Youngandfree
Registered
Brand new guy here. I was offered a free Open Water class by my BIL who's best friend is the instructor. The plan was go to FL, then go to FT Lauderdale for mini season with my new credentials. They said "it will be great. Beach front hotel, walk right out to the water. Dive is only 10-15' deep. It will be awesome."
I thought to myself, I'm not a great swimmer, and not in the greatest shape, but trying it for free is better than spending a bunch of money to find out I can't hack it.
So we went down and did pool work on Sunday before mini season started. I surprised myself and did fine in the pool. My wife not so much. She didn't like being in the deep end of the pool at all. But she was very supportive of me doing it. The original plan was go to Devil's Den, wherever that is in FL. But instead they decided to see if our hotel had availability a day early and go on to Lauderdale-by-the-sea.
I did my open water dives near the pier. They didn't mention hiking 100+ yards from hotel into water, then swimming out to end of pier, before starting the dive. I learned real quick how strong my "don't give up" was that week. I don't like deep ocean water, but had a BC on so I tried not worrying. First attempt at going down was bad. I was freaking out, I was beyond out of breath. My instructor is a don't hold back retired cop that's 50 and built like a brick house. This fat guy couldn't keep up. He got me settled down, and we did the training dives with flying colors.
The next day we did a full tank dive, which meant only about 45minutes for me. Since all the crazies hit the water at midnight for mini season, we stayed in and went out at 3am. So my 2nd dive as a certified diver was a night dive. I surprised myself and did ok with that too, didn't freak out except just having real hard time keeping up with 3 other master divers. I decided to skip a second dive, and those guys went back out. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get back in as tired as I was, and it was more work than fun anyway.
I did a total of 5 dives down there, with the final being a sunrise dive. We stayed closest to the hote, and they wanted to hang over the pock holes in the reef, so we weren't swimming for hundreds of yards. Walking out was the only time I wasn't praying my legs would stay under me until I made it to the chair.
It was awesome, I'd like to be able to spend more time with someone willing to slow down for the new guy. They were on a lobster mission, so I just had to keep up. Instructor said I did really good, I didn't give up when he was hard on me. He said most brand new people don't get that kind of experience right out of the gate. In fact he said his dive shop had recently hired a dive master that had never done any ocean diving, but had years of fresh water experience.
I found this board from someone on a firearm board. I'll be lurking quite a bit and posting usual newb questions.
I thought to myself, I'm not a great swimmer, and not in the greatest shape, but trying it for free is better than spending a bunch of money to find out I can't hack it.
So we went down and did pool work on Sunday before mini season started. I surprised myself and did fine in the pool. My wife not so much. She didn't like being in the deep end of the pool at all. But she was very supportive of me doing it. The original plan was go to Devil's Den, wherever that is in FL. But instead they decided to see if our hotel had availability a day early and go on to Lauderdale-by-the-sea.
I did my open water dives near the pier. They didn't mention hiking 100+ yards from hotel into water, then swimming out to end of pier, before starting the dive. I learned real quick how strong my "don't give up" was that week. I don't like deep ocean water, but had a BC on so I tried not worrying. First attempt at going down was bad. I was freaking out, I was beyond out of breath. My instructor is a don't hold back retired cop that's 50 and built like a brick house. This fat guy couldn't keep up. He got me settled down, and we did the training dives with flying colors.
The next day we did a full tank dive, which meant only about 45minutes for me. Since all the crazies hit the water at midnight for mini season, we stayed in and went out at 3am. So my 2nd dive as a certified diver was a night dive. I surprised myself and did ok with that too, didn't freak out except just having real hard time keeping up with 3 other master divers. I decided to skip a second dive, and those guys went back out. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get back in as tired as I was, and it was more work than fun anyway.
I did a total of 5 dives down there, with the final being a sunrise dive. We stayed closest to the hote, and they wanted to hang over the pock holes in the reef, so we weren't swimming for hundreds of yards. Walking out was the only time I wasn't praying my legs would stay under me until I made it to the chair.
It was awesome, I'd like to be able to spend more time with someone willing to slow down for the new guy. They were on a lobster mission, so I just had to keep up. Instructor said I did really good, I didn't give up when he was hard on me. He said most brand new people don't get that kind of experience right out of the gate. In fact he said his dive shop had recently hired a dive master that had never done any ocean diving, but had years of fresh water experience.
I found this board from someone on a firearm board. I'll be lurking quite a bit and posting usual newb questions.
There are a number of us Arfcommers here. 
