temps you listed in you second post are surface temps would be my guess which will only be in the upper 20-25ft max and once you get below that your in the cold stuff again. Once you get used to a drysuit honestly I wouldn't go back wet unless it was in warm water. I did my OW in 6-8c water and was cold and I grew up in Alberta and it takes a lot to make me cold.

As for a course you don't need to take the course a simple drysuit orientation should be sufficient if you can get just that. That is all I did and I have 4 wetsuit dive and 61 drysuit dives. Heck maybe just take the drysuit adventure dive that with a bit of mentoring should get you well enough off. I know about 60 divers and 2 of them dive wetsuit. Lets just saw we keep a thermos of hot water just to warm them up after the first dive because they will call the second one half way through because they are cold if we don't. Also if you look after your drysuit it will last a very long time. i know people going on 5 years with the same one.

The question is dive and possibly get cold when you wet and probably be cold on the second dive or put the money in get the drysuit and be warm for pretty much any dive you want to do and enjoy everything and don't want to come up. I like the latter.