OW Checkouts ???

[DI_Guy]

Hi there fellow Ontario divers....

I was wondering where the Ontario divers did their OW check outs...

For me, it was Prescott Docks on the St. Lawrence.

The water was a cool 9 degrees C and the mask removal test was cold slap in the face. (lol)

I had 38 lbs of added lead to keep me down.

I think if you get trained in Canada, you can dive almost anywhere.

 

[Scuba Duffer]

Provo - Turks and Caicos!!!!!!

 

[d33ps1x]

Kirkfield Quarry. Near zero vis and around 5C.

Canadian checkout dives are the only way to go!

 

[EricDive]

Blockhouse Island, Brockville .... a cool 50 degrees F (10C). It was such an awesome moment that I didn't care!

Eric

 

[CDN ff]

I did mine in Jamaica. But, contrary to the norm of extraordinarily easy OW dive courses in the Caribbean, my instructor was a Jamaican named Orville Bryan who was great, and TOUGH! As part of my open water checkout, he dropped all of my gear (BC with weights belt tied to it, mask, regs) off the boat in 15 feet of ocean. Then I had to go over the side, swim down, find the BC, find the reg, clear the reg, find the mask, put the mask on, put the weight belt on, then put the bc on.
This was just one of many neat little tests he ran us through. By the time he was finished, I was ready for anything. Except, of course 40*F water..... LOL
Nothing prepares you for that......

 

[Boogie711]

So far I'm winning - Tobermory in May. Water temp was 34 degrees, and we had freezing rain on our surface interval. And of course, we were diving wet. My reg freeflowed 3 times in five dives.

But at least we had 20 feet of visibility.

 

[DI_Guy]

Wow....reading your reports, CDN ff and Boogie,.... I had it easy (lol)

However, the instructor did stir up the St. Lawrence "bottom silt" to create zero VIS when I did my navigation check-out with compass.... (Could hardly see the compass)

Bubblemaker_ontario

 

[knives]

Petawawa....in the river ,November it was about 2 degrees and light snow, about 4 pm . The cloudy day and tea colured water made the vis very interesting. We went down( 25 lbsof lead ) sat on some logs and did some stuff , we all had on wetsuits ,except for the instructor and divemaster of course they were DRY. we imerged frozen and exhausted from lugging around the excess weight we all had on. It was a blast !!!

 

[aquaoren]

Damn, I had it good when I listen to you all
I did it in October in the Red Sea. Water temp around 25-27 degrees and lots of colourfull fish. It was like diving a tropical fish aquarium

 

[FreeFloat]

Mine was in late October last year at Brule Road Quarry (Kingston), Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, and our last 'bonus' dive was on the Aloha and Effie Mae. Naturally we were diving wet as well - I was wearing a rental wetsuit (since it was part of the course cost - I figured I might as well even though I already owned my "own" neoprene. Froze to death in the other suit) and were introduced to the Joys Of Hot Water Down The Suit. (see - that's where it started. Blame them)

Water temps in the mid 40s if memory serves.