So today I officially became a PADI OW certified diver!!!!
Yesterday was our first day of OW dives. We dove Vista Point at Lake Pleasant. Visibility was around 6-8' when we got there, but as the group descended to the bottom visibility got to around 3-4ft. The water was warm (IMO) wearing a 3/2 wet suit.
Once we got in the water in full gear I felt very comfortable. One of the instructors set a buoy to a rock about 35' down. It was about 100' of the shore. We swam on our backs out to the buoy, and began our skills tests. Our first dive into the murky water was interesting. With the low vis, it seemed like that guide line was A LOT longer than 35'!!! Even with the low visibility I felt pretty comfortable below the water. Since I had just flown back two days before from a business trip, I had all kinds of chest and sinus congestion. I took some Mucinex-D the night before, but it didn't help much. I had a small sinus block that was kind of painful for the first minute down, but it started to go away.
We were down for about 35 minutes the first time, and as soon as I surfaced I pulled my mask off and started hacking crap out of my throat!! Once I got rid of all of that, I felt much better.
We did a second dive to practice a few more skills. On the way down I made my first mistake (Which I pissed myself off to no end doing). I started down the guide about 10-15', and my mask started flooding. I accidentally inhaled some water through my nose, and b-lined back to the surface. Got my bearing back, and made it down the second time without incident. We were down about 29 minutes that time. Headed back to the surface, and broke down our gear.
This morning was our second and final day of OW dives. I still felt congested so I took some more medicine this morning. We got our wet suits on and our SCUBA setups all assembled and out to the water pretty quick. We swam out to the buoy to start our second day of skills. Today, our instructor wanted us to descend next to the guide-line in flat "lay-down" style position rather than the feet first holding on to the guide line like yesterday. I felt I did this pretty good, keeping the guide line in sight. Remained flat until I saw the bottom, and descended at a good pace. Once on the bottom, I had a minor freakout moment. Out of nowhere I felt like I couldn't get a full breath of air. I signaled to my buddy that something was wrong and I wanted to go up. After a few seconds of long deep breaths I was good to go, and did not surface. Unfortunately I also burned through about 500psi already!! We did two skills, and then our instructor took us deeper towards 60'. We hit a thermocline at about 46', and that was an interesting feeling. We got to about 50' and visibility was about 1 foot!! Our instructor had us hold hands, as he was having some trouble keeping track of the 6 of us in low vis. We made a long chain, and began swimming along the bottom towards our 35' guide line. While in the line the instructor was using his compass to keep us going in the right direction. A few feet up and I notice a large tree limb. The instructor was heading right for it, while looking at his compass. I tapped his arm, signaled "danger" in the direction of the tree limb. He signaled back "OK", and narrowly missed the branch! I felt pretty good about that!!
When we surfaced after about 42 minutes we did an air check and I was down to 900psi!!!! Quick trip back to shore, swap my tank, and we were back in business.
We finished up the day with some underwater navigation, full mask flood/removal and replace, and some CESA practice. I nailed the navigation on the first try. The CESA was the final item. We were lined up on a shelf at about 35' (10 divers and 2 instructors). One by one we did the CESA to the surface. I was in the middle so I was going to be one of the last to do this. Vis was about 4-5 feet. Once it got down to myself, and one other diver. We thought they forgot about us for a second. We literally sat on the bottom waiting for the instructor to come back down to single us to do the CESA. After about 7-8 minutes, one of the instructors comes into view and signals to the other diver to do the CESA. So here I am, alone, just hanging out 35' underwater. It felt like forever until the instructor came back down for me. I completed my CESA, and we were done!!! :cool2:
I am extremely excited to have completed my OW training. I'll have my C-Card in about a week. I felt I did good, but there are a few things I want to improve on. Mainly buoyancy and breathe control. I was a little bit of an air hog, but I credit that to my minor errors and my chest congestion. My goal is to get 25-30 dives in and then go for AOW.
I was actually really glad I did my cert dives in low visibility, as I'm sure it will feel much easier when diving in water that's clear.
I want to say thank you to Gary and Edward from Scuba Magic!! They were very detailed in their training, and I will be going back to them for my AOW certification.
Yesterday was our first day of OW dives. We dove Vista Point at Lake Pleasant. Visibility was around 6-8' when we got there, but as the group descended to the bottom visibility got to around 3-4ft. The water was warm (IMO) wearing a 3/2 wet suit.
Once we got in the water in full gear I felt very comfortable. One of the instructors set a buoy to a rock about 35' down. It was about 100' of the shore. We swam on our backs out to the buoy, and began our skills tests. Our first dive into the murky water was interesting. With the low vis, it seemed like that guide line was A LOT longer than 35'!!! Even with the low visibility I felt pretty comfortable below the water. Since I had just flown back two days before from a business trip, I had all kinds of chest and sinus congestion. I took some Mucinex-D the night before, but it didn't help much. I had a small sinus block that was kind of painful for the first minute down, but it started to go away.
We were down for about 35 minutes the first time, and as soon as I surfaced I pulled my mask off and started hacking crap out of my throat!! Once I got rid of all of that, I felt much better.
We did a second dive to practice a few more skills. On the way down I made my first mistake (Which I pissed myself off to no end doing). I started down the guide about 10-15', and my mask started flooding. I accidentally inhaled some water through my nose, and b-lined back to the surface. Got my bearing back, and made it down the second time without incident. We were down about 29 minutes that time. Headed back to the surface, and broke down our gear.
This morning was our second and final day of OW dives. I still felt congested so I took some more medicine this morning. We got our wet suits on and our SCUBA setups all assembled and out to the water pretty quick. We swam out to the buoy to start our second day of skills. Today, our instructor wanted us to descend next to the guide-line in flat "lay-down" style position rather than the feet first holding on to the guide line like yesterday. I felt I did this pretty good, keeping the guide line in sight. Remained flat until I saw the bottom, and descended at a good pace. Once on the bottom, I had a minor freakout moment. Out of nowhere I felt like I couldn't get a full breath of air. I signaled to my buddy that something was wrong and I wanted to go up. After a few seconds of long deep breaths I was good to go, and did not surface. Unfortunately I also burned through about 500psi already!! We did two skills, and then our instructor took us deeper towards 60'. We hit a thermocline at about 46', and that was an interesting feeling. We got to about 50' and visibility was about 1 foot!! Our instructor had us hold hands, as he was having some trouble keeping track of the 6 of us in low vis. We made a long chain, and began swimming along the bottom towards our 35' guide line. While in the line the instructor was using his compass to keep us going in the right direction. A few feet up and I notice a large tree limb. The instructor was heading right for it, while looking at his compass. I tapped his arm, signaled "danger" in the direction of the tree limb. He signaled back "OK", and narrowly missed the branch! I felt pretty good about that!!
When we surfaced after about 42 minutes we did an air check and I was down to 900psi!!!! Quick trip back to shore, swap my tank, and we were back in business.
We finished up the day with some underwater navigation, full mask flood/removal and replace, and some CESA practice. I nailed the navigation on the first try. The CESA was the final item. We were lined up on a shelf at about 35' (10 divers and 2 instructors). One by one we did the CESA to the surface. I was in the middle so I was going to be one of the last to do this. Vis was about 4-5 feet. Once it got down to myself, and one other diver. We thought they forgot about us for a second. We literally sat on the bottom waiting for the instructor to come back down to single us to do the CESA. After about 7-8 minutes, one of the instructors comes into view and signals to the other diver to do the CESA. So here I am, alone, just hanging out 35' underwater. It felt like forever until the instructor came back down for me. I completed my CESA, and we were done!!! :cool2:
I am extremely excited to have completed my OW training. I'll have my C-Card in about a week. I felt I did good, but there are a few things I want to improve on. Mainly buoyancy and breathe control. I was a little bit of an air hog, but I credit that to my minor errors and my chest congestion. My goal is to get 25-30 dives in and then go for AOW.
I was actually really glad I did my cert dives in low visibility, as I'm sure it will feel much easier when diving in water that's clear.
I want to say thank you to Gary and Edward from Scuba Magic!! They were very detailed in their training, and I will be going back to them for my AOW certification.
