When to dive unsupervised? (w/o dm)

[MSilvia]

Not only will you learn navigation and get exposed to some pretty exciting diving experiences, but your checkout dives will be supervised, and you could use the class both as a springboard to more knowledge and confidance, and as an opportunity to ask questions.

I'm creeping up on my 100th dive, and I've yet to go with a DM unless you count the time WreckWriter acted as a tour guide on the Spiegel Grove.

 

[tiswango]

Skills to build confort in the water, no scuba gear required:

1. Go to a pool, throw in your mask, fins, and snorkel. In one breath, put and and clear the mask, put on the fins, and blast clear the snorkel without taking you head out of the water.

2. Put on goggles or no mask. Just make sure you nose is exposed in the water. Take one snorkel and buddy breath with your husband while swimming across the pool.

Once this gets easy to do, make him laugh underwater. If you can laugh underwater, breathing through a snorkel, with an exposed nose you will be super confident in the water.

Shore dive planning:

The classic tourist dive plan of "Follow your computer and be back on the boat with 500 psi" doesn't cut it for shore diving.

SADDDD

S Sequence
Who is leading the dive and responsible for navigation? Take turns.

A Air
How much gas do you have? How much will you use? If you want to end up where you started from its logical to use 1/2 your gas out and half back. But that leaves you with an empty tank at the end of the dive.

Assume a 3000 PSI std Al 80 tank
3000 - 500 PSI at the end of the dive
2500 - 500 PSI incase of problems, (current, get lost, novice factor)
That leaves 2000 psi of usable gas for the dive
1000 psi to go out and explore and 1000 psi to come back to shore.

Once you get back to near the entry point, feel free to use more of the reserve gas. I'm generally out of the water with 300 psi.

As you get more comfortable you can reduce your "problem" gas to 200 psi reserve. This is your safety factor to adjust as you see fit.

D Depth
How deep are you going to go?

D Duration
How long are you going to stay down? 90 minutes is a good figure for ocean dives due to weather changes.

D Distance
How far out or away from the starting point do you want to go?

Other tips:

Go slow and look around. You'll see more than just power swimming the reef.

Try a modified flutter kick. Bend you needs and keep your fins up off the reef.

Keep you hands like your praying at your waist line. Swimming/sculling with hands wastes gas and scares the fish away.

Remember, HAVE FUN!

 

[aquamarine]

BlueGirlGoes - the shore diving book I was referring to is by Jesse Armacost, not the one referenced by another poster. Haven't seen that one, it might be good, too. But Jesse lives & dives in Bonaire and put together a wonderful resource on the shore diving there. Another resource is shorediving.com which shows aerial photos of the dive sites - it's just fun to look at!