It has been almost a year since my initial open water certification. Now that i gained more experience (hopefully a lot more experience) and i rethink about that first cert, the only words that come into mind is BIG ERROR. Here is my story.
I wen in Riviera Maya during last march break with my sis and mom. I had previously done an intro to scuba (30 minute talk then 30 minute dive) and decided to do another of those while in riviera maya. Did that and it was great. I knew nothing about scuba diving but i liked the feeling so after talking to the cabana boys i decided to do the PADI open water cert in 3 days. So there starts my journee. The first day i rushed through the whole book doing all the exercises and some of the tests. Cramming material isn't a problem with me since i'm a uni student i have done this for quite some time and form many classes
Anyways, i then did all the pool sessions although i don't think my instructor really took the time to explain everything. All i knew is that i had to copy what the dude in front of me was doing. During the pool sessions, i never learned anything about buoyancy and trim but that didn't matter because i had no idea what trim was anyways. OKay, second ow dive time, went at the same place as the first dive, performed some techniques like mask removal, cramp removal and some others. Everything was good and after 30 minutes we were out of the water. Again, during that dive, i did know what was my NDL, i hardly checked my air pressure because i was relying heavily on the instructor. Again, didn't even touch the BCD's air. This i don't remember but i must have had 2o pounds on me with no wet-suit so i must have sank like rock the whole time! The third and fourth dive was on the C-58 wreck. 80-90 feet for ow certification??? seriously??? Once again didn't know that it wasn't appropriate nor did i know i was diving to that depth, the instructor told me nothing on the boat. So i do the first dive and everything went fine, saw 6 eagle rays and the wreck was amazing. An hour of surface time later, we jump back in the water to the same wreck and explore it a bit more. Once again everything went right during the dive. THATS WHAT I THOUGH. First, i had no timer so i didn't know how long the dive lasted nor did i know how much it should last, i was just following the Instructor. As we were looking around, the instructor stopped and started hitting his regulator with his octo and bang the regulator blew into pieces. Now that i think of it, he was probably experiencing a free-flow. I did not know at the time so i didn't come closer to him, i just looked at him waiting to continue finning. This could have been very dangerous but i was clueless! The rest of the certification continued like that. No buoyancy skill test, nothing. Just in and out of the water thank-you for paying we take VISA!
Now i have about 35 dives with an AOW certification and 3 specialties . I have come a long long way from my OW course. I write this post in hope that people won't be as dumb as me and actually take time to LEARN to dive while they are doing their certification. Still now, i feel like i am missing out on valuable information when diving but i try to get better and learn many things during each dive.
With that said, any comments? similar experience?
I wen in Riviera Maya during last march break with my sis and mom. I had previously done an intro to scuba (30 minute talk then 30 minute dive) and decided to do another of those while in riviera maya. Did that and it was great. I knew nothing about scuba diving but i liked the feeling so after talking to the cabana boys i decided to do the PADI open water cert in 3 days. So there starts my journee. The first day i rushed through the whole book doing all the exercises and some of the tests. Cramming material isn't a problem with me since i'm a uni student i have done this for quite some time and form many classes
Anyways, i then did all the pool sessions although i don't think my instructor really took the time to explain everything. All i knew is that i had to copy what the dude in front of me was doing. During the pool sessions, i never learned anything about buoyancy and trim but that didn't matter because i had no idea what trim was anyways. OKay, second ow dive time, went at the same place as the first dive, performed some techniques like mask removal, cramp removal and some others. Everything was good and after 30 minutes we were out of the water. Again, during that dive, i did know what was my NDL, i hardly checked my air pressure because i was relying heavily on the instructor. Again, didn't even touch the BCD's air. This i don't remember but i must have had 2o pounds on me with no wet-suit so i must have sank like rock the whole time! The third and fourth dive was on the C-58 wreck. 80-90 feet for ow certification??? seriously??? Once again didn't know that it wasn't appropriate nor did i know i was diving to that depth, the instructor told me nothing on the boat. So i do the first dive and everything went fine, saw 6 eagle rays and the wreck was amazing. An hour of surface time later, we jump back in the water to the same wreck and explore it a bit more. Once again everything went right during the dive. THATS WHAT I THOUGH. First, i had no timer so i didn't know how long the dive lasted nor did i know how much it should last, i was just following the Instructor. As we were looking around, the instructor stopped and started hitting his regulator with his octo and bang the regulator blew into pieces. Now that i think of it, he was probably experiencing a free-flow. I did not know at the time so i didn't come closer to him, i just looked at him waiting to continue finning. This could have been very dangerous but i was clueless! The rest of the certification continued like that. No buoyancy skill test, nothing. Just in and out of the water thank-you for paying we take VISA!Now i have about 35 dives with an AOW certification and 3 specialties . I have come a long long way from my OW course. I write this post in hope that people won't be as dumb as me and actually take time to LEARN to dive while they are doing their certification. Still now, i feel like i am missing out on valuable information when diving but i try to get better and learn many things during each dive.
With that said, any comments? similar experience?
