What Was Your OW Like?

[Jafo19D]

I have mixed feelings about the OW course I took a few years back. On the one hand I feel like I got better practical experience than my daughter and her husband but on the other I feel like they got better theoretical.

My son and I were certified in Taganga, Colombia. The owner of the DC would have preferred for us to get the books before our arrival but we didn’t (can’t remember why).

We arrived early evening before Day 1 and were shown some videos and then told to read some chapters.

On each subsequent day (3 of them). We’d arrive early, take a quiz on what we read the night before, (very briefly go over any wrong answers) and then do two dives. After getting back we’d watch more videos and read the next assignment.

Didn’t even see a pool during my entire OW all of it was in ocean. Yeah the first two were in confined water but it was choppy and we got the experience of diving off a boat and getting back on, stuff you miss in a pool and less challenging than in fresh water so I feel that this was a plus over my daughter’s experience who I believe did her check dives at Blue Grotto.

So to summarize I feel that in getting certified in 3 days I missed quite a bit but on the other hand no pool time was a plus.

 

[Rae HalfTheHill]

Which agency were you certified through?

 

[michael-fisch]

My OW Course was back in 1988. The theoretical was done by a local High School counseler with a doctorate degree. The open water dives were done using instructors that she and her husband had trained and were pretty good. I was a bit suprised to see a differt name on my PADI OWD card than the name of any diver that I had met at any time up to a date 4 months later when H.J.****** was finlly released from pretrial confinement. I had finally met my certifying instructor!
Michael

 

[Bubblesong]

When the dive instructor says, “ I would have preferred you get the book and read it ahead of time” they are just being extremely polite, since they can’t spank you like the old days. If you were teaching a class in which knowledge can save your student’s life, and they show up without doing the homework, would you be that polite, or would you hold their head underwater for the teachable three minutes?
Find the book online or at library, or another dive shop, but don’t go to the class without first reading it, regardless of LDS responsibility to provide it.
Oh, and heads up, your Advanced Open Water will be exactly the same.
Classes after that seem to draw a more serious crowd, or the students have acquired the experience to appreciate owning their education.

 

[oly5050user]

My OW Course was back in 1988. The theoretical was done by a local High School counseler with a doctorate degree. The open water dives were done using instructors that she and her husband had trained and were pretty good. I was a bit suprised to see a differt name on my PADI OWD card than the name of any diver that I had met at any time up to a date 4 months later when H.J.****** was finlly released from pretrial confinement. I had finally met my certifying instructor!
Michael

 

[oly5050user]

My OW Course was back in 1988. The theoretical was done by a local High School counseler with a doctorate degree. The open water dives were done using instructors that she and her husband had trained and were pretty good. I was a bit suprised to see a differt name on my PADI OWD card than the name of any diver that I had met at any time up to a date 4 months later when H.J.****** was finlly released from pretrial confinement. I had finally met my certifying instructor!
Michael

Sounds shady. An instructor is to deliver presentations. If this PhD counselor is a instructor all good if not it’s severe standard violation.instructor conducting last certification dive is instructor of record.

 

[hedonist222]

Mine was just right.
The instructor had this lone wolf demeanor - funny but serious where it counted.

We spent a few days going through the book - watched the videos on a TV via CDs (this was in 2005).

He asked me "pop quiz questions", we did a practice test. Taught me some more.
Then the actual test.

Some pool dives.

Then a few shallow ocean dives.

Was wonderful.

Not too stringent nor aloof.

 

[Steelyeyes]

Mine was a 5 day camp on a small bay in Puget Sound. It was a NAUI course and it was in 1975. We were in the pool every day. We practiced doff and don drills, clearing our masks, buddy breathing (no octos then), and toward the end were the "harassment drills" where instructors would create a problem for you to solve, like pulling your mask off. The last thing in the pool was having all of your gear on the bottom of the deep end. The student had to swim down, turn on the air, start breathing from the regulator and put on all of their gear. I thought we learned a lot about our gear and how to deal with problems without stressing out over it.

We did classwork every night. We put on our 7 mil wetsuits and weights and went snorkeling in the bay a few times and then we did two open water dives. The last night we took our final written test. Not everyone passed.

 

[Jafo19D]

When the dive instructor says, “ I would have preferred you get the book and read it ahead of time” they are just being extremely polite, since they can’t spank your bottom red like the old days. If you were teaching a class in which knowledge can save your student’s life, and they show up without doing the homework, would you be that polite, or would you hold their head underwater for the teachable three minutes?
Oh, and heads up, your Advanced Open Water will be exactly the same.
Classes after that seem to draw a more serious crowd, or the students have acquired the experience to appreciate owning their education.

I definitely contacted the DC and reserved our slots before I got there but can’t remember exactly how long. I’m pretty sure it was at least 1-2 weeks before.

Regardless they didn’t send me any materials and when we got there the owner was surprised we hadn’t already received the materials.

AOW was the same but in this case I chose the instructor at the last moment because I was still undecided on who to go with. The guys who I chose at first were baiting sharks and I wanted nothing to do with that.

 

[Jafo19D]

Which agency were you certified through?

PADI