Refresher course

[Addicted2H2O]

I have a suggestion.....you said her fiancee is about to do his OW class/dives. After he finishes his OW checkout dives, he's already going to be at a training facility. That being the case, why doesn't she just go with him and after he's done his last checkout dive, they can do a couple of dives together to work on buoyancy, mask drills, or any other skills she feels like she needs to brush up on. Not going to beat a dead horse regarding her needing "checkout" dives after her refresher course because none are required. But if she's concerned about being told she has to do something like that on her vacation, she should just make a couple dives with her fiancee after his last OW checkout dive. Then when the question "when was your last dive?" comes up...she can answer honestly.

 

[Esprise Me]

This thread got me thinking, especially @BurhanMuntasser and @Graeme Fraser's posts about dive ops and LOBs requiring a simple 'check' dive to dial in weights etc. even for experienced divers. The LOB I just did in January didn't do that--our first dive was a wall dive to 110 feet, because they wanted to start with the deepest dive--and it was fine but perhaps could have been better.

I wouldn't have thought I would need a checkout dive. That first dive of the trip was Dive #93 for me after first getting certified only 14 months before. I was diving my own gear, including the same wetsuit I used at home, and I had last dived just a few days before the trip, after getting my reg serviced, to make sure everything was good to go. I had dived to those depths a few times and felt comfortable there. Sure, my buddy was a guy I had just met, but we had a guide; I dive locally with instabuddies and no guide all the time. And yet, I wrote in my log book, I felt "uncharacteristically anxious, like I wasn't getting enough air."

After the dive I adjusted the knob on my second stage to make it breathe easier, and my second dive was better. Maybe the knob got bumped in my luggage and I fixed the problem. Maybe I was just nervous, and either the placebo effect of doing something about it, or just the natural rust-scraping of getting the first dive out of the way, calmed my nerves. But it occurs to me that, had I rented or bought a new wetsuit of a different thickness for this trip, I would have had to make at best an educated guess as to how much weight I needed, and might have gotten it wrong and been struggling with that on top of whatever else was going on with me. And while it was all fine in the end, maybe a check dive in the beginning wouldn't have been the worst idea either.

 

[Lorenzoid]

A first dive of a LOB trip being on a wall to 110 feet seems unusual, @Esprise Me. I have only done 3 LOBs, but I distinctly recall two of them making the first dive of the trip a "weight-check"/shake-out dive on the proverbial "shallow reef," and don't recall the third one. I agree that a shallow reef dive at the beginning is not a bad idea, and often even turns out to be a pleasant dive. However, at one dive resort, AKR on Roatan, I recall that everyone's first dive of their stay was off the stern of their boat, while it was still tied up at the dock. My wife and I dive locally at home, had dived recently, and knew our proper weighting well, so we used the opportunity to practice an air-share drill 10 feet down. When everyone had done their little "dive," the boat got underway. Maybe a minor "hassle," but it was brief and certainly did not cause anyone to "lose a day," as we have been told the OP's daughter fears.

 

[PoolsOpen]

.. her fiancee is about to do his OW class/dives. After he finishes his OW checkout dives, he's already going to be at a training facility. That being the case, why doesn't she just go with him and after he's done his last checkout dive, they can do a couple of dives together

This^^^

She can probably also just go on his actual check out dives and work on her skills..

I would also add that if her husband is newly certified and she hasnt dove in several years, they might be OK with just diving shallow easy reefs...

 

[Esprise Me]

@Lorenzoid it was the Turks & Caicos Explorer II, for whatever it's worth. And I mis-typed; it was 101 feet, not 110; we did 110 later in the week. Not that that changes anything.