Newbie in MD loved Discover Diving course

[dhaslbeck]

Hi. I'm D.J. I'm new to Scuba. I took the Intro to Diving in Barbados (West Side Dive Shop) while on a cruise and now I want to get certified. Unfortunately I was only in Barbados for one day otherwise I would have stayed the 3 o 4 days needed to get certified there. My dive experience was awesome, although I do have to admit to a fair bit of controlled panic at first getting used to breathing underwater. While I avoided the hyper fast breathing my friend experienced, I tended to talk very long, deep breaths. Although my mind knew I was getting enough air, my lungs seemed to be fighting me on that. Anyway, we both finished the intro course and the dive of some wrecks in about 35-40 feet of water.

Now I want to get certified. I have quite a few questions about certification and will be cruising the board looking for answers. Things like PADI, NAUI or SSI? Can I get the OW cert from SSI then take advanced from PADI or vise versa? To get certified by more than one organization, does one need to take to entire course or coudl one show up with an SSI OW card and take a checkout dive and then get a PADI OW card? So many questions.

Anyway, I just wanted to say Hi.

dj

 

[cdreamer]

Hi Dj and welcome to the board! You do have to take the whole course to be certified by a particular agency unless you're doing what's called a universal referral in which you may take Agency 1 course and finish it under Agency 2 but you can't cross over from one to another for OW and it's not necessary. If you take SSI for OW and you want to follow the SSI program
then you need to stay with SSI but you may take SSI OW and Padi Advanced for example unless you plan to go to a professional level - in that case all courses are not interchangeable.
Stop in or give us a call - we could get you started next week if you are ready.