Sight seeing while getting my PADI Open Water Cert?

[boulderjohn]

In my OW dives, done here in the Pacific NW, we did nothing but skills the first three dives and a tour for the fourth dive. ...

At the end of the third dive, we were told we were through with the skills (yay!) so our next dive would be just a fun tour with a DM.

Sounds great, but if it is PADI, it is a standards violation.

You are not supposed to do any skills on the first dive, other than what is necessary to get in and out of the water safely. You are supposed to be getting comfortable with diving and the environment. It's a good time for sight seeing.

A number of skills are dive flexible--they can be done on any of dives 2, 3, or 4.

Dive #4 has only a few specific skills associated with it, but they are supposed to be done on that dive, not on one of the previous dives. One of them is the mask removal and replacement.

There are neutral buoyancy and mask skills on each of the last three dives. Some are repetitive, but the idea is that with the experience of each dive, you should be getting better at them and showing improvement.

 

[Downing]

Sounds great, but if it is PADI, it is a standards violation.

Wow, now that's a surprise as our instructor seemed like such a stickler for the rules.

It was PADI.

Still, it was great, and I certainly didn't feel like we were committing a violation.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Nope. Class sizes in the Philippines tend to be much smaller. Typical 2-4 divers on a course. Each dive would include an underwater tour, with maybe 25% of each dive spent static doing skills and drills.

Just wanted to reiterate DD's description vs Downing's description...

In my OW dives, done here in the Pacific NW, we did nothing but skills the first three dives and a tour for the fourth dive. Devon, is that what you're saying also?

Here in Hawaii we are mostly just like DevonDiver's description above. Oahu is a "metro" city, so I have taught full classes by standards, but all my Maui employers limit class size to 4 (1.5 people is my average Maui OW class size).

Now to expand on the tours; the good Maui shore training sites have plenty of "hard" coral to swim over. By PADI Standards, the first dive is "just a tour" and here it is often longer than 45 minutes of "diving." On the 2nd and 3rd 30-ish foot deep "training" dives we are getting over a half hour average "tour" time per dive; after the class you will have actually dove around and over coral for more than 2 hours.

The skills are about emergencies, and you need to practice your emergency skills, but the only way to learn how to dive is to spend time diving in order to practice diving!

 

[krazymad]

Nope. Class sizes in the Philippines tend to be much smaller. Typical 2-4 divers on a course. Each dive would include an underwater tour, with maybe 25% of each dive spent static doing skills and drills.

I'm now officially OW and AOW certified!! Devon was spot on for how the dives would go here in the Philippines. It was myself and 1 other student in my class and for the OW and AOW dives we'd do skills at the beginning, maybe the first 10 - 15 minutes, then use the rest of the time for cruising and checking out sea life.

I had also planned on using my camera but my instructor informed me that it wasn't allowed on the checkout dives. Good thing too, when I finally used it on a fun dive, I found it was a bigger distraction than I thought it would be. Not to mention that you need good buoyancy for good pics.

 

[boulderjohn]

Congratulations!