I wouldn't have believed there was any diver with more than a dozen dives under his belt who was NOT ready to take Rescue.
They are rare, but they exist. Have dove with a couple of them.
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I wouldn't have believed there was any diver with more than a dozen dives under his belt who was NOT ready to take Rescue.
So my prediction that you would not receive a single response trying to dissuade you from taking Rescue was correct.
The closest you received to that was a word or two of caution along the lines of: "You will likely get much more out of a Rescue course if you're not having to focus on your own diving and can instead focus on the Rescue course material." That's true, but as others have said, the threshold for not having to "focus" on your own diving is pretty low--I think so long as you've gotten past the point of flailing around in the water, you're ready for Rescue. In fact, until I read that other thread you mentioned, I wouldn't have believed there was any diver with more than a dozen dives under his belt who was NOT ready to take Rescue.
I'd be much more comfortable instabuddying with a rescue diver than just an AOW diver.
Rewarding is the term I hear most often. Beneficial is the next.Rescue class should make you a more competent diver, enhance your awareness of other divers and make you a better dive buddy since you begin to see the problems that might occur while diving. On every diver, I try to assess the ability of all the divers in my group. Upon completion of the the class, my instructors made me promise never to embarrass them by being "that diver". Being prepared for various situations makes me practice my skills and think about how to work through difficulties. Last month, I was diving in a local reservoir, realizing that my drysuit was leaking. I attempted to inform my buddy that I was leaking, however it was not a situation that I was unable to handle. When we finished the 55 minute dive, I was amazed at the amount of water that had entered through a failed 1" spot in the zipper. One of the epiphanies that I discovered in the Rescue class was to relax and calmly decide the urgency of the problem and what are the solutions and the risks of them. In this case it was just getting very wet since the water and air temp were not critical.
My class had us shadow the OW students and critique their strengths and weaknesses. This goes along way towards understand a critical component in seeing into the wide terrified eyes a student wondering how to be able to breathe underwater when he/she knows that is impossible.
Taking the class also made me go back and pick up all the first aid certifications that I lost since retiring from the Ski Patrol. Double bonus.
If you have a great instructor, you will learn and become a better diver.
Dennis
I don't think the class is meant to be enjoyable. What's enjoyable is all the "come to Jesus" moments you can avoid later on, because you will now know enough to recognize the buildup to those situations and take steps to make sure they don't happen.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)