Newbie questions

[robint]

My dos centavos:

Sign up for AOW - likely you will be the only students - private lessons for group rates! The instructor will go with you on the boats for your AOW dives; a great way to get more dives under supervision. After the class dives, if you feel you need to, rent a DM to go with you.

Have fun.

Excellent Idea!!! By doing the course, you will get experience and dives with an instructor, so never having to go it alone really.

Mossman - I have to disagree with you. My kid was 12 and got certified in Cozumel. She learned from Day 1 how to dive in current and never once had a problem.
Bonaire is great shore diving, but I really don't think it is for beginners as you need to be confident in your navigation skills to get you back to your entry point, be good on air or at least check your gauges without being told to do so (biggest problem I see with new divers), AND be responsible for lugging gear, setting up gear, and transporting gear back and forth to a dive site. I LOVE Bonaire, don't get me wrong, but I think someone should have a bit of diving experience to manage all those tasks. Being a brand new buddy pair - not my idea of fun in Bonaire for either of them. JUST MY OPINION.
I like seeing NEWER divers dive from a boat with a DM guide for awhile, get used to the process, before expecting them to lead dives off on a reef.
The shore dive in front of HOtel Cozumel and SCC is easy, you can always see shore/pier, and there is plenty to see and practice skills. It is good practice and CONFIDENCE builder for future trips to places like Bonaire.

robin

 

[Mossman]

Mossman - I have to disagree with you. My kid was 12 and got certified in Cozumel. She learned from Day 1 how to dive in current and never once had a problem.
Bonaire is great shore diving, but I really don't think it is for beginners as you need to be confident in your navigation skills to get you back to your entry point, be good on air or at least check your gauges without being told to do so (biggest problem I see with new divers), AND be responsible for lugging gear, setting up gear, and transporting gear back and forth to a dive site. I LOVE Bonaire, don't get me wrong, but I think someone should have a bit of diving experience to manage all those tasks. Being a brand new buddy pair - not my idea of fun in Bonaire for either of them. JUST MY OPINION.
I like seeing NEWER divers dive from a boat with a DM guide for awhile, get used to the process, before expecting them to lead dives off on a reef.
The shore dive in front of HOtel Cozumel and SCC is easy, you can always see shore/pier, and there is plenty to see and practice skills. It is good practice and CONFIDENCE builder for future trips to places like Bonaire.

Bonaire has slow or no currents. It's an excellent place to learn to navigate because in the worst case, one simply ascends and swims back to the starting point. There's no need to be good on air because one can always simply ascend and swim back to the starting point and dives can be as long or short as one cares to dive.

If new divers forget to check their gauges, they have absolutely no business diving in the first place. That's as bad as forgetting not to hold one's breath on ascent. Being responsible for setting up one's own gear is another skill that new divers absolutely should have down before getting in the water.

All these "tasks" as you call then are the most basic elements of diving. Bonaire is a very benign place to be able to practice because it's extremely forgiving. No one has to worry about being caught in a downcurrent, for instance. No one has to worry about being separated from the group (and the hand-holding DM) because the currents are too strong.

And the other good thing about Bonaire is that boat diving with a DM is very available and very cheap. I would suggest that the new divers start off with one of the popular packages that includes 6 boat dives, perhaps hire a private DM for their first shore dives, though many resorts there have very easy shore dives off the property's dock that are complete with ropes or other markers that help lead the new diver with little navigation experience right back to the starting point.

Every diver, excluding the very young or the physically disabled, should develop some measure of independence because the DM won't always be available to hand hold. I was fortunate enough to develop my independence in the rough cold waters of southern California and have seen many new divers survive such rigors. Personally I feel that the warm clear current-free waters of Bonaire are too easy, that new divers should actually be challenged a little, but it's definitely a better place to start than the current-ridden bottomless depths of Cozumel that are fraught with dangers.

 

[mikeycanuk]

Our son and us all started (he was 10) in Barbados then Cayman Brac twice, Salt Cay, Provo and Grand Turk. Did Coz back in March.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[mediumone]

My boys first two open water dives after certification, when they were 12 and 14, were on Palancar Gardens and Paradise, on a day when the currents were relatively mild.

They did just fine --- ran out of air pretty quick, but were obviously comfortable, and with passable buoyancy skills, reflecting a natural ability as well as an outstanding instructor. They were both certified in the Puget Sound in 42 degree (yes that was forty two), water wearing 7 mm farmer johns, and carrying enough lead to drive piles, so Coz was considerably less stressful.

I would agree with other posters comments, that recommend a private DM for the first 4 dives at least, and depending on comfort/skill level, perhaps more.


PADI does not put depth restrictions on 12 year olds if they're diving with their parents.

 

[scallop]

Thanks for all the info, keep it coming please. Let me clarify a bit, this will not be a purely diving vacation, wife and daughters and possibly my cousin's family may come. None of them dive, snorkel yes dive no. There seems to be plenty of other stuff to do to keep them occupied while my son and I get in a limited number of dives. As much as a pure dive vacation would be fun for us we have to keep the peace with the rest of the family and have options to keep everyone happy.

For the last three years we have went to the keys, just looking for something a little different this year and cannot beat the pricing I have found on a Coz trip.

Probably will do the AOW course before and I like the idea of a private DM. Not sure where I got his max depth of 45' from, our cert is with SDI.

 

[drrich2]

On your depths i usually stay around 60-80ft. Everyone else can be at 100ft but doesnt mean you have to.

True. I want to follow up with a point so it's not a surprise later. On a cruise ship stop, I got in 2 dives with Living Underwater in Cozumel; Palancar Garden and Santa Rosa (max. depths 56 & 76 feet, roughly, with average depths 29 & 48 feet for the overall dives). I suspect had we been diving a few days and been deemed okay, we'd have been taken deeper. A tip we got, and that I believe I observed in action, is that if you get in closer to the reef, the current action tends to be less, vs. if you're moving along a ways off the reef. I bring this up because I speculate that...

1.) If you are part of a group diving a deep reef, and you two try staying 20 feet+ shallower than the main group, if they're close to the reef and you're not, you may get moved ahead by the current. Cozumel drift diving was sort of like hovering and letting the current carry you and the group along. I liked it. My wife had a sinus infection but dove anywhere because her brother was along as a relative newbie, and she fought the current and had a hard time of it. A lot of people like drift diving. But if you get off the reef, tend to move faster than the dive master and have to swim back now and then, it could add to your stress.

2.) It's early in your dive career, but any idea how you guys air consumption compares to other peoples'? You'll find charter boat op.s (I'm not speaking specifically of Cozumel) vary in their practices; some tend to send up low-air divers in buddy pairs, and some take the group up when someone gets low (which some people consider the safest option, but it puts you at risk for the stink eye from people whose dive you cut short). Might be good to know what your dive op does.

Check out this thread on the Scuba Board Invasion planned for 2015. They plan to stay at Hotel Cozumel, and discuss the shore dive and some other matters that might be useful to you.

I like the idea of getting AOW before you go. Who wants to be trying to navigate to swim a square (thinking PADI's AOW course) when there's a beautiful reef and animals to be seen?

Richard.

 

[Mossman]

True. I want to follow up with a point so it's not a surprise later. On a cruise ship stop, I got in 2 dives with Living Underwater in Cozumel; Palancar Garden and Santa Rosa (max. depths 56 & 76 feet, roughly, with average depths 29 & 48 feet for the overall dives). I suspect had we been diving a few days and been deemed okay, we'd have been taken deeper.

Perhaps if you had been deemed okay. Just curious, did they specify a maximum depth of 76 feet on Santa Rosa or otherwise tell you that you had to be "taken" deeper in order to go deeper than that? If I'm on a wall dive with a group, I don't usually have a problem going a little deeper if I feel like it. BTW, on my very first dive with LU, I was "taken" to 133 feet after exiting Devil's Throat and I'm pretty sure very few people have ever deemed me okay. In fact, as a psychiatrist and Christian Conservative, I speculate you would not deem me OK. But that's OK.

because I speculate that...

But if you get off the reef, tend to move faster than the dive master and have to swim back now and then, it could add to your stress.

I speculate that if you're in a strong current in Cozumel you might not want to swim back at all, let alone now and then. Besides adding to your stress, it can either be a whole lot of work and/or impossible. I speculate that it may be better to kick in place and let the group catch up, if possible, or better yet to duck out of the current behind a coral head or into a sand hole, if possible. If not possible, screw the group and enjoy your dive. If they yell at you when you're back on the boat, just claim you got separated and couldn't help it. Even Aldora seems forgiving of that excuse, or so I speculate from reading other people's reports.

It's early in your dive career, but any idea how you guys air consumption compares to other peoples'? You'll find charter boat op.s (I'm not speaking specifically of Cozumel) vary in their practices; some tend to send up low-air divers in buddy pairs, and some take the group up when someone gets low (which some people consider the safest option, but it puts you at risk for the stink eye from people whose dive you cut short). Might be good to know what your dive op does.

I'm certainly no psychiatrist, but I'd speculate that worry over "stink eye" demonstrates insecurity and may lead to additional stress. To hell with what other people may think, you're paying the same as them. If they don't like getting their dives cut short, let them find another dive op. If you don't like "stink eye" then don't look at their eyes, look at their feet instead. If they have stinky feet, just don't smell them. BTW, most people, or at least some people I speculate, do have stinky feet on a dive boat because pee tends to collect there. It's a good idea not to smell them in any case.

Besides, lots of people on dive boats wear sunglasses and you can't see their eyes, stinky or not. Look at the people with sunglasses, ignore the people not wearing sunglasses because they're probably not very cool anyway. Cool people wear sunglasses. Uncool people don't and they blink a lot or squint which makes them look even more uncool, not to mention putting them at greater risk of cataracts.

 

[drrich2]

Perhaps if you had been deemed okay. Just curious, did they specify a maximum depth of 76 feet on Santa Rosa or otherwise tell you that you had to be "taken" deeper in order to go deeper than that? If I'm on a wall dive with a group, I don't usually have a problem going a little deeper if I feel like it.

No one specified that I recall; we went with the small group (3 of us, plus a couple of other divers on board) and that's just how the dive went. I'm aware from other posts on the forum that op.s sometimes take people to a shallower site to start with, such as Palancar Gardens, and that's the 1st we went to.

I speculate that it may be better to kick in place and let the group catch up, if possible, or better yet to duck out of the current behind a coral head or into a sand hole, if possible. If not possible, screw the group and enjoy your dive.

Kicking in place is mainly what I was referring to; I had to do it myself a few times to pace Jeremy, but not too bad. I enjoyed drift diving; my wife didn't, but sinusitis and worrying about her brother were issues, and she's got less passion for the sport.

I'm certainly no psychiatrist, but I'd speculate that worry over "stink eye" demonstrates insecurity and may lead to additional stress.

To me it's not about fearfulness of social sanction, so to speak, but rather respect. Let me give this example. Driving across the country side, with roads not too busy, sometimes I get in the left lane and neglect to get back. My wife calls me a 'left lane loser.' People passing on my right sometimes give me the stink eye. Doesn't really bother me, since they have plenty of opportunity to pass. It's minor.

I'm not great on air consumption now, but with conscious attention and effort I can do pretty well. When I started diving, I was pretty bad. Being the one who gets the dive called for everybody is not pleasant. I've seen enough posts on ScubaBoard to know others sometimes feel the same way.

Of course, I'd probably be looking to dive with Living Underwater or Aldora so I could get those big 120 cf tanks! Love me a 120...

Richard.

 

[PARADISE HUNTER]

I agree with Mossmans's suggestion to look into another destination and also think Bonaire is a great place to develop your skills.

I don't agree with the suggestions of taking the AOW as a way to get a private dm. I never understood why many divers take the Advanced course right after they finish their open water course. I think it's an attempt to say they are advanced when they actually are not. Wait until you have 50 - 100 dives (that's not that many) then take the advanced. You will get more out of it then. A peak buoyancy course would serve a new diver better that the advanced course.

PH

 

[Mossman]

No one specified that I recall; we went with the small group (3 of us, plus a couple of other divers on board) and that's just how the dive went. I'm aware from other posts on the forum that op.s sometimes take people to a shallower site to start with, such as Palancar Gardens, and that's the 1st we went to.

Yep. Your coming in a cruise ship could have been a red flag because the majority of cruise ship divers are infrequent divers and given that there were three of you and only one of him, he wanted to take you where he could watch you and control any problems before deciding to take you somewhere where he'd have less control. When I asked Jeremy why he felt comfortable taking me to Devil's Throat and doing mandatory deco on my first dive with LU, it had nothing to do with my "resume" of 600+ dives and instructor and tech certs, but all to do with the fact that he knew the other divers on the boat were capable of doing the dive and I was the only unknown factor - given that I was just a party of one, he figured he could control me no matter how bad it got, even to the point of holding me down for the deco stop if necessary.

Kicking in place is mainly what I was referring to; I had to do it myself a few times to pace Jeremy, but not too bad. I enjoyed drift diving; my wife didn't, but sinusitis and worrying about her brother were issues, and she's got less passion for the sport.

Jeremy does tend to go slow. He's a skinny guy so the current doesn't push him as much as it would push someone with more "resistance". Drift diving does take some getting used to and in faster currents an inexperienced diver may be faced with either kicking too much against the current to allow the group to catch up, hence blowing through air faster and potentially overexerting (which can lead to overbreathing the reg and subsequent panic or even a heart attack in the worst case), or else losing the group entirely (which can lead to panic, getting lost at sea, or getting run over by a boat on the surface). These are a couple of reasons why I personally feel that Cozumel is a lousy choice for beginner divers versus locales with more benign currents such as the Caymans or Bonaire.

To me it's not about fearfulness of social sanction, so to speak, but rather respect. Let me give this example. Driving across the country side, with roads not too busy, sometimes I get in the left lane and neglect to get back. My wife calls me a 'left lane loser.' People passing on my right sometimes give me the stink eye. Doesn't really bother me, since they have plenty of opportunity to pass. It's minor.

I wouldn't give you the "stink eye", I'd just ride your bumper until you got the idea. But I'm better now. In the past when I had more anger-management issues (i.e. road rage), I would have flashed my brights and honked until you got the message, eventually got in front of you and slowed down until you got over. Inattentive rude drivers affect everyone else on the road whereas inattentive rude divers usually only kill themselves Then again, I agree that there's a difference between doing that in the country versus doing it on an L.A.-area freeway. In the country, I'd just go around you and probably not even give you the middle finger, mainly because there's a good chance you'd have a shotgun and would race after me.

I'm not great on air consumption now, but with conscious attention and effort I can do pretty well. When I started diving, I was pretty bad. Being the one who gets the dive called for everybody is not pleasant. I've seen enough posts on ScubaBoard to know others sometimes feel the same way.

I feel the same way about buddy pairings, one reason I won't dive with an op that would insist on pairing me with an "instabuddy". When I'm low on air, I ascend on my own. Then I'm only annoying myself.

Of course, I'd probably be looking to dive with Living Underwater or Aldora so I could get those big 120 cf tanks! Love me a 120...

Stick with LU then. With Aldora, the entire group ascends and if you go through an 80 faster than the rest of the group you'll still go through a 120 faster than the rest of the group. With LU, if I'm the first to get LOA, I'll see if there's anyone else nearly ready to ascend. If not, I'll just signal Jeremy to deploy his SMB and I head up alone, letting the rest of the group enjoy the rest of their dive and hoping they don't happen across anything I'd want to see (or prepare myself to tune out all the "did you see that?" chatter when they climb back aboard the boat).

I too can extend my bottom time with conscious attention and effort, even skip breathing to the point of giving myself a headache, but I've found I enjoy my dives far more by ignoring my rapid air consumption and putting my conscious attention and effort instead into finding critters and taking photos. If it means my dive is 5-10 minutes less than the rest of the group's, at least I know I enjoyed my bottom time more than if I had spent the entire dive worrying about it.