Where was your first OW dive?

[mech]

Like most others from N CA we did our class dives at Breakwater.
Our instructor was Tim Murphy and he was fantastic.
He actually had us horizontal doing elevation changes with lung volume.
I now know that we left his class with skills.
Our family's first open water dives away from our instructor was the Blue Hole in Nassau with Nassau Divers.
We loved it.
Absolutely loved it.
It took me a while to realize that this is not the best idea for most.
I actually thought all people would/should have boyancy skills after their OW class.

 

[RiverRat]

I got turned on to diving after doing a discover scuba dive in St. Maarten on a cruise with Dive Safaris. It was a cattle boat but I was pumped when I got in a group of 3 divers and DM (we were the last to get grouped up). Got to burn a full tank at 30 fsw. Nice warm water, relaxing first dive.
I did my checkout dives in Clearwater quarry in upstate NY. Cold, dark, gloomy etc. Reality hit then as I realized there was more to this than my cake dive in St. Maarten.
After I got over the "shock" those challenging dives were actually very enjoyable.

 

[mk57nato]

first 3 skills dives were in la janelle, port hueneme... 3 ft vis is a good day....lol..and rock climbing to get to the water. lol ....
final 2 cert dives were off the spectre from ventura harbor at anacapa.. mmmm boat diving and i miss the channel islands...

but now that i have finally pressured my friend into getting cert. hopefully by the end of this month i will take him back up there. And no im not bad about pressure, he has always wanted to get cert he's just one of those procrastinators..lol

 

[sndt1319]

My OW dives where in the Puget Sound. It was cold, the viz sucked, the DM said it was the worst condition he had ever seen, so over all it was great. For AOW the viz was a lot better but I could have done without the snow. It made the surface water really cold and my wetsuit hadn't warmed up yet.

 

[Soggy]

My check out dives were in Skeneateles Lake near Syracuse, NY. Beautiful, cold, clear water.

However, before that, I did two dives down in Port St. Joe, FL with a "Passport Diver" certification from SSI, which meant I could dive in OW with an instructor. I don't think the guy I dived with was an instructor, though. Oh, well. I survived!

 

[robh]

I can't believe that more people didn't name Crystal River, FL. My first dive there in 1981 then a trip to Key Largo to dive Pennecamp.

 

[Damselfish]

OW at White Beach in Manchester MA. AOW at White Beach, Folly Cove, and Cathedral Rocks.

 

[s7595]

check out dives (skills deleon springs ) atlantic ocean off the cost of boca ,first time on boat and diveing in ocean had a blast

 

[diverbrian]

My open water check-out dives where at Bear Lake and what I consider my first OW dives where two weeks later in Higgins Lake (I still don't care much for that "death march"). But, I was still hooked.

Some of you divers got lucky. I didn't dive off a boat until I got to Munising about two or three months after I certified.

 

[dutch-scuba-kid]

my very first OW dive was in The Netherlands. Next to Dreischor Gemaal, Loswal. I bet some of you know it. It's a nice place for night diving, and very very suitable for beginners. The thing is, it doesn't get much deeper than oh say... 3 meters. If you wanna go deeper, you'd have to swim pretty far. It wasn't cold at all. Was in August. Visibility was ok compared to normal circumstances. About 3 meters.
It was my first OW dive, I had no training before that time. It was a sort of get-to-know-diving-dive. My dad introduced me to it. Been hooked ever since.

Ramon