Certification 'Vacation" in April

[drrich2]

If you've got a board definition of 'east coast,' want to do it real bad, and aren't hung up on salt water diving, last I checked a lot of people use Vortex Spring for dive training, including OW certification. Around 68 degrees year round, so chilly, wear a full wetsuit and maybe hood, and it's freshwater. Probably not what you're looking for. But, my point is, if you really want to get cert.'d in an east coast state in April, even if sea conditions were unpleasant, it's likely it could still get done.

And if the weather was good, once cert.d, you could make an impromptu trip to a salt water location for diving. Blue Heron Bridge, Key Largo, etc...

Richard.

 

[TMHeimer]

As well, close to Vortex are all those dive shops on the North Gulf. Some start courses in mid March, but most are going full steam by April when the Gulf reaches 70F. That's when the locals start in diving and boats go out way more often than in winter. A lot of accomodation rates there do go way up as of April 1.

---------- Post added January 20th, 2015 at 10:17 PM ----------

I would say very few if any in what I would consider "vacation-worthy" conditions.

:d

Yeah I guess so (of course I had a nice swim today in Ala.). When she said take a few days off from work, I wasn't thinking a pretty major expense to the tropics. But then money hasn't been mentioned either.

 

[gryffin]

I am working with a pretty liberal definition of "east coast", in that what I really should have said was: non-stop flight out of Boston, with either no, or only a very minimal time zone change. This definition would include the Caribbean.

I did check into Diver's Den which was mentioned earlier (by diversteve) on this thread- it is the closest dive shop to us- about 90 min. I had ruled it out because the last time I checked then out, their class/pool certification class required 2x weekly attendance for several consecutive weeks, and that would not have worked for us. They now offer a 1x per week schedule. I contacted them directly and it turns out that they can be even more flexible with us- we can do the class work online and then work with them on as many pool sessions as we need to master the skills. After that, they offer an option to do the checkout dives on one of their shop-sponsored trips (for example, St. Lucia in April). This sounds like the best of both worlds since we would be connected with a local shop, and their resources would be available to us during the warm-water checkout dives.

 

[Scuba.Buzo]

Hey if you are willing to travel internationally you should check out the Corn Islands of Nicaragua. Just a short flight away from the capital city of Managua, Big Corn Island is easily accessible and still not over run with tourists. I've been out here for about 2 months and the diving is by far the best of my career (I use to live and dive in Thailand). There is a new American owned dive shop on BCI that has all new equipment and a great track record for customer service. I've been diving with them for the past 2 months and have really enjoyed it. I know they offer OW classes where they start off in a pool and work their way into the ocean. Helps build confidence in new divers! Worth checking out! Dos Tiburones | Home

 

[gryffin]

I know this is an old thread, but in case anyone is still watching it....

We finally completed the elearning and the pool work for our PADI OW certification. We ended up doing the pool work with Divers Den in Manchester, NH. They offered a weekend option for the pool work, so we completed it this past Saturday and Sunday. It's a year later than we originally planned, but we are now ready to plan a trip for our OW dives. We are considering the Keys, we will be on Florida in early March visiting my husband's parents, but they are on the west coast near Fort Meyers and most of the nearby shops go to the Keys for the OW dives anyway.

 

[TMHeimer]

Congratulations on being "half way there". Too bad you can't find a shop near Ft. Myers or St. Pete area that wouldn't want to do a trip all the way to the Keys for the checkout dives. That would mean a night or two in a motel.

 

[DiamondD]

I know this is an old thread, but in case anyone is still watching it....

We finally completed the elearning and the pool work for our PADI OW certification. We ended up doing the pool work with Divers Den in Manchester, NH. They offered a weekend option for the pool work, so we completed it this past Saturday and Sunday. It's a year later than we originally planned, but we are now ready to plan a trip for our OW dives. We are considering the Keys, we will be on Florida in early March visiting my husband's parents, but they are on the west coast near Fort Meyers and most of the nearby shops go to the Keys for the OW dives anyway.

Glad you stuck with it. Doesn't really matter where you do your OW check out dives, you'll be planning a trip somewhere else probably before you're done. Have fun.

Dean

 

[Neilwood]

Congratulations on getting this far - so long as you are happy enough with the skills you learned in the pool, the OW check out dives are not too bad.

About the only reason I would have for doing the OW cert dives in somewhere like the Keys would be for warmth. I don't regret doing mine in the cold water of the North Sea here (thinking was if I could manage the dive ok in a 7mm with lower visibility then diving somewhere warm would be easy).

You will probably be too busy and tired doing the dives to worry too much about the scenery (I certainly was until my 4th dive where I had already ticked off all the skills so it was "my dive").