Executive Summary
Silent World Dive Center - Recommended
Kawama tower condo - Recommended
86 degF bottom temps and flat seas - Recommended
Introduction
My wife and I made our fifth dive trip to Key Largo in July. A little different this time, though; we had decided it was time to do Rescue Diver training. My wife now refuses to do any more diving in San Diego's cold water, so we had to do this someplace warm, and thought someplace familiar might be a good idea as well. Our last two trips to KL were with Silent World, and we've been happy with them, so we chose them to do the PADI Rescue Diver course, with considerable advanced discussion and arrangement.
Chris said they wanted five days to do the course. We negotiated a day off in the middle, and did non-training dives the day before and the day after, so we were in Key Largo for eight full days, nine nights, twice our longest previous trip. Key Largo was sandwiched between visits to my wife's family in Orlando, which I won't discuss here, but we were traveling for three weeks. My brother-in-law and his wife came down to KL and stayed in our condo for a long weekend, went to Key West one day while we were training, and we spent our day off with them exploring KL's non-diving attractions.
Bottom temps were almost always 86 degF, and I got one 88. As advertised the water this time of year was quite flat, mostly 1-foot swells. Mostly very light current, and no surge. The usual Pennekamp charismatic megafauna; a couple of large tame groupers at the City of Washington, lobsters, nurse sharks, turtles, blue tang 'wild bunch' marauding gangs, and most of the other usual fishy suspects. We love it.
Generally very sweet mellow easy shallow diving, except of course for the challenges of the rescue course.
My wife has just taken the plunge and bought her own BC and regulators, and this trip was her first time diving with them, other than a short pool checkout. Couldn't ask for more benign conditions for that. And she got her 100th dive in during the trip.
Rescue Training and Diving
I've seen many recommendations here on Scubaboard, and elsewhere, for the value of Rescue Diver training in making for safer diving. It was also recommended by our AOW instructor a couple of years ago, who we have a lot of respect for. A lot of it is attitude, to be sure, but I've learned enough new things over the years to have some respect for what I don't know I don't know, so we decided this would be worth the effort both for what we might learn about diving, and as a non-trivial challenge to occupy the attention of a couple of retired folks.
As mentioned, when I first inquired, Chris at SW said the training would take five days. I was a little surprised, expecting three. He was very up-front that some shops will do it in three days, but that he didn't feel that was adequate. I did a sanity check by inquiring of another KL operator I and Scubaboard regard well, and they said "at least four and a half days", and about the same cost. Since we're really after the knowledge and skills, not a fast ticket-punch on our way to higher certs, and we're in our 60s and maybe a little slower on the uptake for physical skills, we just decided to go with it, allow five days for the training, and 'suffer' an extra two days in Key Largo. :cool2:
My wife hadn't dived since November, and had new regs and BC, so we scheduled a shallow reef trip the day before starting training. We planned on one extra day of diving after the course, as a chill-out fun dive, or as a contingency in case we needed another day to complete the Rescue requirements. We also thought we would benefit from a day off to recover physically in the middle, and Avery at SW, who I did most of the arrangements with, thought that was a fine idea.
The course was organized as three days of classroom AM and pool PM, followed by a day and a half of ocean dives (4 training dives), ending with the classroom for the final exam and paperwork. We also did two dives that had no explicit training component with our instructor, Madison, the first where she was just sizing us up as divers, and one the last day, on the wreck of the Benwood, where we just chilled out before some final skills checkout.
Silent World had a temporary shortage of boat captains a couple of days because of some urgent personal leave issues, so we actually did a couple of the training ocean trips on a Slate's Atlantis boat, which is berthed next door, and I gather there's a long-standing cooperative arrangement. The boat was a bit more crowded and disorganized than SW's, giving me no reason to consider changing operators, but the crew was friendly and competent, including supporting Madison where needed for our training scenarios.
The classroom work could have been compressed, a lot of it was looking at the DVD we had already seen twice, and reading aloud the knowledge review answers we had prepared weeks before, and had printed out ready to sign and hand in. On the other hand, the pool sessions left us pretty tired by the end of the day, so spreading them out over three days made a whole lot of sense. And so three AM classroom sessions, which also included the oxygen kit training and some first-aid review, didn't leave us feeling like our time was being wasted. We could only handle so many skills reps in a day, and we needed all of them, and more wouldn't have hurt.
In general, and this is probably a reflection of us as older retired professionals, the classroom/ written component was not challenging, but the physical skills were demanding, typically took several repetitions to get even approximately right, and tiring. And that's in the most benign of conditions; Madison was disappointed that we didn't get to do the skills in higher seas/ currents, where the need for any kind of rescue might typically occur.
Madison is a 20-ish young woman who's actually been diving a shorter time than we have, but we never had any question of her competence or skills, and she was a pretty good, and mostly patient, teacher. You get to be 60, and try new things, you learn to accept the clear superiority of 'kids' in the domain they spend their time mastering. I might have related better personally to someone older, but we got along fine.
We also had Casey, a DM candidate, as a 'victim' to abuse in several sessions, which he handled with patience and good humor. An experienced tech diver, he showed up for the first pool session with his Halcyon BP/W and harness, which made for some amusing confusion when it came to removing his gear while towing; Madison wasn't familiar with it and was initially puzzled by the lack of shoulder strap releases. I offered to cut him out with my line cutter, but instead we just muddled through, and he had a borrowed BC for the second session. Still a bungied backup/long hose, though.
Which brings up the fact that I was not given much pushback about my setup; 5' hose with bungied backup, no snorkel, and a mask leash/necklace. I want to train with the configuration I dive, and I figured if anybody would relate to that, it would be Silent World.
As for the course content, some of it wasn't directed at us. I have no expectation that I'm ever going to find an unresponsive diver on the bottom, surface them, tow them to the exit while giving rescue breaths and removing both sets of gear to save a few seconds on exit, pull them onto a boat, give CPR with O2, and see them revive. I think part of it may just be deliberate task loading to make other parts more challenging.
On the other hand, I have an idea of what should be done, and which parts of it are most challenging for me. Maybe that will help me assist a DM in a rescue more effectively some time. And there were other scenarios, like tired or OOA diver, that I could actually see myself implementing effectively, and knowledge of self-rescue etc. that was worth learning.
We're glad we did the training, we learned a lot, and I expect we'll be better and safer divers as a result. One thing I wasn't expecting - it really caused me to have even more respect and appreciation for the expertise and ability of the DMs that surround us on dive boats, providing a safety net for any trouble we might get into.
Accommodations - Kawama Yacht Club
The last couple of trips to Key Largo, we've stayed at the Key West Inn, AKA Suites at Key Largo. We've generally thought it a good value, and will probably stay there again on some future trip. The downside is the steep narrow stairs between the bedroom and entry/kitchen, and particularly for an extended stay, expecting to be tired, we wanted something on one floor with no stairs. We'd stayed at Kawama three years ago, and liked it.
But Becky (Speargirl) said she didn't have anything available for our dates, so I looked at the internet ads for "Vacation Rental by Owner". A little awkward and amateurish getting it set up, and not sure what we'd actually find when we got there, but it worked out well. A very roomy one BR condo with a convertible sofa in the living room, well appointed, everything worked. In the Kawama Yacht Club tower, guard at the gate, elevator, and wifi. With the cleaning fee amortized over nine nights, it was only slightly more than the Key West Inn would have been. We'll probably look there first next time.
Food and Dining
We mostly eat in when in KL, but went out a couple of times. On our off day, with the in-laws, we had lunch at Alabama Jack's up on Card Sound road at the north end of Key Largo. Funky seafood house and bar on the lagoon, decent conch fritters, nice fish sandwich, and all the atmosphere you can handle.
Dinner was at the Key Largo Conch House, MM 100.2, which we all liked a lot. We hadn't been there before. Very nice conch fritters, bisque, Calamari greek salad, chicken, fish, and a very nice in-house-made key lime pie. The home-made coconut bread was also very good, and we had thirds. We liked it enough to go back for dinner again to celebrate completing our certifications.
We also had a dinner at Hobo's Cafe, MM 101.6. Pretty good food, clean and friendly, I wouldn't mind going back.
If you want a high-fat treat, I'd recommend Blue Cow Cafe in the Publix center MM 101.4 for ice cream. Very good, and a one-scoop cone was plenty.
Silent World Dive Center - Recommended
Kawama tower condo - Recommended
86 degF bottom temps and flat seas - Recommended
Introduction
My wife and I made our fifth dive trip to Key Largo in July. A little different this time, though; we had decided it was time to do Rescue Diver training. My wife now refuses to do any more diving in San Diego's cold water, so we had to do this someplace warm, and thought someplace familiar might be a good idea as well. Our last two trips to KL were with Silent World, and we've been happy with them, so we chose them to do the PADI Rescue Diver course, with considerable advanced discussion and arrangement.
Chris said they wanted five days to do the course. We negotiated a day off in the middle, and did non-training dives the day before and the day after, so we were in Key Largo for eight full days, nine nights, twice our longest previous trip. Key Largo was sandwiched between visits to my wife's family in Orlando, which I won't discuss here, but we were traveling for three weeks. My brother-in-law and his wife came down to KL and stayed in our condo for a long weekend, went to Key West one day while we were training, and we spent our day off with them exploring KL's non-diving attractions.
Bottom temps were almost always 86 degF, and I got one 88. As advertised the water this time of year was quite flat, mostly 1-foot swells. Mostly very light current, and no surge. The usual Pennekamp charismatic megafauna; a couple of large tame groupers at the City of Washington, lobsters, nurse sharks, turtles, blue tang 'wild bunch' marauding gangs, and most of the other usual fishy suspects. We love it.
Generally very sweet mellow easy shallow diving, except of course for the challenges of the rescue course.
My wife has just taken the plunge and bought her own BC and regulators, and this trip was her first time diving with them, other than a short pool checkout. Couldn't ask for more benign conditions for that. And she got her 100th dive in during the trip.
Rescue Training and Diving
I've seen many recommendations here on Scubaboard, and elsewhere, for the value of Rescue Diver training in making for safer diving. It was also recommended by our AOW instructor a couple of years ago, who we have a lot of respect for. A lot of it is attitude, to be sure, but I've learned enough new things over the years to have some respect for what I don't know I don't know, so we decided this would be worth the effort both for what we might learn about diving, and as a non-trivial challenge to occupy the attention of a couple of retired folks.
As mentioned, when I first inquired, Chris at SW said the training would take five days. I was a little surprised, expecting three. He was very up-front that some shops will do it in three days, but that he didn't feel that was adequate. I did a sanity check by inquiring of another KL operator I and Scubaboard regard well, and they said "at least four and a half days", and about the same cost. Since we're really after the knowledge and skills, not a fast ticket-punch on our way to higher certs, and we're in our 60s and maybe a little slower on the uptake for physical skills, we just decided to go with it, allow five days for the training, and 'suffer' an extra two days in Key Largo. :cool2:
My wife hadn't dived since November, and had new regs and BC, so we scheduled a shallow reef trip the day before starting training. We planned on one extra day of diving after the course, as a chill-out fun dive, or as a contingency in case we needed another day to complete the Rescue requirements. We also thought we would benefit from a day off to recover physically in the middle, and Avery at SW, who I did most of the arrangements with, thought that was a fine idea.
The course was organized as three days of classroom AM and pool PM, followed by a day and a half of ocean dives (4 training dives), ending with the classroom for the final exam and paperwork. We also did two dives that had no explicit training component with our instructor, Madison, the first where she was just sizing us up as divers, and one the last day, on the wreck of the Benwood, where we just chilled out before some final skills checkout.
Silent World had a temporary shortage of boat captains a couple of days because of some urgent personal leave issues, so we actually did a couple of the training ocean trips on a Slate's Atlantis boat, which is berthed next door, and I gather there's a long-standing cooperative arrangement. The boat was a bit more crowded and disorganized than SW's, giving me no reason to consider changing operators, but the crew was friendly and competent, including supporting Madison where needed for our training scenarios.
The classroom work could have been compressed, a lot of it was looking at the DVD we had already seen twice, and reading aloud the knowledge review answers we had prepared weeks before, and had printed out ready to sign and hand in. On the other hand, the pool sessions left us pretty tired by the end of the day, so spreading them out over three days made a whole lot of sense. And so three AM classroom sessions, which also included the oxygen kit training and some first-aid review, didn't leave us feeling like our time was being wasted. We could only handle so many skills reps in a day, and we needed all of them, and more wouldn't have hurt.
In general, and this is probably a reflection of us as older retired professionals, the classroom/ written component was not challenging, but the physical skills were demanding, typically took several repetitions to get even approximately right, and tiring. And that's in the most benign of conditions; Madison was disappointed that we didn't get to do the skills in higher seas/ currents, where the need for any kind of rescue might typically occur.
Madison is a 20-ish young woman who's actually been diving a shorter time than we have, but we never had any question of her competence or skills, and she was a pretty good, and mostly patient, teacher. You get to be 60, and try new things, you learn to accept the clear superiority of 'kids' in the domain they spend their time mastering. I might have related better personally to someone older, but we got along fine.
We also had Casey, a DM candidate, as a 'victim' to abuse in several sessions, which he handled with patience and good humor. An experienced tech diver, he showed up for the first pool session with his Halcyon BP/W and harness, which made for some amusing confusion when it came to removing his gear while towing; Madison wasn't familiar with it and was initially puzzled by the lack of shoulder strap releases. I offered to cut him out with my line cutter, but instead we just muddled through, and he had a borrowed BC for the second session. Still a bungied backup/long hose, though.
Which brings up the fact that I was not given much pushback about my setup; 5' hose with bungied backup, no snorkel, and a mask leash/necklace. I want to train with the configuration I dive, and I figured if anybody would relate to that, it would be Silent World.
As for the course content, some of it wasn't directed at us. I have no expectation that I'm ever going to find an unresponsive diver on the bottom, surface them, tow them to the exit while giving rescue breaths and removing both sets of gear to save a few seconds on exit, pull them onto a boat, give CPR with O2, and see them revive. I think part of it may just be deliberate task loading to make other parts more challenging.
On the other hand, I have an idea of what should be done, and which parts of it are most challenging for me. Maybe that will help me assist a DM in a rescue more effectively some time. And there were other scenarios, like tired or OOA diver, that I could actually see myself implementing effectively, and knowledge of self-rescue etc. that was worth learning.
We're glad we did the training, we learned a lot, and I expect we'll be better and safer divers as a result. One thing I wasn't expecting - it really caused me to have even more respect and appreciation for the expertise and ability of the DMs that surround us on dive boats, providing a safety net for any trouble we might get into.
Accommodations - Kawama Yacht Club
The last couple of trips to Key Largo, we've stayed at the Key West Inn, AKA Suites at Key Largo. We've generally thought it a good value, and will probably stay there again on some future trip. The downside is the steep narrow stairs between the bedroom and entry/kitchen, and particularly for an extended stay, expecting to be tired, we wanted something on one floor with no stairs. We'd stayed at Kawama three years ago, and liked it.
But Becky (Speargirl) said she didn't have anything available for our dates, so I looked at the internet ads for "Vacation Rental by Owner". A little awkward and amateurish getting it set up, and not sure what we'd actually find when we got there, but it worked out well. A very roomy one BR condo with a convertible sofa in the living room, well appointed, everything worked. In the Kawama Yacht Club tower, guard at the gate, elevator, and wifi. With the cleaning fee amortized over nine nights, it was only slightly more than the Key West Inn would have been. We'll probably look there first next time.
Food and Dining
We mostly eat in when in KL, but went out a couple of times. On our off day, with the in-laws, we had lunch at Alabama Jack's up on Card Sound road at the north end of Key Largo. Funky seafood house and bar on the lagoon, decent conch fritters, nice fish sandwich, and all the atmosphere you can handle.
Dinner was at the Key Largo Conch House, MM 100.2, which we all liked a lot. We hadn't been there before. Very nice conch fritters, bisque, Calamari greek salad, chicken, fish, and a very nice in-house-made key lime pie. The home-made coconut bread was also very good, and we had thirds. We liked it enough to go back for dinner again to celebrate completing our certifications.
We also had a dinner at Hobo's Cafe, MM 101.6. Pretty good food, clean and friendly, I wouldn't mind going back.
If you want a high-fat treat, I'd recommend Blue Cow Cafe in the Publix center MM 101.4 for ice cream. Very good, and a one-scoop cone was plenty.
