What Next?

[ginti]

Thanks all for input. GUE fundies is an interesting option, I'd not thought of previously and is exactly why I started this thread.

Self reliant / solo is the only other thing that interests me............But that will take more diving experience.

I'm just going to keep diving and gain experience for this year and probably the next.

If you write here on SB, I believe you really like diving and you are really eager to improve. In this case, do a skill refinement course soon (e.g. fundies), and then rescue.

There are two reasons why I am suggesting this approach:
1 - if you have bad habits, and you dive for one year without correcting them, these habits will become automatic. It will be very hard to correct later on;
2 - as @Jim Lapenta pointed, rescue is a lot about preventing problems: first you do it, the better it is; however, proceeding without a solid base is not a smart approach, which is why I suggested skill refinement first.

Best luck

 

[TMHeimer]

New driver is a lot more safer than so called experienced driver!
Mirror, signal, shoulder and change lane. How difficult it is?

Remember what you learnt from the beginning. Not that difficult to notice the meaning of kicking up silt if you have watched others. I used half-fluttered kick from reading and applied it near the bottom and replaced it with frog kick when I was tec wreck cert. I have also came across so many divers who were carried far too much weight but.......

Read various topic on safe diving. Most of them are NOT covered in any diving courses. eg. I would not had known the main reason for sticky power inflator button etc etc.

As for instructor!
Some of them is a lot worst than I in knowledge and technique!

Scuba diving is NOT that difficult technically.

BTW, what have you learnt from your instructors?

Not following you about the driver thing. I don't think a new driver is safer at all. Though I really don't think they work, I think that's why many places brought in the "graduated" drivers licenses.

 

[TMHeimer]

If you write here on SB, I believe you really like diving and you are really eager to improve. In this case, do a skill refinement course soon (e.g. fundies), and then rescue.

There are two reasons why I am suggesting this approach:
1 - if you have bad habits, and you dive for one year without correcting them, these habits will become automatic. It will be very hard to correct later on;
2 - as @Jim Lapenta pointed, rescue is a lot about preventing problems: first you do it, the better it is; however, proceeding without a solid base is not a smart approach, which is why I suggested skill refinement first.

Best luck

I agree with your advice. Not sure about it being so hard to correct problems you've have after doing this or that wrong for a year. As Centrals says in the above post (I quoted), diving isn't technically that hard.
Clarinet players who develop bad embouchures (mouth position) can easily be fixed even after many years. You just get them to do it right.
But, I admit many disagree with me. I've been told by several instructors that if someone is taught to clear the mask kneeling they will always look for a spot to kneel to do it. I believe them because they've seen it. I still find it curious.

 

[hedonist222]

if you're over 80 dives - take a rescue course from the most rigid agency

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Deep, Wreck, O2% and First Aid.

Recreational wreck courses are a joke.

 

[Marie13]

Recreational wreck courses are a joke.

Guess it depends on the instructors - the much repeated SBism.

 

[BoltSnap]

Recreational wreck courses are a joke.

Perhaps the ones you are teaching are but not the ones I took and teach.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Guess it depends on the instructors - the much repeated SBism.

Wreck courses belong in technical diving. The performance requirements are a joke. Now if an instructor teaches under an agency that allows them to augment the course with appropriate skills/requirements, then yes, I agree.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Perhaps the ones you are teaching are but not the ones I took and teach.

I don't teach wreck, as I'm not a technical diving instructor. I respect overheads and the requirements at such.

Being a "look at the pretty wreck" instructor is not the kind of joke I wish to be.

 

[Marie13]

Wreck courses belong in technical diving. The performance requirements are a joke. Now if an instructor teaches under an agency that allows them to augment the course with appropriate skills/requirements, then yes, I agree.

Assessing the wreck for hazards, drawing the entry point to assess on the boat, reel skills and line laying were in my wreck class, among other skills. To this day I won’t penetrate a wreck until after I’ve had at least one dive on her.