Well, here it goes...my first experience in the ocean as a OW Diver.
Pompano Dive Center in Pompano Beach, FL rocked. 5 stars. Awesome customer service and an overall experience.
As a newbie the following was my experience:
*I got some water bottles and some granola bars. More weight in your bag. Well, the boat provided soda, water and chips. I did not know this. Ohh well...first time doing this and part of the planning.
*The PADI Diving Log booklet is useless, it gets wet easily and pages start to fall apart. Everybody uses Dive Computers. But, instead of logging into the hardcover, i think just write it in your smartphone things like: Depth of the dives, Thickness of the wetsuit, Type of wetsuit, weights, temperature...just the environment variables.
*Put some sun protection, i did not put enough on my neck...it was not fun after the dives.
*The first dive was a wreck dive, 75ft aprox. The two dive masters jump first to anchor the boat and position the mooring buoy then one stays in the boat and the other one jumps in. We were three in the water: Dive Master, my buddy and myself. Well, i did not enjoyed because i did not have enough weight so it was hard to maintain buoyancy and ended up in the surface after 10minutes, dived down to look my buddies but could not find them so I went up.
*Be aware of using an underwater camera on small/portable tripod, so i had the camera attached to the tripod and inside zip pocket in front of your BCD, by the big strap on your belly. Well,
the camera got loose of the tripod and Good Bye.. I saw it by myself saying good bye to me
I had the Nikon AW100 underwater camera. Ohh, well lesson learned. I will not use a tripod, I will use some sort of elastic long thread that I can clip on the BCD.
*Hard to get the fins out while in the water, the dive master who stayed on the boat helped me to take the fins out. (Need to practice this more)
*Second dive was a reef. 45ft-55ft, got more weight, 14 lbs..i enjoyed this one more, i was able to maintain buoyancy, of course you have to play with the inflator and De-inflator until you get it. I felt more comfortable on this one. I did not get lost, i was with the whole group. But, I consumed more air quickly than the others. Dive Masters said, once you reach 1000 psi we will go up. Sadly, i was the first one to reach 1000 psi, so Dive Master gave instructions to the other divers and she went up with me. By the way, we did not anchor the boat instead the Dive Master took a Diving flag and the reel. *On this dive I used my GoPro and was perfectly fine and perfectly clipped on the BCD. But, because of the case, no sound from underwater.
*Geez, the boat moves from the left to ride with angles of 45 degrees approximately.
I felt nauseous, so I did it. Yes, i did. Sorry. Don't laugh
(I guess, next time I have to take the magic pill)
*The reef dive is like flying on top of a planet, colorful small fish, lobsters, really cool.
*And yes, having a dive master in the ocean gives tons of confidence. You feel safe.
*It is easy to forget or miss the safety stop (3 minutes at 15ft below surface). Because i went up with the dive master, she grabbed me and waited the 3min. Of course, thanks to her dive computer. (Next time, I must keep an eye on this)
So, I have one question:
Why in the first dive (Wreck), the boat was anchored and in the second dive (reef) was not ?
I hope my experience helps others. Thank you, thank you so much for your comments, advices, and so on.
Would i want to do it again ? Yes, but it takes time to polish the skills.
Of course, any feedback for the future will be appreciated.
Happy Diving,
G