Diving intensive course?

[dmaziuk]

2) I can take up to a month off work. How many dives can I log, realistically, if money was no issue and I wanted to eat sleep dive repeat? As in, do you think I can go from zero certification to logging 60 open water dives in a month or am I an idiot?
3) If you were in my predicament, how would you go about planning this dream/holiday?

I'd opt for a local instructor to take you through perhaps AOW, preferably evening/weekend dives so without taking much time off.

I think the best option for eat-dive-sleep is a liveaboard, that's all there's to do there and finding a buddy for the dive isn't a problem. You might need the Advanced cert to get on some of the dives, hence the AOW above.

Sidebar: In case stamina is an issue, I have zero experience, but I was a D1 swimmer till a couple years ago and swim every day since. Is that even relevant?

I believe so. Your feel for the buoyancy and trim and your level of comfort in the water should be way better than average. And your breathing -- though on the first pool dives I caught myself breathing like I'm about to start my usual pool workout...

 

[islanddream]

I know a few people have suggested coming to Florida for a month and get certified. I don't know when you are planning on starting your training, but just a heads-up....the seas have been extremely wild the past couple of months and the water temp is in the low to mid 70's. There are days when the dive boats can't go out because of the weather. If SE Florida is your place of choice, I'd wait a couple months for the weather (and hopefully the seas) to be better.

If it were me, I'd go to Cozumel, stay at The Blue Angel Resort and take my training from "Chicago" Matt. He's a wonderful instructor, the Blue Angel is a small "divers" hotel on the water, and the diving is fantastic. Cozumel is a fun place to go, the people are nice, and there are lots of things to do when not diving. People will tell you that Coz has lots of wild currents. Yes, there are times when the currents are wild but there are more times when they are not. People will tell you that drift diving is difficult for a newbie....well, I didn't know there was anything but drift diving when I started diving since everywhere we went, it was drift diving. I'm glad I learned to drift dive when I began diving. When should you go to Coz? My gut says anytime after March because that area is susceptible to "nortes"....north winds that close the port. Nortes are less common as we move into Spring.

One thing I'd do is do the book learning before you leave for wherever you want to get certified. Ebooks are a great way to learn the material and not take time away from diving. We did eLearning for our AOW and Nitrox certifications. (eLearning wasn't around when we got OW certification.) We could do it at our own leisure and in our own home.

Diving is so much fun and you meet some really great people. I'm glad you've joined ScubaBoard....it's a great place to get information to help you make a decision. As you'll find out, some comments will be helpful; some will be not-so-helpful. Enjoy!

 

[sheeper]

sure....come on down here to Florida. we have awesome diving and a great training program.

 

[--tom--]

I like the question. So I will give some guidelines (purely opinion) that might help, and some anecdotal advice (worth about $0.02).
Regarding your swimming experience, that will help, but especially for ear care. Diving that much in a month makes outer ear infections a common malady (you know, swimmer's ear). Please take care of them from the first water day.

I would recommend that you travel to someplace warm for the majority of your dive month. Cold water takes a toll on your endurance. Plan your time off accordingly.

Over the month, you want to take some days off. Devon's advice of 4:1 is spot on. Hence, pick a place where there is something to do besides reading and drinking. That said, at least two days off will involve studying.

Plan on taking some classes beyond the basic Open Water class (this is why the study days). If you are going to do online classes, make sure of the internet connection.

Try to pick a place with a variety of diving environments. In an ideal situation it would provide the skills needed to match your local diving assuming you plan to dive locally after certification. For example, where I live, surf entries are very common. So having experience with that during your month of experience may be helpful. Other things might occur, low visibility, heavy boat traffic, surge, tides may be of use for your home locale. Your local shop can help with that.

I would pick out your basic gear (mask, fins, snorkel, boots) well ahead of time and make sure they fit and are a good match to you. In other words, try them out in the water for a bunch of hours.

Take time to do the basic academic portion before your travels this may be done online. You don't want to lose water time studying first thing on a vacation.

Where would I go? Big Island Hawaii. Second? Belize Third? Florida for two weeks, Grand Cayman East End for the second two weeks.

Damn---what a great adventure! Good diving.

 

[Adelaar Cruises]

Good for you Flygal4!

Being certified to dive is always a good skill to have in your bag of tricks. Knowing how to do it well and safely makes it that much more enjoyable.

2) I can take up to a month off work. How many dives can I log, realistically, if money was no issue and I wanted to eat sleep dive repeat? As in, do you think I can go from zero certification to logging 60 open water dives in a month or am I an idiot?

I don't think logging 60 open water dives in a month is unrealistic at all.

I would suggest you think about a liveaboard. An average 10 night trip aboard our boat offers 28-32 dives, that's based on about 4 dives a day when not transiting (hiking, seeing Komodo dragons...etc) and some liveaboards offer 5 dives a day. Dive liveaboards allow you to maximize your dive time. Since the mothership moves you to the next dive site you have very little transfer time sitting in a tender suited up, and never have to fight the waves from shore dives. Most liveaboards (in Indonesia anyway) change out your gear between dives so you have plenty of time in between dives to have nice long surface intervals relaxing, eating your meal, taking photos, going to the beach excursion or snorkeling. In addition to that, you wake up at in a different location every day, with spectacular ocean views. And because the liveaboard can cover distances, you usually have many different types of dive site to choose from.

There is no reason you can't do 2 liveaboards, back to back and see 2 widely different areas, divers do it all the time. Or a liveaboard and a land based resort. This will show you many different types of diving (wreck, muck, reef, big fish...etc) and you can decide which you like best.
If this is the route you take make sure you find an operator that can take time with you and has a good instructor onboard, that speaks your language. Or if money isn't an issue, bring your own, or have the operator hire a private guide for you.

Also, that many dives can take it's toll on your ears. Keep them clean and dry after each dive, I use my own mix of swimmers ear. And make sure you stay hydrated, it's by far the biggest problem we see.

Wherever you choose to go have a wonderful time.

Best Fishes!

 

[japan-diver]

I would vote for a month in the Pacific - there are plenty of great places to get certified and dive for a month and rack up 60 or more dives. A bit of island hopping and you hit great sites and get a variety of diving.

 

[OrangeCountyScuba]

By no means is this to be misconstrued as a negative statement, Scuba should not be a bucket list activity. What I mean by that is, after the initial class (Open Water), if the instructor has done his/her job correctly, you will fall in love with scuba and continue on for the rest of your life. I feel that many people that I speak to, generally say they want to try scuba "just for the experience" and when they do sign up the are a bit taken back by the amount of work it takes to be a reasonably competent diver. Please dont go into this sport with the idea that I will get the cheapest training to suffice for the trip I want to take. This establishes from the get go that you will not take it serious and therefore you will probably not try as hard and take this sport as serious as it needs to be.
The reason I bring this up is, you will likely only try as hard in your certification class as you deem appropriate for the fact that scuba diving is only going to be this month of vacation then "I am over it", check it off the list. In my opinion, right after OW training you still are not a diver per say. You will take that knowledge that you learned and add experience(dives) to it that will make you better. I really didn't start having fun until I finished my higher level training where I became really comfortable and confident in my diving, of course there is always a underlying level of paranoia which is healthy.

If you are going to only do this for the month, it would be in your best interest to find a really really really accomplished instructor so that when you are finished with your class you will not be overwhelmed by being without the "safety blanket"(instructor). What this probably means is taking a private class and that class may be a bit harder than any other open water class, but will prepare you for transitioning to diving with others, boat charters, etc, with little learning curve time. OW classes, depending on who you go through, does not teach you how to dive, it just teaching you how to not die and how to use the equipment appropriately. There are some other organizations that make it a priority to teach you how to dive(neutrally buoyant) from the get go. To be fair, many of the instructors for the larger agencies are top notch instructors and will teach you how to dive from the get go, those instructors are teaching the right way. I would ask when trying to find an instructor what the first skill they start with, if its anything but neutral buoyancy at first, you can expect that your going to be sitting on your knees the entire time which is not diving. One other important thing to consider is whether or not your instructor is a full time instructor or just does it for beer money. To be fair and say that just cause an instructor is full time they are going to be garbage, but generally someone who does make a living off teaching (which is not as glamorous as some think) will be well versed in teaching and will have a broader knowledge base to pull from in the event you have difficulties with anything. Regardless of the agency you end up with, which is irrelevant for the most part, just make sure you find an instructor that fits well with your personality, has the certifications that you would like to learn, and that they are really anal about "training divers" not just printing cards. If you have any other questions feel free to ask. I have been diving since I was 14 and have been an instructor for 7, in the event anyone wants to question my validity on the subject. I not God's gift to diving, nor will I ever claim to be. This is just my experience from being around a little while and seeing that people need a little honesty about what to expect.