New to Diving

[bc214]

Good Morning All,

I recently joined the forum to help find answers to questions relating to diving. I have considered taking diving lessons for some years, but with young kids and a busy life I hadn't gotten around to it. The past few years I went back to college, obtained my BA, and last September started law school. I go to law school part time, and work full time as a police officer. I also have a small training business that I run on weekends, so needless to say, I am quite busy all of the time.

This past year has been exceptionally difficult, and somewhere around mid fall semester I decided that when summer rolls around and things quiet down a bit, I'm going to reward myself for all of the hard work during the school year by taking dive lessons on summer break. This worked well with my wife's plans to take annual vacations to tropical locations, of which I hope to combine into vacations/dive trips. But that is clearly far off from now. For the time being, my main goal is research, selecting a training school, and getting the education and equipment needed to dive safely.

I'll be looking through the forums here for info and possibly posting a few questions if I cannot find what I am looking for, but it is quite clear that this forum is MASSIVE with a wealth of information contained within.

Thanks for reading!

-BC

 

[victor]

My advise is to ask questions of the instructor, not the dive shop manager. The instructor is the person you need to get along with. It is his attitude, his attention to detail, his experience, that can make or break your tuition.
Yes you can learn to dive in a couple of evenings, theory plus pool sessions, and a weekend in open water, but that will NOT make you a competent diver but will give you a C card.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ne...ng/287780-how-find-excellent-scuba-class.html
This thread will give you some good pointers. Don't worry if it's PADI SDI, etc, they are all much of a muchness.
Don't rush, or worse be pushed to buy kit up front. Yes you will need a mask that fits comfortably, a snorkel (useful for beating the kids but little else), and fins. Fins are a difficult one as what you need for the pool may not be suitable for you open water dives.
Ask if you can borrow/rent fins that are suitable for the pool and open water dives as you won't necessarly know if you will have boots on.
Definitly don't get pushed into buying regs, wet suit, dive computer at this time.
The dive, dive, dive, before you think about advanced or other cards.

Diving is great fun and a great way to leave all the preasures of normal life behind for a while.

 

[bc214]

Thanks victor, I appreciate the response. I have a few pieces of equipment that were given to me, and I have to buy the basics for the class.