New to diving, and new to diving buddy

[Steve_C]

Sounds like a good plan. Depending on your local quarry and what kind of viz it has it would not hurt to have a compass. Knowing that East will get me back close to the side of the entry has gotten me back from the murk more than once when I got "lost"
Have fun.

 

[Chavodel8en]

Im plagiarizing what someone wrote on SB.

A certification (hopefully) prepares you to dive without killing yourself. Learner's permit is a good analogy. Now you actually have to go and learn how to dive properly.

I remember after I got certified. Shore diving in California is informal, you find folks to dive with and you dive. I started out feeling I wanted someone more experienced (not necessarily a DM) "leading" the dive. Eventually, maybe after ~ 20-30 dives I felt myself an equal member of a buddy team.

I concur that your plan seems good. Having a more experienced buddy may accelerate skill development (I thank all the folks who dove with me and taught me new things), but in the absence of that, it sounds like you & your "newbie" crew have the correct attitude - gradually increasing your diving abilities. Only way to become an experienced diver is to dive, so go to it and have fun.

 

[Oz Chris]

After my partner and finished our OW course we just went diving. We’re lucky to live somewhere (Sydney, Australia) with lots of accessible shore dives with pretty good online resources about them.

Some dives we did with more experienced friends, but we also just went and got wet.

We also did a bunch of DM guided boat dives, but our 7th dive (ie. 3 after OW) was a boat dive where we went off by ourselves without a DM.

One thing I’ve learnt is to learn from the more experienced divers around you by watching, but until you’re diving without a net (DM) you don’t learn to navigate, or plan and manage a dive.

So yes, go dive, go dive often.

 

[84CJ7]

I like the plan, 30 is deep enough for good stable suit compression so you can practice simple diving without either popping like a cork from buoyancy swings or plunging into the depths. Practice holding at 15 feet without finning while just looking at your depth gauge, you won't believe how much you suck at something so simple.

And yes, just you and your buddy off by yourselves, its necessary to get over the OW pack mule train habits and make you think about what you are doing.

At least with PADI I took OW and AOW back to back since the skills in it (novelty specialties aside) are just as critical and often are improving and perfecting what you already learned. Then I had to practice a bit to realize how crappy my skills actually were (and my weighting).
The OW cert is a bit of a joke actually, you more pay for the card than earn it, but lets not get off topic on that horse.

 

[TMHeimer]

There are many things that you don't learn in your standard 4 day course (well, actually 2 days with a lot of the pool stuff just being reviewed and "checked off" on the 2 OW day dives). There are those who teach more comprehensive and longer courses, even including some serious rescue skills. Which brings me to my old point of taking the Rescue course as soon as you are comfortable with your equipment and diving in general. I did mine after 26 dives--obviously people will vary.