I'm glad I found this site - so many people willing to give advice!
To clarify a couple of things asked in some replies:
- We had to buy snorkel, mask, fins, booties, and gloves.
Pretty traditional. It's the same around here. You just rent the wetsuit, weightbelt, hood, BC and regs for the OW dives.
-We didn't do any type of swim test. The first time in the pool we were donning our gear. Never did any type of checking of our weighting either - but maybe that comes later.
There should be a formal swim test. I'm not sure what the requirements are for NAUI but for PADI it is 200 yards, any style, no time limit. Plus some treading water - 10 minutes?
Unless you were wearing a full wetsuit in the pool, there is no point in worrying about weighting. Around here, the pool in 91 deg F so nobody wears any kind of thermal protection.
-The skills they seem to be covering (according to the ones who completed the pool work) are reg retrieval, mask removal & clearing, sharing air, ditching & donning BC & weight belt.
There should also be some type of rescue taught during OW. For PADI it is limited to a couple of towing techniques (fin push and tank pull) but I seem to recall that NAUI got a lot more interested. But I'm not sure what the current requirements are.
-the class is through our LDS. We were kind of hoping to be certified in time to do a vacation dive this summer, but not sure that will work.
There's plenty of time. In fact, you can take a referral for the OW dives and do them while you are on vacation.
-Unfortunately, I seem to be the one in the family with the most problems in the water - hubby & kids are doing better, but even the few who completed all of it don't feel ocean ready.
If a student doesn't think they are ready, they aren't! Talk to the shop about more pool sessions.
As a matter of fact, we're pretty lucky daughter didn't do serious ear damage - she didn't know what to do when things started hurting on the way back up in the deep end of the pool and tried to clear her ears the way she did on the way down. Woke up the next morning with all kinds of facial swelling and pain. It's cleared up but now she's kind of spooked - and she absolutely loves the water.
This increasing pressure on ascent is known as a 'reverse block'. It is discussed in the PADI OW manual on pages 24 & 25. Basically, it is uncommon and generally caused by diving with congestion cleared by medication. The medication wears off and the congestion returns. "To avoid this, don't dive with a cold or allergy congestion, even if you use decongestants or other medications". So sayeth PADI.
This happened to an insta-buddy one time. She didn't bother to mention that she had a cold and, while trying to ascend from about 40', she developed intense pair. Good thing we had a lot of air! It eventually cleared and she was able to surface. The alternatives were not good...
Are you sure it wasn't covered in your course material?
Richard