Been a few years since my last dive

[joe schmoe]

It's been a few years since my last dive, at one point, roughly 9 to 10 years ago, I was actively scuba diving and even on a local volunteer dive rescue team. Been certified for OW, AOW, Nitrox, Rescue Diver, and Drysuit.

I'm going to be getting back to diving, here are my plans to do this safely:

1. Get all my gear checked before touching the water, whether it be pool or quarry
2. Refresher class (3 hours) with NAUI shop
   
3. Do several local dives at a quarry, once it warms up
   
4. Possibly drive down to Florida and do some dives near Ginnie Springs, 10 hour drive

Anything else you all think I should do to successfully get back into diving??

 

[Marie13]

Guess it depends on where you live.

 

[joe schmoe]

East Tennessee

 

[Marie13]

Quarries for great for practice. Enjoy!

 

[lowlysubaruguy]

Id see if your local pool will let you scuba dive in it. Or some dive shops have pools that will allow you access for a fee or if you buy goods from them. Seems like there’s always one my crew thats been out of the water for a couple years the pools a good place to combat basic issues and do a thourough equipment check being able to control your bouyancy at 5 to 8 feet is harder than any other depth so it’s also a great training excercises. Read over the open water training course and practice all the skills that are done there and if your comfy get out of the pool and back into the ocean.

 

[nolatom]

Sounds like a plan to me. Welcome back.

 

[happy-diver]

just go diving

 

[Rob9876]

Sounds like a plan. I would say that it probably doesn't matter which diving organization (NAUI, PADI, SSI) does your refresher dive. I'm also in East Tennessee, and some of the dive shops with heated pools that I know of are not NAUI. There's one shop in Knoxville that has been running a very cheap deal on Groupon for a Discover/Try dive, which should really accomplish the same thing as a refresher.

It will be a while before the quarries around here warm up, but I think several dive shops in the Knoxville and Johnson City areas have trips planned to the Florida springs in March.

Johnson City:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/immersedscuba/events/?ref=page_internal

Knoxville:
https://www.alphadivers.com/trip-details

Hope this helps!

 

[BikerBecca]

It sounds like you have a totally solid plan for getting into the water again. My only suggestion would be if you have your books, notes, whatever, from when you were a student take a quick glance at them and see if there's anything you forgot about.

 

[a878bob]

How do you plan to keep track of your nitrogen exposure?