I completed my dry suit class yesterday.
I had done one DUI demo day, with two dives in their dry suits. I have also had a chance to dive with friends with quite a bit of experience in dry suits, who gave me useful tips, as well as taking one short class in a used dry suit I picked up last year.
I was already beginning to get fairly comfortable with diving in the suit but I wanted some actual training. I learned quite a bit about both my own suit (and it's care and charactoristics) and about diving in a dry suit. Still, a part of me is very glad that I took the class, and part of me is saying "is that all there is?". One short confined water and two 3/4 hr lake dives left me feeling that this was not quite as thourough a training as I was expecting.
But, we had fun, even in 41d water, and I am more confident in handling the suit than I was before the class. The "escapes" from feet up were sort of fun, but the rest of the course was really correct venting, buoyancy techniques, controlling stuck valves, etc.
My conclusion: the course was probably worth taking, but I felt it could have been improved a bit. Having to take the class in heavy all day driving rain did seriously shorted the SI discussions/debriefings which are a big part of learning, but that is a normal part of springtime diving in upsate NY.
I had done one DUI demo day, with two dives in their dry suits. I have also had a chance to dive with friends with quite a bit of experience in dry suits, who gave me useful tips, as well as taking one short class in a used dry suit I picked up last year.
I was already beginning to get fairly comfortable with diving in the suit but I wanted some actual training. I learned quite a bit about both my own suit (and it's care and charactoristics) and about diving in a dry suit. Still, a part of me is very glad that I took the class, and part of me is saying "is that all there is?". One short confined water and two 3/4 hr lake dives left me feeling that this was not quite as thourough a training as I was expecting.
But, we had fun, even in 41d water, and I am more confident in handling the suit than I was before the class. The "escapes" from feet up were sort of fun, but the rest of the course was really correct venting, buoyancy techniques, controlling stuck valves, etc.
My conclusion: the course was probably worth taking, but I felt it could have been improved a bit. Having to take the class in heavy all day driving rain did seriously shorted the SI discussions/debriefings which are a big part of learning, but that is a normal part of springtime diving in upsate NY.
