What Do the OW Checkout Dives Consist Of?

[Neilwood]

Thanks all for the descriptions. The instructor collected our log books at the end of the class. Unfortunately, I didn't think to look in it for the ow dives.

Certainly not my experience - the log book was mine to keep safe.

Only thing I can think of is it was to allow them to fill the relevant sections up at their leisure as opposed to an entire class at once.

As others have mentioned, the only thing you won't have done is navigation but if you are reasonably comfortable with a compass on the surface, underwater is virtually no different apart from counting fin kicks instead of strides.

The best thing is getting all the skills out of the way before the last dive (if you can). Then the last dive is simple - plan and execute a dive. Simple plan such as overall plan, turn point (gas or time) etc, go dive it and watch the scenery that you have been to busy to look at prior to it.

 

[James R]

I have never collected a student logbook. That makes no sense to me. Any instructors out there care to chime in on why you would collect student's logbooks?

 

[boulderjohn]

I have never collected a student logbook. That makes no sense to me. Any instructors out there care to chime in on why you would collect student's logbooks?

I collect the books at the beginning of the class so that I can fill in all the records of what we do in the pool and i the classroom. At the end of the pool and classroom sessions, I return them with all that filled out. I do tell them to look carefully at the descriptions of the OW dives so they know what is in store for them.

The way things are done where I have worked throughout my instructing career, it is an unusual case in which I get to do the OW checkout dives. That is because the overwhelming majority of the students did the OW dives on vacation by taking a referral. Only a minority of students do those dives in Colorado, where our options are not the best.

If I were in a situation in which I were sure to be doing the OW checkout dives with my students, I might be tempted to hang on to the log books until we showed up at the dive site. That would eliminate any lost or forgotten log book problems.

 

[sheeper]

the exact nature of OW checkout dives may differ based on the instructor and location. I try and run thru all skills during OW 1&2, a few skills to complete on OW 3 and make OW 4 a "fun" dive.

and i'd never collect logbooks. those are the property of the student. we fill them out together at the end of each dive

 

[TMHeimer]

What are they doing, having one set of shop only log books they let students borrow for the course and erase them for the next course???!!!

 

[ResortDiver850]

The log book collection turned out to be an error. New school.

 

[Tony66]

From the best I can tell my instructors don't fit the mold of the typ. instructor. The OW dives were really a lot of fun with skills thrown in. It's been a while but I recall most dives started with the basic "life safety" type skills and generally getting the class comfortable in their new environment. Each session finished with about 15 min of swimming around and another 10 min of review for anyone that struggled with an earlier skill. The last two dives, they spent A LOT of time with buoyancy between skills.

I did my dives in The Mud Puddle (Rawlings) so we swam to training platforms. Each platform was a different skill. Each time you left a platform, you would feel more comfortable/confident.