Another one of those new guys :)

[Neilwood]

Hello scuba people!

Just thought i would make an introduction.

About a year ago my wife and I did a Snuba excursion on our honeymoon/cruise and fell in love with the thought of Scuba. We both are adventurous people. Dirt biking, rock climbing, skiing are among our other hobbies.

We recently decided to randomly take a short trip to key largo to get our Padi open water over this coming labor day weekend. We leave in a few days.

Hopefully upon our arrival back home we will be "licensed to learn" divers with our open water and slowly build some experience. We will only be diving a few times a year mainly on vacation given we sadly live in a land locked state.

This post was just meant as an introduction but if anyone has any random friendly advice they want to share to two rookies please by all means.

Thanks!

Hi and welcome to the addiction!

As you and a few others have said, OW is a license to learn. As with your other hobbies, take it easy and progress bit by bit.

You wouldn't think of doing a black run straight after your skiing lessons or doing a category 5 climb straight away so treat diving the same.

Don't be afraid of diving together (without a personal instructor or DM), just be mindful of conditions and experience. I might actually suggest that you could learn more by that approach (if you always dive with someone else guiding you, you might learn to "lean" on them instead of making the decisions yourself). Find a local dive shop (LDS) and see if they do trips as a group. Go along and dive with them, get to know some of the divers and gain experience that way. My only dives with an instructor post OW were on my AOW. The only other dives that had a DM were where the DM acted as a guide and we were independent buddy pairs.

 

[rscott9399]

Hi and welcome to the addiction!

As you and a few others have said, OW is a license to learn. As with your other hobbies, take it easy and progress bit by bit.

You wouldn't think of doing a black run straight after your skiing lessons or doing a category 5 climb straight away so treat diving the same.

Don't be afraid of diving together (without a personal instructor or DM), just be mindful of conditions and experience. I might actually suggest that you could learn more by that approach (if you always dive with someone else guiding you, you might learn to "lean" on them instead of making the decisions yourself). Find a local dive shop (LDS) and see if they do trips as a group. Go along and dive with them, get to know some of the divers and gain experience that way. My only dives with an instructor post OW were on my AOW. The only other dives that had a DM were where the DM acted as a guide and we were independent buddy pairs.

Thanks for the suggestions and to everyone for saying hello!
You make some interesting and valid points here.
I really appreciate everyone warm welcome!

So my wife and I as we prepare for this have been doing the Padi Elearning! Wow, what a ton of information!
How do they get all that info across in a single day class if you take the traditional method and not the elearning!
There is so much they teach in that Elearning im struggling to retain alot of the small bits
We are paying special attention to what seem to be the major rules. Safety and life saving techniques. All the gear functions and skills etc
However, i feel like i may forgot some of it quickly. I would like to find a way to retain more. There are lots of things about which line to grab when. Swim line, mooring line, boat line etc...
Advanced planning, preplanning, last minute planning, pre dive planning
Yikes!

In the airplane everything is based on a checklist. We have different checklists for different scenarios as most people know.
Takeoff, landing, cruise, etc etc
It sounds like i may make some nice laminated checklists for my wife and i for certain procedures.
In the airplane almost every pilot has all the check lists memorized just like divers do eventually.

We use a method called "trust but verify" So in other words We do it by memory but then review the checklist after to make sure we didnt miss anything.
Im more thinking about this for predive planning, buddy predive safety checks etc.
I will have to make sure to write back on monday when we return to let you all know how this goes.

 

[Neilwood]

I think every new diver thinks "information overload" at the start of the course.

It seems a lot of information when you try to get it all at once but you will most probably find it falls into place when you actually start talking to an instructor and learning the skills. If you are answering the section questions well, you will be ok.

Once you get the context in which the information is provided it helps a lot.

 

[SeaHorse81]

It gets better, and you'll figure out your own system for keeping it all straight. Checklists are a godsend. Practice is, too.

 

[scrane]

Have Fun!

 

[iamrushman]

howdy and welcome form southeast florida.....

 

[rscott9399]

Thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. Against my better judgement i boarded the airplane last night kicking and screaming headed back to Colorado from Miami! We had an absolute blast! My wife and I completed our OW class and even had an extra day for fun diving. We dove with Horizon Divers in Key largo and let me tell you, those folks did an absolute great job. Our instructor was fantastic. We felt safe and secure and learned a ton. We had an added benefit of 2 dive master candidates observing the class. So it was my wife. me and 1 instructor and 2 experienced divers all looking after us. I could not have felt in better hands. We didn't pay for a private class but that is essentially what we got + some. There is a slight chance i let the excitement get the best of me and wondered into about 400 dives shops in key largo. So i have some of my own gear now also . We are on the verge of booking our next trip already. What a great 4 days. Thanks to Horizon Divers for doing such a great job.

 

[AZNetEng]

Welcome to the sport @rscott9399 - as others have pointed out it is a bit addicting. When my wife and I started I couldn't envision doing a dive vacation, more a vacation with some diving. Our last 4 vacations have all been dive vacations, including a liveaboard.

 

[TMHeimer]

rscott, Congrats on finishing up. Yes I agree there is info. overload in OW. I took the 6 weeknight type class 12 years ago and found it much better that the "weekend" courses I later assisted on. I took a number of courses over the first few years and daily review a page from one of the manuals--takes like 2 minutes. I don't know what happens with e learning. I assume once you buy it you keep it. If so, I guess you could do the same. After a while, my reviewing of the old 2005 OW manual seemed pointless being it so basic. But as a creature of habit, I still browse though it when it comes to the top of the pile. I do review a page of the EFR (CPR) manual every day though. I would think few do this and probably just take the course as a job requirement. I also do a dive table problem one day and a Nitrox one the next, etc.--all from the courses....even though I of course have a dive computer.

 

[scrane]

There are only a few things you really have to learn in order to not get hurt while diving. The only thing outside of this is to dive within your comfort zone, which will expand with experience.