DerrickMcD
Registered
I recently got my PADI OW, AOW and EAN certification and am about 20 dives in to this great hobby. I'm looking at planning my next trip but just curious what I should expect as a solo diver as I don't have much experience to draw on.
Some of the places I've been looking at offer unlimited shore diving along with a couple of boat dives a day. This appeals to me because I would like to be able to work on my fining techniques and general positional control when I'm not worried about banging into a reef. It seem like it would be a pain trying to find someone to buddy up with for some kicking in the shallows (Im thinking in the 20-25' range). Would they let me out solo from shore, would they even ask, care or even notice? Its not that I wouldn't buddy up with someone to do this more that should I expect to be allowed to go out alone from shore. I would do this at a swimming pool but its a 10 hour round trip to a city where a dive shop or club has regular pool time.
Here's my experience so far as a diver:
As far as my actual training went I did the eLearning spent 30 min in the pool and did 3 dives then another 30 min the next day and 2 more dives. Then on to AOW and a bunch more diving. One thing that really wasn't emphasized was the whole buddy aspect of diving. When I was training I was one on one with the instructor but in the group dives I would tend to drift to the back of the pack looking at this and that. I also was more comfortable keeping an eye out for people in front of me rather than worrying about who was behind me and was I going to kick their mask off. In the blue hole the guy I was buddied with took off ahead of me so he could be near the DM. So besides my training event though I've been in a group I've been diving with no buddy.
Anyway this may be a lot of words for what may be a simple question but I'm new and don't know any better.
Some of the places I've been looking at offer unlimited shore diving along with a couple of boat dives a day. This appeals to me because I would like to be able to work on my fining techniques and general positional control when I'm not worried about banging into a reef. It seem like it would be a pain trying to find someone to buddy up with for some kicking in the shallows (Im thinking in the 20-25' range). Would they let me out solo from shore, would they even ask, care or even notice? Its not that I wouldn't buddy up with someone to do this more that should I expect to be allowed to go out alone from shore. I would do this at a swimming pool but its a 10 hour round trip to a city where a dive shop or club has regular pool time.
Here's my experience so far as a diver:
As far as my actual training went I did the eLearning spent 30 min in the pool and did 3 dives then another 30 min the next day and 2 more dives. Then on to AOW and a bunch more diving. One thing that really wasn't emphasized was the whole buddy aspect of diving. When I was training I was one on one with the instructor but in the group dives I would tend to drift to the back of the pack looking at this and that. I also was more comfortable keeping an eye out for people in front of me rather than worrying about who was behind me and was I going to kick their mask off. In the blue hole the guy I was buddied with took off ahead of me so he could be near the DM. So besides my training event though I've been in a group I've been diving with no buddy.
Anyway this may be a lot of words for what may be a simple question but I'm new and don't know any better.