What to expect on open water dive cert

[CRAZYBOBC]

I just finished my PADI referral course, did this in NY (Long Island) Planning the 4 open water dives in Aruba. What can I expect. Do I have only one shot to perform all skills? Will they work with me if I need it. Does the referral usually gaurantee certification. Really just want to know what to expect.

 

[DeepTrip]

Ummm, it is totally depend to your intructor in Aruba, the one who will accompany you for 4 openwater dives. My intructor do the skill drill on 2nd dive. The first dive is basically a sightseeing tour at 18m. 3rd dive and 4th dive is also sightseeing tour. But you rinstructor might make you do some different skill in each dive (e.g. mask clearing on 1st dive, buoyancy on 2nd dive, CESA on 3rd dive, etc).

As your intructor, they will work with you if required. What I mean work with you here is, check whether your tack setup is correct (Regulator on the right, etc), guide you for skill drill, which you already done in pool session. You should check with Aruba dive center.

 

[H2Andy]

you will perform the skills you did in the pool, except that you will do them open water. the statement that how you do it depends on your instructor is absolutely right.

in my case, we covered most of our skill work on dives 1-3 and pretty much just had fun on dive 4 (i think we did one or two skills on that last dive, but no more).

you should relax and just go with the experience. you won't be asked to do anything new. you've done all the skills :cheeky:

 

[SubMariner]

I just finished my PADI referral course, did this in NY (Long Island) Planning the 4 open water dives in Aruba. What can I expect. Do I have only one shot to perform all skills? Will they work with me if I need it. Does the referral usually gaurantee certification. Really just want to know what to expect.

First of all, congrats on completing your Confined Water & Knowledge Development.

Basically, you will be required to do 4 open water dives. The Instructor will ask you to perform the skills you already did in CF. And if you successfully complete everything, you get certified. Piece of cake, right?

The best part is that you get to actually DIVE!!!

Feel free to email me or any other Instructor here on SB if you have any particular questions.

Have fun,

 

[Eklipso]

The following is a series of tests that I REQUESTED from my certification instruction because he claims that he had to do it when he was certified in the british navy, years ago. We were drinking beers the night before I took my final OW cert tests and I told him that I wanted to give it a shot. I'm told that these tests are NOT required and are actually banned from the certification process. I nevertheless did them anyways, just to see if I could.

(1) Take off all gear at 18m, toss it away. Breath off of DM's second and in one breath (exhaling of course the whole time), swim about 10m, grab the gear and put it all on again.

(2) Sit with all gear in my arms, except 20lb weight belt (which I'm wearing) at the back of the boat. At about 10 knots, get pushed overboard into the wake. Put on all gear before sinking.

(3) Snorkle at half mile (with full gear on) to shore using nothing but compass with heavy current at night. This is harder than it seems

There were a couple of other things I did....but its been a while. I don't recommend most of these unless you like to test yourself physically. Also, do NOT get angry at my DM...he did not pressure me to do these things in any way.

EC

 

[Upwelling]

CrazyBob,

They made us do some minor compass navigation in the check out dives, which was not covered in class or pool at all. I think everything else was a repeat of what was done in the pool.

The following is a series of tests that I REQUESTED from my certification instruction because he claims that he had to do it when he was certified in the british navy, years ago. We were drinking beers the night before I took my final OW cert tests and I told him that I wanted to give it a shot. I'm told that these tests are NOT required and are actually banned from the certification process. I nevertheless did them anyways, just to see if I could.

(1) Take off all gear at 18m, toss it away. Breath off of DM's second and in one breath (exhaling of course the whole time), swim about 10m, grab the gear and put it all on again.

(2) Sit with all gear in my arms, except 20lb weight belt (which I'm wearing) at the back of the boat. At about 10 knots, get pushed overboard into the wake. Put on all gear before sinking.

(3) Snorkle at half mile (with full gear on) to shore using nothing but compass with heavy current at night. This is harder than it seems

There were a couple of other things I did....but its been a while. I don't recommend most of these unless you like to test yourself physically. Also, do NOT get angry at my DM...he did not pressure me to do these things in any way.

EC

 

[ScubaRon]

The criterium is that you must perform all the skills; as DeepTrip stated your instructor will work with you. A referral is definitely not a guarantee and your instructor (if he's doing his/her job...) will definitely fail you if you do not perform all skills or are otherwise not ready to be certified. But don't worry...the vast majority passes.

A few tips:
- don't expect any nice diving during your OW dives. Most likely they will just find a nice sandy spot with absolutely no coral or fish. Perhaps there will be a little tour on your last dive, but don't count on it. Focus on getting your skills right.
- When you have your c-card, remember that you are still a rookie and certain skills (e.g. buoyancy) take dozens of dives to develop. So take it easy and build up your skills and experience. Pick experienced and responsible buddies; don't go deeper than 60' and watch your gauges.
Enjoy!

 

[Upwelling]

To ScubaRon's point, even if you do the skills correctly, if you have really terrible bouancy you might not get certified and have to come back another time to complete your cert. (unfortunately I know this from experience).

The criterium is that you must perform all the skills; as DeepTrip stated your instructor will work with you. A referral is definitely not a guarantee and your instructor (if he's doing his/her job...) will definitely fail you if you do not perform all skills or are otherwise not ready to be certified. But don't worry...the vast majority passes.

A few tips:
- don't expect any nice diving during your OW dives. Most likely they will just find a nice sandy spot with absolutely no coral or fish. Perhaps there will be a little tour on your last dive, but don't count on it. Focus on getting your skills right.
- When you have your c-card, remember that you are still a rookie and certain skills (e.g. buoyancy) take dozens of dives to develop. So take it easy and build up your skills and experience. Pick experienced and responsible buddies; don't go deeper than 60' and watch your gauges.
Enjoy!

 

[Michael Schlink]

OW is not a test it's called OW training. Your inst. should help you with completeing your training. If PADI ,your first dive will not have ANY skills to perform, besides the ascent and descent. This first dive is for "pleasure and experience" What your instructor should be doing while the both of you are swimming around is looking you over and evaluating your basic skills. Dives two three and four will have you doing your skills that you learned in your confined water training but there should be plenty of time to explore and see the sites. When I do certs. in the Carib. I do the first 2 dives from the shore and like to have sand at 40ft and the second day I like to go out on a boat dive and do the second two dives with the bottom no deeper then 60ft. This gives the student a little experience with shore and boat diving. If you were going to Bonaire I could have reccommended a shop and Inst. but if you want to PM me I can shoot an Email to my friends and see if they have a rec. for Cur.-You'll have a blast, don't sweat it-This is some of the most fun your going to have with a wetsuit on.-M

 

[gehadoski]

I think that you are going to do some sightseeing under a great supervision from your instructor to make sure that you dot the idea and you are doing well under the water cause you know it is a great responsiblity. thats the way I took my course here in Egypt.