Newly certified, but

[SailorC27]

I just completed my open water certification. I really question whether my skill level is sufficient to go into a dive situation. My training seemed rather inadequate. The following is my experience and self-evaluation of my skills. Skill testing was done in 18 foot of water.
1. Air consumption was not discussed
2. Air sharing (alternate air source) completed but not correctly done by my training buddy, he gave me the alternate regulator upside down, there was no mention by the instructor of this until I complained later that I was taking on some water through the regulator.
3. Buoyancy check and control attempted but could not stay on the submerged platform at 18 foot. Instructor added weight. my total weight was 26 pounds. I am sure that I was over weighted. I am 5'6 160 pounds was wearing a 7mm full suit with hood and gloves in fresh water. When I tried to discuss this the talk always came back to anxiety and being comfortable. I have no fear of water, or uncomfortable other than feeling that I was not performing well.
4. Controlled ascent and descent is hard to evaluate in 18 feet of water.
5.Emergence buoyant ascent completed but done poorly, did not exhale properly.
6.Mask clearing partial and full was well done
7.Regulator clearing blowing and purging well done
8.Regulator retrieval sweeping and reaching well done
9.Navigation was minimum one point at a distance of about 125 yards with a buddy that could not keep on line
10.My last dive which was a navigation and fun dive to end the class was interrupted by constantly going to the surface to look for my dive buddy in the limited visibility of 6-10 feet. He could not stay close.
11.Dive tables done well
12. Classwork done well
13. Divelogging for day 1 done on day 2.
14. Regulators in the pool seemed like quality equipment but the regulators for the open water portion I was given looked like less quality (plastic). To be honest, this is a perception only, I do not have the experience to properly judge this.

Again, I have no anxiety problem with being underwater or using the equipment. I know I need to improve my skills. Particularly, getting my weight requirements down. If I went to BVI to dive tomorrow I would have no idea how much weight to take.

Hopefully this thread will develop and I will learn something from the more experienced member of the board.

Thanks

 

[jpcpat]

It seems clear that you weren't happy with your training. I would certainly discuss your concerns with the instructor or shop owner.

I guess the next question is whether you feel competent to make an open water dive or not.

 

[flots am]

I'm not going to go over every point, except to mention that the first stage of your regulator was most certainly metal. There is no plastic that will stand up to the stress of being bolted to a 3000PSI tank.

Your second stage could be metal or plastic. A metal second stage could be a really well-built older reg or a crappy new reg that's metal outside and cheap plastic inside.

To make it even more confusing, there are regs with plastic second stage bodies that have awesome metal insides (Atomic, for example). You really can't tell much unless you know what you were looking at.

Yes, your training probably sucked. It's very common. However the good part is that you noticed it and now that you're certified, you can spend as much time as you want tuning your skills to get to where you want to be.

I wouldn't bother your instructor with it. This will have about the same effect as walking into McDonalds and complaining that your hamburger tastes like fast food.

Find a buddy who also wants to be better, and go diving and work on your skills.

Flots.

PS. Re: Weight. the only way to find out is to do a buoyancy check as listed in your OW book. Your instructor can guess, but the only way to know for real is to see what it takes to sink you with a mostly empty tank and no air in your BC.

 

[Aerosynth]

I am a newly certified diver also, and wanted to offer my support. I can relate to a lot of what you have said.

I really question whether my skill level is sufficient to go into a dive situation. My training seemed rather inadequate.

I felt the exact same way after my certification, even though my instructors were great and I passed all the bookwork/tests/skills with flying colors. I think it's probably perfectly natural to feel that way to a certain extent, and I think us newly certified divers are constantly comparing ourselves to other divers we met in class or on the boat who are way more experienced than we are. And as for your training, I think that training just gives you the very rough basics of how to dive. More dive experience will allow you to hone your skills better than training ever could.

As for going into a dive situation, remember, as a newly certified diver, you shouldn't be solo'ing or even buddy diving with other inexperienced divers. Go diving in a group, with an experienced guide, or others that are comfortable with their skills. Do that for a while and I am sure you will become more confident with your abilities.

my total weight was 26 pounds. I am sure that I was over weighted. I am 5'6 160 pounds was wearing a 7mm full suit with hood and gloves in fresh water.

That may not be too much. 7mm is very thick and very buoyant, not even counting the hood and gloves! I wear a Henderson 3mm Farmer John with an additional 3mm step-in jacket. When I wear the johns and the jacket together, I have to be weighted a total of 15-17lbs in order to achieve neutral buoyancy (my jacket alone takes 6lbs of weight to neutralize). I am 180lbs and 5'11" tall.

Regulators in the pool seemed like quality equipment but the regulators for the open water portion I was given looked like less quality (plastic).

From my own cert experience, and from reading what experienced divers and instructors say on these boards, rental equipment across the board seems to be less-than-perfect quality.

~ ~ ~

Don't be so hard on yourself. When I first started learning, I was totally convinced that I should be the world's greatest SCUBA diver by the time I got my certification card. That was an unrealistic goal. As I have met other divers, trained, and gained diving experience through my cert dives, however, I became perfectly comfortable with my mediocre newbie skills. I am simply determined to dive as much as possible and take more classes to achieve a higher level of SCUBA diving ability.

If you are really not comfortable diving again, though, why don't you visit another LDS and see if they can sign you up for a refresher course or some sort of continuing education course?

In any event, have fun and good luck.

 

[KozMcCharlie]

As someone who just went through OW cert myself, I know where you're coming from. There are a lot of things that I thought weren't done as completely as I would have liked. That said, it also seems like I got a whole lot more instruction (or at least a more thorough check out) than you did. The biggest concern that I would have is the fact that you seem to have only been down 18'. 3 of my check out dives went down to at least 60' and the skills checks were all done around 35'. To me it seemed like a really big difference between 15' and 35' (deeper than that didn't seem significantly different, just a bit darker and a lot colder.)

My dives were 2 weekends ago and I did 3 dives last weekend with a guy I met from the internet. I felt very self conscious about my buoyancy and SAC rate, but reasonably certain that I could be responsible for my safety in the event of an emergency (because I was pretty sure that I had no idea how much I could count on the internet guy...) Well, for me it turned out great. I was way overweighted because that's what they gave me on my OW dives. 33lbs. It got me down, but my internet buddy said that I was up and down like a yo yo and took 9 lbs out. That was good and I felt better on the last 2 dives.

The reason I'm spewing all this is that there were parts of my OW course that didn't seem quite deep enough, but because the OW dives were pretty thorough and the instructor who certified me on those dives was really top notch, I felt good about getting back under the surface. It seems to me like you got a really poor set of dives that failed to give you the confidence that you need to get back into the water without an instructor. I imagine that's how I would feel after those dives to 18'. It seems unacceptable for that to be the extent of your instruction, and I think you deserve to have this made right by the shop you paid a lot of money to. I'm also not sure that the check outs would be up to the standards of the certifying organization.

 

[KozMcCharlie]

And as for your training, I think that training just gives you the very rough basics of how to dive. More dive experience will allow you to hone your skills better than training ever could.

I don't think that this is just rough basics. I seems to me that the check out was done as a mere formality where the instructor didn't make the student get the skill done correctly and wasn't even concerned about discussing the botched skills in the debriefing.

As for going into a dive situation, remember, as a newly certified diver, you shouldn't be solo'ing or even buddy diving with other inexperienced divers. Go diving in a group, with an experienced guide, or others that are comfortable with their skills. Do that for a while and I am sure you will become more confident with your abilities.

Most of this is true, but there is something very valuable in doing dives with someone at the same stage of development as you. It gives you the opportunity to experience some of the things that you may need to work on as a new diver as well as the opportunity to practice the checklist of skills that are still fresh in both your minds... I'm not saying that you should be doing difficult dives, but the certification is supposed to mean that you are perfectly capable of doing dives that are in similar locations and conditions as your certifying dives. This means that SailorC27 should limit his diving to shallow water dives that don't even get down to where they take you on discover scuba trips. I'd be really angry if that was the value of my wad of cash...

 

[wrybosome]

As far as weighting goes you can always ask your instructor if you can do a weight check the next time he's running a pool session. My instructor was happy to do that when I got my own gear and didn't know how much weight I needed. Just follow the procedure outlined in your manual or search on SB for the procedure. If you plan on diving warm water (you mention BVI) then the pool should get you fairly close.

My first few dives I felt as though I was completely comfortable in the water too, but in retrospect I don't think I was. I've been able to take four pounds off my weight since and it's mainly due to comfort. You get more relaxed with time and it helps.

On the positive side it sounds like your situational awareness on the checkouts was pretty good, since you noticed all these things that you did wrong. Happy diving!

 

[Aerosynth]

seems to me that the check out was done as a mere formality where the instructor didn't make the student get the skill done correctly and wasn't even concerned about discussing the botched skills in the debriefing.

Well it definitely sounds like there were training problems for sure. On my point-to-point navigation skill, I veered slightly off course and lifted my head above water and the instructor asked me to do it over. I think that is (or at least should be) the standard, right? If you botch a skill you do it over? I agree that not even discussing the botched skills is a bit haphazard.

there is something very valuable in doing dives with someone at the same stage of development as you. It gives you the opportunity to experience some of the things that you may need to work on as a new diver as well as the opportunity to practice the checklist of skills that are still fresh in both your minds

I agree to an extent. Just understand that I am a cautious guy. I wouldn't mind buddying up with someone of my same level if we were supervised by someone a little more experienced, even if they were just "standing by" on the boat or shore. I would just be afraid of something happening beyond both of our expertise, I suppose. That's just me.

~~~

In any event, I am with you... sounds like SailorC27 got the fast-food version of a SCUBA certification course.

 

[TSandM]

It doesn't sound like a very good class. Certainly, skills like air-sharing should be done until they are done correctly; handing a regulator to someone upside-down when they are out of gas and probably close to panic is a good way to make a situation far worse.

I don't know whose class you took, but gas management is not taught in the recreational curriculum of some agencies at all. It is considered unnecessary until you get to technical diving.

The good news is that you appear to have a very analytical and thoughtful reaction to what you did. If this is the kind of person you are, you might very much enjoy contacting James Mott in Detroit for some further training. I think you would find that he would fill in a lot of holes.

 

[wrybosome]

I don't know whose class you took, but gas management is not taught in the recreational curriculum of some agencies at all. It is considered unnecessary until you get to technical diving.

True in my OW class (NAUI). We were taught the rule of halves and the rule of thumb, 'never dive deeper in feet than your air supply in cubic feet'. You would think that the text at least would cover how to do the calculations if someone were interested.

I'm curious what you and Peter teach about gas management in your OW PADI classes.