Sight seeing while getting my PADI Open Water Cert?

[krazymad]

I'm planning on going to the Philippines in mid Feb to get my PADI Open Water Diver certification. I'm trying to decide between 2 areas (Moalboal and Bohol) which are known for great diving, but I'm not even sure if I'll get to truly take in all the sights during my certification dives.

During my certification dives, will I actually have time to look around and check out the reefs and walls like a normal diver or will the cert class keep me busy enough that I won't have much time to sight see?

Do dive instructors normally take students to premier sites or just to easy sites where the environment might be more controlled?

Thanks for helping this rookie out.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

If the suitable sites for training are the premier sites, then you should inquire about details with regards to including them in your training.

Here in Maui County, the main premier dive sites are Molokini and Lanai dive sites. Molokini is close to the boat ramp and has quite a bit of shallow protected water with a big sand channel, so boat certification off South Maui charters is not much more expensive than shore instruction. West Maui charters mostly go to Lanai, which is a much longer boat ride and the premier sites are significant cavern dives. Often, students with your priorities "push" West Maui operators to include "more" than the ScubaBoard sages typically approve; 3 training dives from shore completing all dive flexible skills and a trip to Lanai where the first boat dive is the final certification dive and the first dive after certification is one of the Cathedrals.

It is common for the prospective client/student to "play" the operators against each other in order to get dive training and premier dive sightseeing as quickly as possible and for the least money possible.

 

[DevonDiver]

The open water course contains 4 open water dives, which are limited to either 12 or 18m depth. During those dives, you will have to perform and demonstrate suitable 'mastery' of the skills which you learnt in confined water/pool training. However, you will also be taken for a guided underwater tour, during which you can enjoy the scenery and become more comfortable with your finning and buoyancy.

Obviously, you will be depth-limited by the course standards and that will limit the sites that you can visit. In addition, most scuba instructors will not take you to sites that experience strong current, or that don't have a immediate bottom within the limits of your dive plan. This usually means that 'wall dives' (diving along an undersea cliff) will be unlikely.

On dives that require the student to complete specific skills (such as mask clearing), the instructor will want to ensure that the site has a shallow, calm area for skills practice, which can also mean that certain sites are not suitable.

Where possible, I am confident that your dive instructor will take you to the best possible sites. However, many of those sites are likely to be unsuitable due to water conditions, depth and topography.

I have also known instructors who refuse to take students into particularly fragile ecosystems where the students could cause environment damage to the corals and marine life due to imperfect bouyancy and control (hitting the corals with their fins, grabbing hold of stuff for stability). The answer to this is, of course, to take your buoyancy control very seriously and make sure that you try your hardest to perfect it when you are in the swimming pool/confined water.

 

[krazymad]

Thanks for the detailed answers. It seems best to just leave the decision up to the instructor based on my skills.

I've planned a 12 day trip so I hope to have a lot of time after certification to hopefully explore some of the dive sites which I want to see, depending on what the DM says.

 

[knfmn]

I finished my OW certification on a recent vacation to the Cancun/Cozumel area and was able to do a fair amount of sight seeing during our check-out dives. We dove near an underwater museum off of Isle Muhres and the instructors made a real point of taking us through the statues and showing us various beautiful things on the reefs.

Kristopher

 

[boulderjohn]

Assuming you will not spend a lot of time watching other people in a large class complete their skills (which does not happen much in areas like that), you should have plenty of time to look around and have a relatively normal dive once the skills are completed. While you are sightseeing, work on improving your buoyancy skills. The better you are with your buoyancy, the more you will enjoy diving, and your buoyancy skills will keep improving through at least you first couple hundred dives, assuming you really work at it.

 

[Downing]

In my OW dives, done here in the Pacific NW, we did nothing but skills the first three dives and a tour for the fourth dive. Devon, is that what you're saying also?

In my class of twelve students, we had two instructors and at least four DMs so the ratio of teacher to pupil was around 1:2. Consequently, there wasn't a lot of "down time" where we students could do any sightseeing as we were always going from one skill to the next to the next etc.

At the end of the third dive, we were told we were through with the skills (yay!) so our next dive would be just a fun tour with a DM. We then divided up, two students to a DM or Instructor, and off we went.

Unfortunately, the viz wasn't all that great but there wasn't really much to see down there anyway except a lot of mud, a few rocks and the occasional small fish that would wander by, probably looking for Puget Sound. Still, I remember the thrill of that dive, knowing that I had passed the course and knowing that I had found something that I would really enjoy doing (somewhere else).

 

[DevonDiver]

In my OW dives, done here in the Pacific NW, we did nothing but skills the first three dives and a tour for the fourth dive. Devon, is that what you're saying also?

Nope. Class sizes in the Philippines tend to be much smaller. Typical 2-4 divers on a course. Each dive would include an underwater tour, with maybe 25% of each dive spent static doing skills and drills.

 

[fnfalman]

I'm planning on going to the Philippines in mid Feb to get my PADI Open Water Diver certification. I'm trying to decide between 2 areas (Moalboal and Bohol) which are known for great diving, but I'm not even sure if I'll get to truly take in all the sights during my certification dives.

During my certification dives, will I actually have time to look around and check out the reefs and walls like a normal diver or will the cert class keep me busy enough that I won't have much time to sight see?

Do dive instructors normally take students to premier sites or just to easy sites where the environment might be more controlled?

Thanks for helping this rookie out.

The first thing my OW instructor did was to take us a quick tour around before starting the drills. It worked like a charm because one moment I was extremely apprehensive and the next moment I was nice and relaxed, telling myself that I must pass the tests because I was certifiably hooked.

Many instructors do this to help ease the students' apprehensions and fears.

 

[midwayman]

During my OW checkout dives we had to swim a ways to the place with a sandy bottom. Did the skills there and had a swim back. No idea if it was designed that way or not, but there wasn't alot of sandy bottom in the area.