So far, I've gone for 3 courses and will be due for a good few more before the end of the year. The instructors were nice people and willing to answer questions BUT (there's always a BUT ) I wish that they could have done certain things to help beginners / students understand better and become more well prepared divers so here goes.
Dear instructor, I wish that you :-
1. Had stressed the importance of equipment / buddy check and gone through it meticulously so that I would develop the habit of doing it for the rest of my diving days instead of just taking uninterested left and right glances, tugging a few things in a nonchalant manner and then giving me the thumbs up
2. Pointed out the dangers of the environment in which we're in because how real the dangers are depends on how you made them out to be. Noticed that nobody highlighted the dangers of animals like sea urchins. Granted that you're not supposed to touch anything but beginners with poor buoyancy control usually do not end up where they'd like to which means there's a good chance they'll come into contact with corals or marine life
3. Made me repeat skills which I didn't show confidence in, seemed to have performed successfully by chance or failed to perform successfully because all of the 3 might have resulted in me having an accident one day which I didn't know how to get out of although it was covered in the manual
I've been alright so far thanks to information from the learned and experienced divers on this forum and the Internet plus I rereading the manuals which are left in the toilet where they provide good reading material in 'utter times of need' so I know certain portions really well by now.
Dear instructor, I wish that you :-
1. Had stressed the importance of equipment / buddy check and gone through it meticulously so that I would develop the habit of doing it for the rest of my diving days instead of just taking uninterested left and right glances, tugging a few things in a nonchalant manner and then giving me the thumbs up
2. Pointed out the dangers of the environment in which we're in because how real the dangers are depends on how you made them out to be. Noticed that nobody highlighted the dangers of animals like sea urchins. Granted that you're not supposed to touch anything but beginners with poor buoyancy control usually do not end up where they'd like to which means there's a good chance they'll come into contact with corals or marine life
3. Made me repeat skills which I didn't show confidence in, seemed to have performed successfully by chance or failed to perform successfully because all of the 3 might have resulted in me having an accident one day which I didn't know how to get out of although it was covered in the manual
I've been alright so far thanks to information from the learned and experienced divers on this forum and the Internet plus I rereading the manuals which are left in the toilet where they provide good reading material in 'utter times of need' so I know certain portions really well by now.