Tips for novice divers

[Cheizz]

For OW, we had to demonstrate skills underwater on our knees. In Elba, I practiced them hovering in trim and in neutral buoyancy. Not for certification purposes, but simply because in many situations there isn't a nice patch where you can place your knees on to clear your mask or whatever.

 

[scubaozy]

I have been teaching in very cold, temperate and tropical waters. Each is different and none is better wholesale than the other.
In cold water, advantage is, student is usually has more practice time in pool and can spread the training over several days weeks. But open water divers are more challenging, due cold and bad vis, they will have less time to "play", which actually where actual learning happening, they will be also more task overloaded which makes learning slower.
Temperate waters are good middle ground but usually there is no corals to destroy or no silt to ruin visibility so in my experience, diving culture is developed accordingly, both instructors and students are casual, so, I saw a lot of bottom dwelling on temperate waters, not to mention, often, temperate waters requires thick wet suit so by default buoyancy will be more complex.
In warm water conditions, students will have time pressure, because they are on holidays and they have to complete, confined water, ow dives and theory in 3-4 days. Buoyancy is less complex due thinner neoprene. Additionally extra incentive on not touching the coral make them better in buoyancy.
You might learn in one of the conditions and you will have to adapt to the other one.

 

[ginti]

For OW, we had to demonstrate skills underwater on our knees.

You'll see that here on SB many people (me included) are against OW courses where students are allowed to kneel. And often, we believe that this is more important than the environment where you learn.

In Elba, I practiced them hovering in trim and in neutral buoyancy. Not for certification purposes, but simply because in many situations there isn't a nice patch where you can place your knees on to clear your mask or whatever.

That's THE good approach! If you are interested in being a good diver (which I think you are), this is the way to improve

 

[Cheizz]

You'll see that here on SB many people (me included) are against OW courses where students are allowed to kneel. And often, we believe that this is more important than the environment where you learn.

I agree. At the time I didn't think about this stuff much. But since I started looking around to improve myself and noticing that there are actually more agencies and 'schools of thought', I am well aware that certification (and certification standards) is one thing; becoming a good diver is a different thing altogether.

 

[Dody]

Perfect tropical waters is overrated. I have dived in Congo with commercial divers friends and you can’t see your hands. That’s the way it is everyday and I returned only once and never again. What’s point of not seeing anything underwater? I experienced underwater sand storms in the often clear waters of Cape Verde or deploying a DSMB as if I was in a crazy elevator going up and down. Apart from the cold and the equipment, all those challenging conditions are found in tropical waters too. By the way, I also live in the Netherlands but I never dived there because I don’t like cold waters and dry suits.

 

[VikingDives]

The cold, poor visibility dives tend to have minimal total experiences designed to check the boxes on the required skills and then get out of the water. Instructors are nervous, afraid that if they lose sight of a diver and something happens, they will be liable. In my home area, I am sure most of the classes will do two certification dives on one AL 80 cylinder. In some places, the students do the entire dive clinging to the edge of a platform in the water.

That's 100% true locally (almost). Most shops/instructors do the absolute minimum time, with most students they can fit in the water. The quality of those divers abilities range from average (read: poor) to downright terrifying. There's one shop that has their students so overweighted and so poorly trained that they drop to the platform and do their skills, once they are done, they swim (mostly horizontally, like sea horses) to a line that's 15 feet from the platform. Students go hand over hand on the line down to 70ish feet (you don't need to use your BCD if you hold on to the line!) where they muck up the bottom for a moment and then drag themselves back toward the surface.

On the other end of the spectrum, there's the ladies at Kaizen Scuba in Santa Fe, and Gabe from Scuba8 in Albuquerque who turn out good looking students.

I keep our instructor to student ratio low, so we typically spend 30-40 minutes per dive (and we do five dives for OW). Our students can hover horizontally in the pool, so by the time we get to OW, it makes for some interesting comments on dive shop quality. You get what you pay for.

 

[mcohen1021]

All you ever need to know about scuba diving can be found in this video.




You can thank me & close this thread now

 

[TMHeimer]

For OW, we had to demonstrate skills underwater on our knees. In Elba, I practiced them hovering in trim and in neutral buoyancy. Not for certification purposes, but simply because in many situations there isn't a nice patch where you can place your knees on to clear your mask or whatever.

Lots of threads about doing skills neutrally vs. on the bottom (knees, etc.). I'm one in the vast minority who thinks it doesn't make much difference IF the diver is comfortable in water before taking the course. As far as mask clearing-- I was taught on the bottom and just automatically cleared it well on my first dives while neutral (swimming, etc.). Just a little different angle than if you're on the bottom. Something one probably has to give no thought to IF you were very comfortable in water to begingwith.