I'm hearing a lot of good things in this thread.. thanks everyone for responding.
I'll add a few things, then try to answer some of the direct questions or comments by specific people.
Few Things:
Considering much of the feedback here, I have a better understanding of what the AOW could have been, but was not.
Am I partly at fault for that? Probably. Hindsight is 20/20, and I wish I had done it differently. But not knowing that
before hand, I did poorly.
Peter Guy:
I would have welcome these additional topics and learnings. We covered the 'book questions', but we did not try most of the things you suggested.
tursiops:
I am familiar with Dunning Kruger. One of my college math professors used to talk about it when making fun of the geologists (not my jest, his).
In truth, he tended to exaggerate and evangelize about it much more than the wiki does.
I don't think I fall into this category (of course, if I did, I wouldn't know it anyway
. I know there are a LOT of things to learn, and I
will never stop learning. There is a lot of diving for which I don't feel ready, and many things I wish I could do better. For example, my first
OW attempt at deploying the DSMB was horrible. If I don't have a guide, I stay very close to the entry point. Only after taking several dives at the
same location will I explore farther, returning to the entry point frequently.
Maybe I sounded arrogant out of frustration. I expected to learn new things and get new skills. I was disappointed that I did not. It was very rudimentary.
I think I would have enjoyed you as instructor very much. I'm guessing your teaching style might work well for me. I'll bet you like to share
the details of 'what', 'why', and 'when' that are so often omitted by many.
freewilly:
Yes, boat. Yes, drift. Not my choice. We were limited by the boat's schedule and by desires of the other diver.
I asked for Deep, Navigation, Wreck, Night, and Buoyancy. There was only one deep dive (on a wreck) on the schedule. All the other spots
were shallow, so we could not do both deep and wreck. The other diver wanted to Drift, so we did that instead of Buoyancy.
I'm not sure how we got Boat, but it seemed somewhat convenient for the shop/instructor.
Yes, I did not feel challenged. However, the other student seemed to be maxed out. I'm sure I would have pushed for more if that had not been the case.
RJP:
We did not discuss very much. After reading the PADI book, I was expecting more of the same. My bad.