Greetings. I recently got back from a vacation in Belize. Things I have heard and read since then lead me to believe I may have done something perhaps dangerous and, well, completely insane. Namely, a friend and I went diving to 130ft in the Blue Hole as our first non-training dive. Yep. Very first dive.
Some background: In preparation for our trip, a friend, J, and I decide to get open water certified. We do our classroom and pool training here in Fairbanks, then get a referral to a shop in Belize. The plan is to finish our certification early in the week, then plan some dives for later in the week. Also diving with us in Belize will be a friend from Fairbanks, S, who is AOW certified and a couple from California (wife, A, is AOW and husband, M, is just OW, I think.)
While corresponding trying to plan our dives for later in the week, S mentions that he had not had the change to dive Blue Hole when he was in Belize years ago and would love to do it on this trip. We all agree that this sounds fun so we reserve spots on a boat to the Blue Hole and pay our deposits. This was all completed online so at no time did anyone ask about our certification or experience level. This trip was not booked through the dive shop where we plan to complete our certification - they suggested larger shop in the same town that had a big boat for long trips such as this.
We get to Belize, J and I complete our certification dives and get certified. Yay. This is on Monday. Blue Hole trip is planned for Thursday. In the meantime, M starts going on about ooh, this dive is dangerous, it's really deep, he's nervous, are we scared?...etc. Frankly it had never occurred for us to be scared because we are complete and utter newbies.
After hearing this from M over and over, we call the shop taking us on the Blue Hole dive and let them know that we are newly-certified beginners and is this dive really appropriate for us? They tell us basically not to go if we are uncomfortable, but beginners go on this dive all the time and the dive is heavily chaperoned. So we shrug and decide to go for it.
Thursday rolls around and the diving is awesome! Blue Hole in the morning and two shallower dives after that. True to their word, the Blue Hold dive was very chaperoned. There were three divemasters for a group of about 10 - one in front, one in back, and one floating around as needed. At no time did we feel unsafe or scared but again - we are rank amateurs who aren't even sure what we ought to be afraid of!
Later on in the trip and upon returning home, we ran in to lots of people who were SHOCKED and APPALLED that we went on that dive as beginners. Even more so that it was literally our first dive after certification. Even A, who has been diving since she was a teenager (we are all mid-late 30s) said that dive was the deepest she had ever been and was a little apprehensive.
So, tell me....did we do something very stupid?
Some background: In preparation for our trip, a friend, J, and I decide to get open water certified. We do our classroom and pool training here in Fairbanks, then get a referral to a shop in Belize. The plan is to finish our certification early in the week, then plan some dives for later in the week. Also diving with us in Belize will be a friend from Fairbanks, S, who is AOW certified and a couple from California (wife, A, is AOW and husband, M, is just OW, I think.)
While corresponding trying to plan our dives for later in the week, S mentions that he had not had the change to dive Blue Hole when he was in Belize years ago and would love to do it on this trip. We all agree that this sounds fun so we reserve spots on a boat to the Blue Hole and pay our deposits. This was all completed online so at no time did anyone ask about our certification or experience level. This trip was not booked through the dive shop where we plan to complete our certification - they suggested larger shop in the same town that had a big boat for long trips such as this.
We get to Belize, J and I complete our certification dives and get certified. Yay. This is on Monday. Blue Hole trip is planned for Thursday. In the meantime, M starts going on about ooh, this dive is dangerous, it's really deep, he's nervous, are we scared?...etc. Frankly it had never occurred for us to be scared because we are complete and utter newbies.
After hearing this from M over and over, we call the shop taking us on the Blue Hole dive and let them know that we are newly-certified beginners and is this dive really appropriate for us? They tell us basically not to go if we are uncomfortable, but beginners go on this dive all the time and the dive is heavily chaperoned. So we shrug and decide to go for it.
Thursday rolls around and the diving is awesome! Blue Hole in the morning and two shallower dives after that. True to their word, the Blue Hold dive was very chaperoned. There were three divemasters for a group of about 10 - one in front, one in back, and one floating around as needed. At no time did we feel unsafe or scared but again - we are rank amateurs who aren't even sure what we ought to be afraid of!
Later on in the trip and upon returning home, we ran in to lots of people who were SHOCKED and APPALLED that we went on that dive as beginners. Even more so that it was literally our first dive after certification. Even A, who has been diving since she was a teenager (we are all mid-late 30s) said that dive was the deepest she had ever been and was a little apprehensive.
So, tell me....did we do something very stupid?