scallop
Contributor
My 11yr old son and myself finished our OW check dives on 12/23/11. I am as proud of him as can be, he is a natural fish. We decided to do Christmas a little different this year and instead of spending gobs of $$ on toys and such that would be piled on top of other useless junk we took the family to Key Largo. It has been great playing in the 80 degree south Florida weather, worst part is now it is time to go back to the cold drearyness of Ohio. I am looking forward to spending tons of quality time with my son underwater, we will be spending time working on our skills as much as possible in our LDS pool and hope to get back to the Keys this spring or early summer. We will be frequenting our local quarries when it warms up a bit but there is nothing like warm clear sea-water!
My son is 10. We ignored tough economics and went to get our OW dives in Cabo. Now we have logged some boat dives in local, not so warm but really fun, waters. I am not sure so far how my son could manage shore diving (I'm pretty sure he will be alright but still worry how 105Lb 5'1" will fare against wave action with bunch of gear on his back, even though he is very fit for his age). We plan to get more experience next year and do our AOW after logging at least 15 more dives. Dive, dive and then dive some more. Every dive makes us better divers, you can clearly see the difference between dive #5 and #9. Size does matter, though, you need to learn that your son may not be able to always bail you out in trouble, you gotta take better care of yourself.
