He won a trip 2 Socorro Islands

My boyfriend recently won an expedition with Dr. Alex Antoniou aboard the Sea Escape to the Socorro Islands in November 2010 to tag and research Great white sharks, hammerheads and Giant Mantas… but… He is an inexperienced diver and will need to get his O/W Certification in the next year. This is our first trip upon a liveaboard and I, his obsessed with ocean, newbie certified diver as of Sept 2009, will be going with him. The trip sounds absolutely amazing and the research that is being done among the sharks and other marine life is truly significant, but I wonder if an expedition such as this is for a new diver, such as ourselves? Keep in mind we come from Colorado, where there aren't a lot of opportunities to scuba dive and to do a weekend excursion costs a ton of money, especially for people like us, who don ‘t have a lot of $$$. Our parents are worried (and we are both 28 yrs old) and we would have to save up an entire year so that I could go with him (The ticket is only good for 1 (ONE) person, not 2 (TWO). So I would have to pay full price, which I have difficulty doing…)
Anyways, if ANY of you were in our fins… What would you do? (1) Take on the risk, the money and just go for it “this is a once in a lifetime experience”…. Or (2) would you rather save your money, gather more experience diving and gather the knowledge about diving, and pay full price for it later on life?

I am reaching out to you because I really don’t know what to do in this situation and with all the divers out there, I am searching real, knowledgeable advice. Set your ego and experience aside, what would you do if this was essentially your ocean dive?

Just Go! Life is short and these opportunies don't happen often. You'll regret it forever if you miss out on this adventure.

That said you both should get in as much experience and training (AOW minimum) before you go. Find a local dive shop NOW and local dive buddies & mentors (Visit their local forum Rocky Mountain Oysters - ScubaBoard). Hit the nearest watering holes (lakes, ponds, quarries, whathaveyou) as often as possible and hit the pool often to perfect your skills. Get your personal gear (BCD, Reg, Computer) and dive it until if feels like an extension of you. The trip is the time to focus on the wonderful life you will see rather than fidgeting with unfamiliar gear or dealing with bouyancy & comfort level issues. These dives are awesome but some can be a bit advanced in terms of depth or current. Training will make you more comfortable and safer in these environs. You have almost a year to prepare.

You will have a blast. Please share your training and preparation experiences with us as you get ready for you trip and do please post a trip report of your adventure.

Looks to be $2850 :: Welcome to Sea Escape ::

Looking at their website, I agree with your confusion- unlike many similar offerings, there is no description of the type of skills needed to enjoy the week, except for the skeletal: "Open Water Diver". Their website is rather sketchy and vague with a number missing pages and dead links.

Any liveabaord as a new experience automatically is "advanced diving", meaning: It is diving situations that you have not seen before, including small boat back roll entries and recoveries, required immediate and rapid descents, quite likely stiff current drift diving, unusual currents including downwellings, surface signaling skills including inflating an SMB from depth and waiting at your safety stop out in the blue.

You will be in the water with very experienced divers, thus it might be assumed that your air consumption rate will not match well, but likely there will be sufficient DM's in the water to take you to the surface first- if not... you might have to do that on your own. Then scrambling back into the small boats and staying out of your own way, as well as everyone else's.

Would I recommend that any diver go with limited experience go on this trip? No.

You do have a $2850 quandry, though. Maybe sell his trip on eBay? Or... ask the booking agency for advice?

I wouls pursue the diving certification, do a little more research on the trip and in 6 months after completing advanced training, then re-evaluate (with the help of your instructors) whether this is the trip for both of you. You want it to be the trip of a lifetime, not the last trip of your life.

I'm with RoatanMan. Unless you can both get Advanced certs and another 30 or 40 dives or more (at least some in similar situations), I wouldn't do this trip. At your age, you've got 50 more years to dive so don't rush it. You'll certainly enjoy something like this after you have substantially more experience.

This is not a location for inexperienced divers. The only positive I have is that there is enough time to gain some important experience. Sometimes diving with the mantas is quite easy. Sometimes the dives can be difficult.

You might want to contact the people who are organizing the trip and share your concerns. If they are trying to do research, they do not want to have to watch over new divers. OTOH, they are taking guests to help defray their own costs. Their may be other less dive intensive tasks to support the project.

BTW, your avatar "Screaming Turtle" is a copyright protected image owned by Eric Cheng. It's inappropriate to use it without permission.

My BF actually did contact the researcher and he assured him that the trip would be safe and although he doesn’t have experience now, once he is certified, we have the option to dive to our comfortability levels. It makes feel a little more secure that the researcher knows his situation. My BF also talked with the dive shop where we obtained the ticket and they said it is non-transferrable and again reassured him that we would have a great time, that he just needs to get certified. They mentioned that they take O/W certified divers to the Galapagos and they have had a wonderful time. Both the dive shop and researcher would really like for him to go and didn’t want to see him give up his ticket.
Through reading much of the advice that is posted here, I agree that there is a lot of training that needs to be done before we can go on a trip like this. With the amount of money we would have to save, I can say we won’t have enough to get much diving (if any) in prior to the trip. I’m very nervous and uncomfortable, and although this is a trip of a lifetime, like dumpsterDiver said “You want it to be the trip of a lifetime, not the last trip of your life.” I think at this point, I’d rather use the money that we would save for this one trip and go on several dive trips throughout the year. We both need to gather more experience diving and educating ourselves on the sport. I personally would rather not go due to our inexperience and I know that both our parents definitely don’t want us to either. I hate to say it, but realistically and thinking about safety first, I don’t think this trip for us

If you are that uncomfortable don;t go. But do not keep him from taking advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. It may come back to bite you down the line. Instead of saving every penny for a year so both of you can go. Help him get the training he needs to do this trip. No one else has said it but I will. I find your attitude selfish and petty. This may be the one time he gets to do something like this. Why would you deprive him of it?

My wife is in the hospital. She has been there since the 12th. Hopefully she will be coming home in the next few days. For the last three days she has made me promise to keep my plans for going to Puerto Rico on the 15 of Jan for 4 days. And my ice class on the 30th & 31st. She knows what these mean to me and that when the time comes I will take her wherever she wants to go and do what she wants to. That is what a relationship is about. Give and take and supporting each other. You are not being supportive of him. I;d bet he was on cloud nine when he found out he won. Now you are firing a howitzer at that cloud. Way to go.

Wow Jim. That seems a little judgemental to me. Maybe you know these people. I don't. My wife let me go off for several months at a time several times. While I enjoyed these trips, it was no where near as much fun as diving with her.
I personally read the story totally differently. This is a young couple trying to enjoy their life together and they have limited resources. They are young and have many many more years to enjoy diving together. Almost everyone has suggested they get more training and that will take time as well as cost even more money. Rushing out to get certified just because of one trip that you'll take without your significant other would seem even more selfish. This guy has never even been certified. I suppose this could be a once in a lifetime chance but at their age I doubt it. Yes, they'll have to pay for both but they'll have great memories together.

I do not know them. I just know that after two divorces and finally finding the right one I learned a few things. One of those was when one partner has an opportunity that may only be available to them that standing in the way of that never has a good outcome. And when forced to choose between that and the partner is a great way to plant resentment. If they are truly in love and want to "share" things the first thing to share is the idea that not everything has to be done together.