elgoog
Contributor
Hi all -
I'm traveling to the tropics in a couple of months and am going to be doing my first night dives there (with a DM/dive guide). Is it worth doing those dives as part of a Night diver course? For what it's worth, this dive outfit does PADI courses. I'm curious if there are any specific skills that are learned in a Night diving course that would not have been covered in a Navigation course. The way I currently see it, Night diving is basically going to be very similar to limited visibility diving that requires navigation skills but using divelights as well.
To provide some more context, I did the Navigation course in the murk of Monterey with a great instructor, terrible visibility and LOTS of exercises over 4 dives (culminating with a multi bearing, mixed distance underwater treasure hunt). I felt this course helped me a lot in terms of transferring land based navigation skills to SCUBA and also learning some new stuff. I'm not a good underwater navigator yet, by any standards, but feel like I have a great base which I'm now able to use in all my subsequent dives. From experience, has anyone felt similarly after doing the Night diving course?
I did Navigation because I had some very disorienting dives in Monterey and now feel a little more confident diving in those conditions. The only other specialties I've done are those that are required for one reason or another - Nitrox and Drysuit for those rentals, AOW lined up for next year as a few dive boats in my area require it for their charters. I'm not at all interested in accumulating cards just to get a Master Diver level.
Thanks in advance,
elgoog
I'm traveling to the tropics in a couple of months and am going to be doing my first night dives there (with a DM/dive guide). Is it worth doing those dives as part of a Night diver course? For what it's worth, this dive outfit does PADI courses. I'm curious if there are any specific skills that are learned in a Night diving course that would not have been covered in a Navigation course. The way I currently see it, Night diving is basically going to be very similar to limited visibility diving that requires navigation skills but using divelights as well.
To provide some more context, I did the Navigation course in the murk of Monterey with a great instructor, terrible visibility and LOTS of exercises over 4 dives (culminating with a multi bearing, mixed distance underwater treasure hunt). I felt this course helped me a lot in terms of transferring land based navigation skills to SCUBA and also learning some new stuff. I'm not a good underwater navigator yet, by any standards, but feel like I have a great base which I'm now able to use in all my subsequent dives. From experience, has anyone felt similarly after doing the Night diving course?
I did Navigation because I had some very disorienting dives in Monterey and now feel a little more confident diving in those conditions. The only other specialties I've done are those that are required for one reason or another - Nitrox and Drysuit for those rentals, AOW lined up for next year as a few dive boats in my area require it for their charters. I'm not at all interested in accumulating cards just to get a Master Diver level.
Thanks in advance,
elgoog