Had another OW class, went fine except for some ear pain from a cold. Previously I had used a rental mask and it was the worst thing ever. Before class I tried a few dozen masks at different shops and settled on a Hollis M1. It is freaking amazing! Fits me perfectly, super tight seal, crystal clear. I love it! The dive shop where I bought it used a lighter to blacken the inside of the mask, to burn off any residue. It was pretty disturbing to watch on a $100 mask, but seemed to have worked perfectly. I would have never been able to bring myself to do it with fire and I appreciate not needing to mess around with toothpaste.
new divers! gear choices
- Thread starter NateS
- Start date
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FYI... I never go anywhere without my Radiator long sleeved vest to use under my regular wetsuit. I can't count how many times it saved me. I did my first warm water diving in PNG and inevitably, I would get cold fairly quickly by the 2nd or 3rd dive and have to surface early. One of the other divers lent me his radiator and I never had a problem afterwards. I even take it with me when I dive dry in So Cal because there is always someone in a 7ml who is getting cold and I let them use it. I also use their hood both for warm and also under my 7ml hood for cold water diving.
Wooo! Guess who is now a certified diver? 
Here's the group:
We did a bunch more OW classes and pool sessions. The classes were mostly filling out paperwork, getting gear ready for the pool, and watching videos. There was some discussion on how regulators work, tank markings, etc and that stuff was good. There were some slides and discussion about local diving which was nice. Overall though, nearly all of the theoretical learning happened from the study material and the rest from the pool sessions, the class time was mostly just review.
Watching videos that are the exact same content as the PADI study material is just a waste of time IMHO. I understand a lot of people don't read the material, but it makes me feel like a sucker for actually studying properly and then having to sit through a 45 minute video which exactly quotes the reading material. Nitrox training was the worst. We read the material and filled out the knowledge review answers, then came to the shop for class. We then had to sit through a super boring video on the same content (useless). Next we went through the knowledge review questions, reading each and going over the answers (only marginally helpful). We then got to use a few different oxygen analyzers on different tanks (interesting). Tada, nitrox certification complete.
Interestingly, 2 tanks we looked at that were just laying around the shop each had 2 or 3 separate stickers with different nitrox percentages on them. Some were just a number, like "55.5%", without a name, fill date, etc that we just learned should be there.
The pool sessions consisted of lugging a ton of gear. We fit 4 people plus gear plus 2 AL80s or 4 HP100s into a Scion tC (2 door hatchback) but it wasn't comfy! We had 13 students. 2-3 had came late and got semi-privates with one instructor. 2-3 more instructors were with the rest of the group. We were in the larger group and there was a lot of standing around to be had, waiting for everyone to finish so we could move on. The instructor leading the sessions had a script and had many things to get done each pool, so as much as we stood around, it was still a bit rushed. Still, being in the pool with our gear was very helpful for learning.
The worst thing was being in the pool in a drysuit. The suit squeeze was brutal, I was raw behind the knees. Having to wait for long periods at the surface, there was no way to get air in my legs to alleviate it. My wife and I were very unhappy after that session! It wasn't an issue in the ocean later though.
Most of the time the pool was complete chaos, with students unable to control themselves just floating at the surface. I have no idea why they feel like they need to be kicking all the time at the surface with the BCD inflated! Just stop it! I got cracked hard enough on my shin to take off the skin. Underwater was similar, with people kicking you in the head or backing their tank into your face. A few people got good shove as I protected my wife from getting hit in the head.
By the last class things were much improved. It was a free day for playing in the pool and was really cool! They brought DPVs and Toypedos to play with. Everyone was swimming around, doing flips, being neutrally buoyant upside down, driving around with DPVs, practicing skills, etc. No one was kicking me!
On to OW dives! We were relieved that our dives had only 6 students. We were late from traffic so it was 4 of us and 1 instructor. On our first dive one of us corked from 23 feet. His rental BCD had a super sensitive inflator button and he didn't realize he was slowly and constantly inflating!
On the second dive I lost my Seawing Nova fin! The built-in drysuit boots didn't hold the fin strap well. It was my second dive with the fins, but I was pretty sure I read they float, so I looked up to find it. That's when I saw my wife (and buddy) up there, so I expected she saw and was getting it. I looked to the instructor and he told me to go down, but looked away when I tried to indicate my lost fin. I descended as instructed and waited. After a little while the instructor told us all to ascend. Turns out my wife accidentally corked at the same time I lost my fin and hadn't gone to get it! We looked around a bit and then turned the dive. Afterward I spotted it and scrambled a stand up paddle boarder to retrieve it.
The next OW dives were yesterday. Sea temps were 56F, which is warm for Seattle. Viz was about 15 feet. We did CESA and other skills, everything went well. During compass navigation both my buddy and I corked from ~20 feet. Being distracted from the compass, we were swimming slightly upward, then didn't get buoyancy under control in time and suddenly were at the surface. Oops! We descended, went back to compass navigation, and successfully found the location anyway. We saw some neat fish, giant anemones, an octopus (a "small" one for the area, maybe 5-6 feet across). One of the other students picked up a cucumber to look at it, so I shined my light in his eyes and waggled a finger at him. How hard is it to not touch the sea life? Our max depth was 60 feet. We did 3 dives and it was super exhausting. The neck seal was very tight for two of us and today it looks like someone tried to garrote us. We'll live though!
We are all looking forward to diving in warm waters. The drysuits are pretty damned uncomfortable! Once in the water they aren't so bad though. We hope to do a couple more dives before leaving Seattle, some at night.
I started this thread about gear, but since turned it into a dive log. We did get all our gear put together. We dived with it all yesterday, including SMB, LifeLine, knife, shears, etc. It needs a few tweaks, eg the knife sheath slipped and needs a triglide, the bungee tangled the SMB reel and could be done better, etc. It's good to get these things ironed out early.
The Ghost is really cool, lightweight, very comfortable, and makes good trim easy. At the surface you're mostly face up or face down, like any BP/W I expect. Deflating slightly helps to be vertical, though it's less comfy. Not having pockets requires some creativity when trying to bring safety gear, but I think we came up with good solutions for everything. I'll try to take some pics soon.
The Air2 with the Dive Alert attached is quite hard to get in your mouth, because the Dive Alert doesn't bend. This is not so good. I'm considering clipping the Dive Alert off somewhere, since we have no pockets. I know there are glue-on and xshorts, but I like being streamlined and not having pockets. Maybe stick it on the drysuit hose when doing warm water dives?
Here's the group:We did a bunch more OW classes and pool sessions. The classes were mostly filling out paperwork, getting gear ready for the pool, and watching videos. There was some discussion on how regulators work, tank markings, etc and that stuff was good. There were some slides and discussion about local diving which was nice. Overall though, nearly all of the theoretical learning happened from the study material and the rest from the pool sessions, the class time was mostly just review.
Watching videos that are the exact same content as the PADI study material is just a waste of time IMHO. I understand a lot of people don't read the material, but it makes me feel like a sucker for actually studying properly and then having to sit through a 45 minute video which exactly quotes the reading material. Nitrox training was the worst. We read the material and filled out the knowledge review answers, then came to the shop for class. We then had to sit through a super boring video on the same content (useless). Next we went through the knowledge review questions, reading each and going over the answers (only marginally helpful). We then got to use a few different oxygen analyzers on different tanks (interesting). Tada, nitrox certification complete.
Interestingly, 2 tanks we looked at that were just laying around the shop each had 2 or 3 separate stickers with different nitrox percentages on them. Some were just a number, like "55.5%", without a name, fill date, etc that we just learned should be there.
The pool sessions consisted of lugging a ton of gear. We fit 4 people plus gear plus 2 AL80s or 4 HP100s into a Scion tC (2 door hatchback) but it wasn't comfy! We had 13 students. 2-3 had came late and got semi-privates with one instructor. 2-3 more instructors were with the rest of the group. We were in the larger group and there was a lot of standing around to be had, waiting for everyone to finish so we could move on. The instructor leading the sessions had a script and had many things to get done each pool, so as much as we stood around, it was still a bit rushed. Still, being in the pool with our gear was very helpful for learning.
The worst thing was being in the pool in a drysuit. The suit squeeze was brutal, I was raw behind the knees. Having to wait for long periods at the surface, there was no way to get air in my legs to alleviate it. My wife and I were very unhappy after that session! It wasn't an issue in the ocean later though.
Most of the time the pool was complete chaos, with students unable to control themselves just floating at the surface. I have no idea why they feel like they need to be kicking all the time at the surface with the BCD inflated! Just stop it! I got cracked hard enough on my shin to take off the skin. Underwater was similar, with people kicking you in the head or backing their tank into your face. A few people got good shove as I protected my wife from getting hit in the head.
By the last class things were much improved. It was a free day for playing in the pool and was really cool! They brought DPVs and Toypedos to play with. Everyone was swimming around, doing flips, being neutrally buoyant upside down, driving around with DPVs, practicing skills, etc. No one was kicking me!
On to OW dives! We were relieved that our dives had only 6 students. We were late from traffic so it was 4 of us and 1 instructor. On our first dive one of us corked from 23 feet. His rental BCD had a super sensitive inflator button and he didn't realize he was slowly and constantly inflating!
On the second dive I lost my Seawing Nova fin! The built-in drysuit boots didn't hold the fin strap well. It was my second dive with the fins, but I was pretty sure I read they float, so I looked up to find it. That's when I saw my wife (and buddy) up there, so I expected she saw and was getting it. I looked to the instructor and he told me to go down, but looked away when I tried to indicate my lost fin. I descended as instructed and waited. After a little while the instructor told us all to ascend. Turns out my wife accidentally corked at the same time I lost my fin and hadn't gone to get it! We looked around a bit and then turned the dive. Afterward I spotted it and scrambled a stand up paddle boarder to retrieve it.
The next OW dives were yesterday. Sea temps were 56F, which is warm for Seattle. Viz was about 15 feet. We did CESA and other skills, everything went well. During compass navigation both my buddy and I corked from ~20 feet. Being distracted from the compass, we were swimming slightly upward, then didn't get buoyancy under control in time and suddenly were at the surface. Oops! We descended, went back to compass navigation, and successfully found the location anyway. We saw some neat fish, giant anemones, an octopus (a "small" one for the area, maybe 5-6 feet across). One of the other students picked up a cucumber to look at it, so I shined my light in his eyes and waggled a finger at him.
How hard is it to not touch the sea life? Our max depth was 60 feet. We did 3 dives and it was super exhausting. The neck seal was very tight for two of us and today it looks like someone tried to garrote us. We'll live though!We are all looking forward to diving in warm waters. The drysuits are pretty damned uncomfortable! Once in the water they aren't so bad though. We hope to do a couple more dives before leaving Seattle, some at night.
I started this thread about gear, but since turned it into a dive log.
We did get all our gear put together. We dived with it all yesterday, including SMB, LifeLine, knife, shears, etc. It needs a few tweaks, eg the knife sheath slipped and needs a triglide, the bungee tangled the SMB reel and could be done better, etc. It's good to get these things ironed out early.The Ghost is really cool, lightweight, very comfortable, and makes good trim easy. At the surface you're mostly face up or face down, like any BP/W I expect. Deflating slightly helps to be vertical, though it's less comfy. Not having pockets requires some creativity when trying to bring safety gear, but I think we came up with good solutions for everything. I'll try to take some pics soon.
The Air2 with the Dive Alert attached is quite hard to get in your mouth, because the Dive Alert doesn't bend. This is not so good.
I'm considering clipping the Dive Alert off somewhere, since we have no pockets. I know there are glue-on and xshorts, but I like being streamlined and not having pockets. Maybe stick it on the drysuit hose when doing warm water dives? Similar threads
