Newbie in Ontario! (AND I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT OPEN WATER CERTIFICATION)

[Finssup]

Hello all, I'm new to this forum, and am stoked that I will be doing my open water dives for certification at the end of August. Just spent the weekend doing the confined water dives and classroom portions this weekend and loved it!

I have a question though.....we are doing our open water dives in Gullivers Lake, Ontario (Canada), and I know that the Lake's deepest is about 23 ft. I friend of mine commented, asking how could we be certified when we won't be diving 1 atmospheric pressure.....and I'm not sure of the answer to that....can anyone help me out (while I await a response from my instructor to that question).....

 

[shoredivr]

Hey, Finssup, welcome to SB!

If you're doing OW at Gulliver's, that could mean that you're doing you course through Tri-City? They use Gulliver's a lot for OW...

Can't really answer your question from an instructor's point of view, but I remember that my first few dives for OW training were in about 25 ft of sea water in Roatan. And that was 13 years ago.

At that time, the focus of the OW course was to acquire and repeat certain skill sets, which can be done in 20 ft of water, or 15 ft of water, or 40 ft of water. If you don't get an instructor answer here, try the Basic Scuba forum.

There's lots to dive in Ontario! Let us know how the rest of the course goes. Hope you continue to enjoy...I've enjoyed my enthusiasm for diving for the last 13 years.

Gotta get wet!