Winterpeg
Contributor
Just did mine a couple of months ago - PPB, Drift, and Night. I have heard and read lots of people say that PPB should be an additional mandatory dive, and I would have to agree. Jose at Scuba Club Cozumel took 2 pounds off me on the PPB dive and I think that lesson helped me the most of all the AOW dives I did. Buoyance is key to everything. Even as an relative newbie, I could see other divers who could have benefited from a PPB lesson - I'm sure they were overweighted because they had trouble staying off the bottom, but they were nervous about being able to get down without the extra weight. My own concern about taking weight off wasn't not being able to get down; it was fear of not having enough weight left to do the safety stop at the end of the dive once my tank was low on air. Jose alleviated this fear by carrying a couple of pounds extra himself so that he could add them to me at the end if I needed; but I didn't. Trying this under supervision was a great learning experience and confidence booster and by the end of my 2 weeks there I'm sure I had better buoyancy skills than some of my fellow (more experienced) divers.