Blackbeard for OW certification referral?

[MN Lakeman]

I'm diving a week (my second time) with Blackbeard's this May, and want to bring my 20 year old daughter, who will be completing her OW certification class/pool work next month. I have read that the DM on board, will complete the final open water training (for an additional fee of course) w/ a referral from the dive shop teaching the course. Has anyone who has been on a Blackbeard cruise witnessed anyone starting their diving career their?? I know there are certain risks in taking a newby on a week long liveaboard, but my daughter shows all the signs of of being a natural (like her old man), and based on the first trip I took a couple years ago, most dives are pretty low on the challenge scale. Any thoughts?

 

[mike_s]

You should send a PM to robertmackey. He works for BlackBeards crew. He could give you a firsthand answer.

 

[bubblelogist]

I'm just back from a BB cruise and I witness someone who did his AOW. Most of the dive can be done at 60' or shallower, and I saw few divers with fresh OW certification that really enjoyed the trip. If you are coming from a really cold water place Iwould say why not, especially if the pool session went really well.

 

[carolhd]

I am just back from Blackbeards where I completed my AOW. I was on the Morningstar and cannot say enough good about Danielle, the dive master. The only thing that was a bit of a wrinkle was that I was OW PADI and now and AOW NAUI...you may want to check on this with Blackbeards. You should contact them ahead of time to make the arrangements. If your daughter is a 'natural' she should have no problem at all. It may be helpful to do a pool session with her and review the skills they will ask of her on each of the four dives (should see that in your dive log if you are PADI)...that way she'll know what to expect. Enjoy your trip, ours was awesome.

 

[MN Lakeman]

Thanks very much for the reply - very helpful. 'Glad you had a great time, & had a good experience w/ Danielle. My trip a couple years ago was one of the best I have had - great group of divers, f/ fairly new to quite experienced. The DM we had was VERY laid back & so I'm thinking it would be wise to be a bit selective on getting the most qualified (& hopefully PADI certified) of the three boats that go out that week. I will definitely call well ahead of time & check into it. Thanks too for the earlier post on PM'ing Marty - hopefully he'll get back to me w/ more info as well.

 

[Warren_L]

I did a liveaboard with Blackbeard's in November 2004 and there was one open water student who was being certified on the trip. The DM, Karen, was also a NAUI instructor, so she spent time with the student the first couple of days doing the required dives (I am a PADI instructor so I'm not familiar with the requirements). Things went relatively smoothly, but I was a little bit concerned about a couple of the subsequent dives that we did later in the week. We did the Bimini barge, which is about 90 ft in depth. Though the water was warm and clear, I wouldn't have recommended going that deep for someone newly certified with only a couple of post-certification dives under his belt. I (and a couple of other professional level divers in our group) kept watch at times, and no major problems resulted. A couple of potential problems were headed off early, though.