Keep your hoses to yourself!

[Keith.M]

Thanks but I'll have to give that a pass for now. Will be going for my Advanced Open Water and Nitrox at the end of the month and that's already pushing it a bit because I can't afford to leave the animal shelter where I work fulltime for long stretches but I'll be free as hell once my contract ends in August.

As the new diver that you stated you are in the OP, I would suggest that you will get a lot more out of your AOW class if you delay it a bit and just dive. Get some dives under your belt. Work on your buoyancy and your trim on every dive. I really think you should have a minimum of 25 dives before taking AOW. I know that with PADI, you can take it right out of OW certification. To me that seems silly. How can you gain additional skills from AOW when you are fighting buoyancy issues, can't remail horizontal, maybe have not yet figured out the proper weight distribution.

What is the rush? Dive, dive, dive.

I heard that here and it made sense to me. I didn't realize I would have logged 54 dives before taking the AOW but I am glad I did. I was able to fully concentrate on gaining new skills and reinforcing the skills I already had while a couple of the divers in the class were still working on the basics and could not complete the required skills to pass the course.

 

[rmh84]

Maybe the poster is a bottom-feeder like me, who wants to be about 5 inches off the reef looking for small stuff

However - if the diver isn't hitting stuff with his guages, that's between him and his buddy IMO. For me personally, I find that having an excessive ammount of hanging stuff makes you look like at best an amature, and at worst careless/sloppy (this would not apply if you were diving with geat that is for a specific purpose - such as the extra long hoses for caving mentioned before). So I make a point of being "put together" gear wise.

I think an instructor having a dangling octo is a bad habit and a lousy example, but it's forgiveable if that instructor is otherwise very competent.

What does a dangling octo/SPG has to do with knocking into the coral reef? That sounds like a depth control problem than danglies problem. If your danglies are, say, on a 36" hose (or whatever length), and you stay 5-ft above the reef, what are these things going to hit?

 

[Steve_C]

What does a dangling octo/SPG has to do with knocking into the coral reef? That sounds like a depth control problem than danglies problem. If your danglies are, say, on a 36" hose (or whatever length), and you stay 5-ft above the reef, what are these things going to hit?

Unless of course you are trying to see a nudibranch or other object in a hard to see spot. Or you are peering under an overhang. I am frequently not 5 ft above the reef. But then I do not dangle and I do not hit the reef.

 

[fnfalman]

Maybe the poster is a bottom-feeder like me, who wants to be about 5 inches off the reef looking for small stuff

Generally people have "hands". If they want to get that close to the reef (and I do love to find macro stuff), then they can gather up the danglies in their hands and dive.

It's not an equipment issue but an awareness and diving technique issues. You don't need to have your hoses clipped off (adding another piece of equipment to your rig) in order to be tidy or "safe".

For me personally, I find that having an excessive ammount of hanging stuff makes you look like at best an amature, and at worst careless/sloppy (this would not apply if you were diving with geat that is for a specific purpose - such as the extra long hoses for caving mentioned before). So I make a point of being "put together" gear wise.

If you don't like danglies, then don't rig your equipment up to have danglies. Really, it's that simple.

Like I said, the diver who has all these danglies can outdive most people that I know who are all cool and chic with their DIR rigs and things tied off neatly. This dude is a course director cum former commercial diver cum former military combat diver. He is a fountain of knowledge on things diving related, he's on top of his diving medicine knowledge, blah, blah, blah. If I were ever to be even close to as good as he is, I may just tell him that his danglies aren't "safe" or "all that". Until then I'll keep my comments to myself and learn more from the man.

I think an instructor having a dangling octo is a bad habit and a lousy example, but it's forgiveable if that instructor is otherwise very competent.[/QUOTE]

 

[TMHeimer]

As the new diver that you stated you are in the OP, I would suggest that you will get a lot more out of your AOW class if you delay it a bit and just dive. Get some dives under your belt. Work on your buoyancy and your trim on every dive. I really think you should have a minimum of 25 dives before taking AOW. I know that with PADI, you can take it right out of OW certification. To me that seems silly. How can you gain additional skills from AOW when you are fighting buoyancy issues, can't remail horizontal, maybe have not yet figured out the proper weight distribution.

What is the rush? Dive, dive, dive.

I heard that here and it made sense to me. I didn't realize I would have logged 54 dives before taking the AOW but I am glad I did. I was able to fully concentrate on gaining new skills and reinforcing the skills I already had while a couple of the divers in the class were still working on the basics and could not complete the required skills to pass the course.

Probably a good idea in many, but not all cases. Comfortability in the water before certification has a lot to do with it. Being comfortable with dive skills, buoyancy, etc. varies a lot with individuals. Generally, I would say 10-15 dives (depending on type of dives) should be enough. 54 MAY be overkill.

 

[Keith.M]

Yeah, not planned, it is just the way the schedule turned out.

 

[Progen]

As the new diver that you stated you are in the OP, I would suggest that you will get a lot more out of your AOW class if you delay it a bit and just dive. Get some dives under your belt. Work on your buoyancy and your trim on every dive. I really think you should have a minimum of 25 dives before taking AOW. I know that with PADI, you can take it right out of OW certification. To me that seems silly. How can you gain additional skills from AOW when you are fighting buoyancy issues, can't remail horizontal, maybe have not yet figured out the proper weight distribution.

What is the rush? Dive, dive, dive.

I heard that here and it made sense to me. I didn't realize I would have logged 54 dives before taking the AOW but I am glad I did. I was able to fully concentrate on gaining new skills and reinforcing the skills I already had while a couple of the divers in the class were still working on the basics and could not complete the required skills to pass the course.

I've been told, read and heard that a few times but I'm comfortable enough in the water and whilst I don't get the chance to go out to sea, I do practice at least once a week in swimming pools, every week. I've had a full set of mid range gear which I bought new in December last year even before I'd gotten my Open Water certification and what I usually do in swimming pools would be to practice getting in and out of the equipment underwater, maintaining neutral buoyancy, the modified frog kick, etc.. Oh, and I also help scrub the bottom of the diving pool a bit because I suspect that's what the lifeguard buddy told his boss. That I was there to help clean the pool which is why the manager didn't say anything about an outsider walking in with scuba gear.

There's no chance to do any sea dives here until late March or early April when the monsoon shifts the other way so I thought I might as well get the certification and get 6 dives under my belt. I know all those cards aren't going to mean anything but I also hope that not having those cards will not mean that I'm incapable of decent control in the water.

---------- Post added March 3rd, 2013 at 08:30 AM ----------

What do you do for work at an animal shelter, if you don't mind me asking?

I'm the general manager of the Sarawak SPCA but I'm a different kind of manager because I spend more time with the animals than with paperwork. We don't have an inhouse vet but I'm lucky to have first aid skills and a bit more so I need to be in the shelter or close enough as much as possible just in case there're emergencies and there usually are emergencies pretty regularly.

 

[261311]

To me that seems silly. How can you gain additional skills from AOW when you are fighting buoyancy issues, can't remail horizontal, maybe have not yet figured out the proper weight distribution.

PADI has classes for those, why wait! [-]Buy today![/-] [-]Sign up now![/-] [-]Meet people, learn things, go places.[/-] I'm lost

Agree with above, 50+ Dives might be a bit over kill to become comfortable in the water and even some with 50 dives and are comfortable struggle with buoyancy, it has to be a skill you want to conquer and doesn't really take that long if you put your mind to it. By the end of my 5th pool dive I wasn't terrible* at buoyancy, but that's because I made an effort to work on it every time we were in the water. The rest of the class would deflate their BC's/ stop swimming, drop to the bottom and I would slowly adjust. I'm sure I've got a ways to go, but not 50 dives.

 

[RJP]

As the new diver that you stated you are in the OP, I would suggest that you will get a lot more out of your AOW class if you delay it a bit and just dive. Get some dives under your belt. Work on your buoyancy and your trim on every dive. I really think you should have a minimum of 25 dives before taking AOW. I know that with PADI, you can take it right out of OW certification. To me that seems silly. How can you gain additional skills from AOW when you are fighting buoyancy issues, can't remail horizontal, maybe have not yet figured out the proper weight distribution.

What is the rush? Dive, dive, dive.

I heard that here and it made sense to me. I didn't realize I would have logged 54 dives before taking the AOW but I am glad I did. I was able to fully concentrate on gaining new skills and reinforcing the skills I already had while a couple of the divers in the class were still working on the basics and could not complete the required skills to pass the course.

Yup - for sure everyone should spend 25-50 dives mastering crappy buoyancy, not using a compass, and otherwise imprinting all manner of bad/unorthodox dive skills. That way, when you take AOW the instructor really has to earn his/her money.


:d

Or, you could take a good AOW class right out of a good OW class and learn all of those things from the outset.

Saying you should "just go dive" instead of taking AOW after OW is like saying you should "just go do math" instead of taking the second semester of algebra right after the first semester. If you're not ready to move on you need remediation, but - like in math class - the expectation is/should be that OW should prepare you for AOW.

 

[halocline]

I'm the general manager of the Sarawak SPCA but I'm a different kind of manager because I spend more time with the animals than with paperwork. We don't have an inhouse vet but I'm lucky to have first aid skills and a bit more so I need to be in the shelter or close enough as much as possible just in case there're emergencies and there usually are emergencies pretty regularly.

Okay, because you work with abandoned/abused animals, which is a strong interest of mine, I'm happy to give you a 2nd stage that I think will help substantially with your drymouth and allow you to ditch the biofilter. I'll send you a scubapro 109, metal case. It might be a bit beat up on the outside but well rebuilt (if I do say so myself) and in perfect working order. I'll see what I have, and I have friends that have several of 'em, between us we'll find something. It would be good to know the IP of your first stage, and you'll have to pay shipping from the U.S. Fair enough?