Well...
I am now one of you. I am officially a certified PADI Open Water diver! I'll have to contact PADI because I'm dumb and wrote my birthday backwards (month/day/year) on the forms so it's wrong on my temporary card and I didn't notice until several hours after I got it, but no big deal.
It was a BLAST! Day 1 I joined with a Discover Scuba "class" (a dad with two preteen/teenage kids) for my first dive. We did basic skills as is normal for DSD and then did about a 40 minute dive to a max of 36ft. I used exactly half my tank on that dive, and was using 18lbs of weight to start, and the instructor added 2lbs more from her own pocket too...because I kept floating back up to the surface while we were trying to practice skills in the shallow part of the beach. Whoops.
After that, I took a little break, then hit the water hard to cover the confined water skills. I had a buddy show up at that point, but he was struggling with everything and wasn't able to complete the 300m swim (and barely got the 10min float). He kept trying to push on but ultimately decided to sit it out and try again another time. He's a local, so no big deal. So I ended up completing the majority of my OW course solo with just the instructor. Awesome for me! Day 1 was LONG, but quite rewarding.
Day 2 was academics review (I did awesome.) and then OW Dive 2, where we did quite a few skills again. I asked to add some weight because I thought I needed more, so we added 4 lbs just to see how I did. I got a different reg than I had on day 1 and I was so happy. It wasn't a difference in how it breathed, but how it fit. The mouthpiece was different and it just fit me better. I didn't have any leaking in my mask and the reg didn't constantly pull up. So we made a note of which one it was and I kept the same one the rest of my course. I struggled a bit with a CESA, but understood the concept and since we started at about 10 ft, and went up diagonally, we both knew that it would be a bit different starting from more depth and letting my lungs actually expand as I ascend. I saw a huge Hawksbill turtle (loooooved that) and a spotted moray eel, and a ton of fish I couldn't even begin to ID. So awesome!
Day 3 was for OW dives 3 and 4. Dive 3 was to finish up any remaining skills, including navigation, and exploration. Navigation was fun! I did very well with the surface nav (face in water, never cheated, only looked at the compass), and with the fairly decent current I ended up just a little off on under water nav. It was "close enough" in the conditions we were in. I got to attempt the CESA again, this time from 25 ft. It was still tough, but I did it. I knew for certain that I could completely run out of air at 25ft and make it to the surface without dying lol. I'd prefer to never have to use that. We also practiced doing a descent using a line (everything has been a shore dive, so just a nice descent along the sloping beach) which was cool. I dropped my weights down to 18lbs for dive 3 (meant to do 16 but there was a sneaky 2lb weight hiding in a pocket we didn't notice) and that felt better, but my instructor noticed I was adding air at the bottom, so we took the sneaky 2 lbs out for dive 4. 16 lbs was much better. I really started to feel like I was gaining control of my buoyancy and could stop and hover and look at something cool. On purpose. And move up and down using breathing. On purpose lol. For dive 4, he said it's just for fun. And maybe a little surprise. I asked if I could take a camera, and he said sure. I had a small camera stuck in my BCD pocket. I took it out to take a few photos and all of a sudden..my mask is off. (Surprise!) I held it in one hand (thanks instructor) and kept breathing while i put the camera away in my pocket, then put my mask back on and cleared it. Whoops, I'm glad we were only at about 10 ft, because I'd somehow kicked my way to the surface while trying to put my mask back on. No big deal, I descended (without taking my face out of the water..no cheating!) and finished clearing, noticed my snorkel was stuck under the strap, so I took my mask off completely and fixed it. My instructor was proud because I had clearly demonstrated the ability to fix that (and I managed to not accidentally go back up the second time). After that, we just had fun.
Because of the current, we couldn't go to see an area I hadn't seen yet at all, though we tried. There was no point in getting exhausted fighting current, so we turned and went another way, but not before I got to see some debris still left from the hurricanes last year. We picked up a small broken No Smoking sign and carried it back. The other stuff was way too big. I saw an awesome Southern Ray and got to take photos of him swimming away...so cool!
At the end of the dive, smoothly sailing along at about 5ft depth, my instructor signaled me to stop and kneel. He "christened" me a diver, and we surfaced. I could have cried I was so happy!
Finished my paperwork, log book (gotta do the RDP calculations! I finished in pressure group T), and got my picture for my card. I'm all set! I wanted to schedule one more dive, and my instructor mentioned he's captaining the boat tomorrow, so I asked how the boat dives are. His face lit up and he very seriously told me "you should do that", and reassured me that I am ready and I'll do just fine. So I'm scheduled for a 2 tank morning dive tomorrow! My first dive as a certified diver!
If anyone read this much, that's cool, thank you! I am 100% addicted and already thinking about when I can dive next after this trip.
