Hello From Colorado!

[Craig McCoy]

Hello! My name is Craig. I was certified Advanced Openwater about 20 years ago. I did that because my parents wanted a dive vacation (I'm sure that's relatively common). Well, the vaca never happened and I didn't actually do any dives outside of my cert dives for another 6 or so years. It wasn't until I met my wife that I convinced her to start diving and we began doing dive trips and I really got interested in Diving. I was certified in California in the Pacific Ocean and my first dives outside of cert were in the pacific ocean. My wife was certified in Colorado and her first dive was in Roatan, Honduras. She wins that one.

Now that we are consistently diving, and actually just got back from Playa Del Carmen for a trip with some dives, I am really trying to learn more and improve as a diver. We have another trip coming up to cabo as well. All of my google questions bring me to this board so I figured it was time to join up and be a member. I look forward to talking to everyone and learning more as I go!

While I just did my 100th dive on this recent trip (it was a shark dive so it was super memorable), I don't like that number as half of those dives had a huge gap from my current dives.

Anyways, thanks for the acceptance and look forward to future chats!

 

[boulderjohn]

Living as you do in Arvada, Colorado, you have a mixed ability to go much further with local help. Believe it or not you are in one a state that is annually among the nation's leaders in divers per capita, but your true local diving is pretty sparse. As a result, you have lots of nearby dive shops, but they all tend to specialize in big trips to far off tropical locales, such as those you named. I assume you are working with one of those shops now, at least to some degree.

Your best local options are in New Mexico, which is currently closed to Coloradans without quarantining. With an open border, you have two choices there.

• The Blue Hole is in the city of Santa Rosa, about 6 hours away. It is s relative small but reasonably deep (80 feet) sinkhole that is currently closed because of Covid. Many dive shops in Colorado go there at least occasionally for training. The water temperature is about 62° year round, so it is a tad nippier than you are currently diving and more like your California experience.
• Rock Lake is next to Santa Rosa, but it is on private property and not subject to the Covid rules. It is open to people who are already in New Mexico and not subject to border closings. It, too, is a 62° sinkhole, but much, much larger than the Blue Hole. It is over 400 feet across and 280 feet deep. It is the only site in the region for truly advanced diving. You have to be AOW to be allowed in, so you qualify. You have also be part of a group being led/supervised by an approved instructor, although you don't have to be taking a class. In normal years, I take such groups there roughly once a month in normal years, but I have not had the courage to breach the covid border rules and so have not been there in the last few months. I hope things will open up again in the spring, at which time I will be able to start doing trips again.

 

[H2ODoc]

Welcome from Golden, Craig. As they say... Colorado: just a few flights away from some really great diving.

 

[Craig McCoy]

Living as you do in Arvada, Colorado, you have a mixed ability to go much further with local help. Believe it or not you are in one a state that is annually among the nation's leaders in divers per capita, but your true local diving is pretty sparse. As a result, you have lots of nearby dive shops, but they all tend to specialize in big trips to far off tropical locales, such as those you named. I assume you are working with one of those shops now, at least to some degree.

Your best local options are in New Mexico, which is currently closed to Coloradans without quarantining. With an open border, you have two choices there.

• The Blue Hole is in the city of Santa Rosa, about 6 hours away. It is s relative small but reasonably deep (80 feet) sinkhole that is currently closed because of Covid. Many dive shops in Colorado go there at least occasionally for training. The water temperature is about 62° year round, so it is a tad nippier than you are currently diving and more like your California experience.
• Rock Lake is next to Santa Rosa, but it is on private property and not subject to the Covid rules. It is open to people who are already in New Mexico and not subject to border closings. It, too, is a 62° sinkhole, but much, much larger than the Blue Hole. It is over 400 feet across and 280 feet deep. It is the only site in the region for truly advanced diving. You have to be AOW to be allowed in, so you qualify. You have also be part of a group being led/supervised by an approved instructor, although you don't have to be taking a class. In normal years, I take such groups there roughly once a month in normal years, but I have not had the courage to breach the covid border rules and so have not been there in the last few months. I hope things will open up again in the spring, at which time I will be able to start doing trips again.

Great info! Thanks for that! Yes, while we do our trips on our own, the dive shop we frequent (same one she was certified in) does offer trips. I just find that we get better deals going on our own, but am open to going on dive trips through a shop that is affordable in said trips.

Your response actually hits on something I have been thinking about. My wife is not AOW certified. While she has experience in dives that typically wouldn't be available for OW divers, (IMHO experience between OW and AOW can be better than a class), we both want her to be get hat cert. The dive shop goes to New Mexico normally for that cert, but I have noticed in some of the places in Mexico they offer that cert at quite a reasonable rate. I just don't know if its worth it? I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Thanks so much!

 

[Craig McCoy]

Welcome from Golden, Craig. As they say... Colorado: just a few flights away from some really great diving.

We really are at a great location to get to some great diving spots. Covid puts a damper on things and this latest trip to Mexico was such a welcome relief! It was great because the resort was at about 25% capacity and the dives were amazing. We made sure to support the dive master/shop as they have taken a huge hit.

 

[boulderjohn]

My wife is not AOW certified. While she has experience in dives that typically wouldn't be available for OW divers, (IMHO experience between OW and AOW can be better than a class), we both want her to be get hat cert. The dive shop goes to New Mexico normally for that cert, but I have noticed in some of the places in Mexico they offer that cert at quite a reasonable rate.

I got my AOW on a trip to Mexico, my first trip after certification. If you choose things carefully, it can be a very good experience to do it in a place like that. The original purpose of AOW was to introduce you to different kinds of diving in order to pique your interest in something. If you go to a place like that, you have a lot more options, and if you choose a good instructor who will take the time to do it right, you can learn a lot.

Doing AOW dives in Colorado can be a challenge. The conversations with students about which of the dives they want to do can be interesting. "You want to do fish identification? Well, after your 30th crawdad, you'll have that one nailed." "Videography? Sure, nothing like 20 minutes of 3-foot visibility to excite your audience."

When I did my AOW, I had a great instructor who went over stuff really well and was very attentive during the dives. If you read a lot of the typical anti-AOW threads on ScubaBoard, for example, you will see Fish Identification mocked. My class was great. I learned a lot and then expanded that knowledge over the years. Being able to name things is important, because it helps you remember what you saw, and it helps you understand what you are seeing in the first place. If two people do the same dive, and you ask then what they saw, one might say, "Lots of fish," and the other might talk about seeing a trunkfish follow a midnight parrot to pick scraps of food out of the debris from the parrots attack on the coral, a damselfish zealously guarding its carefully cultivated bed of algae, a gobi and a shrimp living and working together, etc.

Doing AOW on a trip like that is better than other classes because the classroom stuff is minimal. You can have it all done before you get there and then just do the same number of dives you would have done anyway.

 

[Craig McCoy]

I got my AOW on a trip to Mexico, my first trip after certification. If you choose things carefully, it can be a very good experience to do it in a place like that. The original purpose of AOW was to introduce you to different kinds of diving in order to pique your interest in something. If you go to a place like that, you have a lot more options, and if you choose a good instructor who will take the time to do it right, you can learn a lot.

Doing AOW dives in Colorado can be a challenge. The conversations with students about which of the dives they want to do can be interesting. "You want to do fish identification? Well, after your 30th crawdad, you'll have that one nailed." "Videography? Sure, nothing like 20 minutes of 3-foot visibility to excite your audience."

When I did my AOW, I had a great instructor who went over stuff really well and was very attentive during the dives. If you read a lot of the typical anti-AOW threads on ScubaBoard, for example, you will see Fish Identification mocked. My class was great. I learned a lot and then expanded that knowledge over the years. Being able to name things is important, because it helps you remember what you saw, and it helps you understand what you are seeing in the first place. If two people do the same dive, and you ask then what they saw, one might say, "Lots of fish," and the other might talk about seeing a trunkfish follow a midnight parrot to pick scraps of food out of the debris from the parrots attack on the coral, a damselfish zealously guarding its carefully cultivated bed of algae, a gobi and a shrimp living and working together, etc.

Doing AOW on a trip like that is better than other classes because the classroom stuff is minimal. You can have it all done before you get there and then just do the same number of dives you would have done anyway.

This is one of the best responses I have read and I’ve been reading a lot of different threads. Thank you for that. With fish identification: that makes perfect sense. Some of the best guides we have had show us the different fish we are seeing using sign language or hand movements. I always ask after what exactly we saw so that I can write it down in my logs.

 

[ColoDale]

Welcome (formerly Golden CO). Plenty of divers and dive shops. We didn't do the group trip thing but know plenty who do and enjoy themselves.