What to expect on my first "real" dive after OW/AOW certification?

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Everyone drive to key largo, you dive, rest of family check out pennekamp state park, maybe take a snorkel, kayak, or glass bottom boat tours. Afterwards enjoy lunch at one of many excellent restaurants there together.
 
I'm going to the Keys on Thursday and we're staying in Marathon. Even though the reason for this trip was for Mother's Day, I've gotten the OK from the wife go to diving. I'm planning on trying to do a 2 tank dive trip Saturday morning.

Quick back story is that I got certified in March with OW and AOW. It was a total of 9 dives, and prior to that, I had 6 under my belt, 3 being DSD, and 3 being the first 3 of OW (on my first attempt - got sick and couldn't finish).

Now that I am going to be able to just dive, I'm a little intimidated by it. I really enjoyed the whole group feel to doing the OW and AOW dives, as we had a group of 8 for OW and 12 for AOW. We were all newbs and learning as we went, and I definitely could feel my skills progress in the 9 dives.

But now that I won't be with that group, I am a bit anxious/nervous about it. I'd like to do a shallower dive (30-40 ft maybe) so that I could just enjoy it and also work on my buoyancy a bit, as well as focusing on slowing my breathing down to last longer in the water. At the same time, I don't want to book a trip that has a bunch of experienced divers on it and then feel like a 5th wheel.

So I guess what I'm asking is, when booking and calling dive shops, what do I really say? Do I let them know my experience up front and what I'm looking for in a dive, and they will either say they can take me or not? Will I typically be buddied up with someone random when we get there, or will be go down in a more 'group' setting like we did when I did my training dives? When we did our training dives, there was also a group of 2 who were already certified that went down with one of the dive masters of the company and they just did their own thing. Is it going to be something like that?

I guess I'm just looking at what I should expect in this case, as I've never been in this situation and a bit intimidated by it.
If they ask for your certification just say you are a AOW but have dived only a few times. on the dive site, most of the time, you would be buddied with a random person unless the dive instructor/ DM thinks that you would be safer with him as your buddy. Unlike your training dives, you will all stay as a group and move as a group with your buddy being your primary concern so you would feel safer along side lots of other divers. One tip I have to give is just try and relax and enjoy the moment, once you start to worry you would start panicking and it might cause others to panic as well. Have fun diving
 
If you're staying in Marathon, IMHO, there's no need driving to Key Largo. You'll do fine with Captain Hooks. They train a lot of divers there and are very good with newer divers. If you go out on the Jolly Roger, it's a nice sized Corinthian that's a very stable platform with plenty of room. They dive several little patch reefs that are plenty fishy and shallow. It's perfectly normal to be a bit nervous. Just be up front with them about your experience and have fun. :)
 
I have to say I like the idea of a private guide. If someone in the group has an issue they will be the focus of the guide. My first dive in the Keys was in high seas many years ago. My buddy and I basically enjoyed hanging under the boat and using our air to chill. The two newbies (newer than us, just certified) took off. The guide was checking something under the boat and never saw them go. Vis was awful. We pointed the direction. Eventually they surfaced a good distance from the boat and it was what best could be termed an extraction was how they were retrieved. It was one of my least favorite dives ever (probably was around the 50 mark). I thought the behavior of the crew was unconscionable and still do. The two new divers made sure their lack of experience in the shop and on the boat was known. The responses were all yah no worries. This op was highly recommended at the time. Hire your own DM and make at least your first day special. We did NAUI OW and Advanced on subsequent trips and our first dives as newbies were awesome. I only tell you the initial experience to show no one can predict what can happen. Had I not had my own buddy my choices would have been very limited. Do I stay or do I go now . . .
 
I ended up going with Captain Hooks this morning. They called me last night and said the trip out of Marathon was canceled but they could put me on the Big Pine Key trip to Looe Key. So I drove down there this morning.

When I got there I saw like 20+ people waiting so was like woah. But then when I got on the boat, turns out everyone else but me was a snorkeler lol. So it was just me with a dive master for 2 dives.

I told him my deal and my experience and he was super cool and I really enjoyed talking with him. Both dives were around 27 or so feet max dive. We stayed down like 50 minutes or so each dive and I had like 900 and 1100 PSI left at the end so I was happy with my breathing. He commented on my bouyancy skills for being such a beginner and said I was definitely doing great for my experience, so that was cool to hear.

Visibility wasn't the greatest but there isn't much you can do about that. About 10 seconds after jumping in my first dive we saw like a 6ft shark swim right by, which kinda spoiled it because I expected to see that stuff the whole time lol, but that was the only reef shark we saw.

We did see a baby goliath grouper, then 2 nurse sharks sleeping that were big. We saw a huge tarpon probably 5 feet which was cool too, and then a school of these black/blue parrot fish that was really awesome.

It was definitely different this time versus my OW dives in the sense that everything was on me. As soon as we stopped the boat, he was in the water and the other person on deck told me when I was ready she would help get me out of the holder thing and then that was it, when I was ready to stride off the boat I just went. Gave her the OK and that was it.

Then when we were diving, I didn't have someone asking me every 5 minutes for my air and worrying about me the whole time. It definitely made me feel like now it's my responsibility to monitor everything, and I did check my air very frequently. The only time I told him my air was at the halfway point (1900 PSI) so that we could start the turn back. But basically other than that, I kind of just followed him around and we were doing basic communication underwater without issue.

It definitely made me feel very comfortable in myself. Prior to diving, even yesterday, I was kind of psyching myself out. But about a minute after being in the water, I felt super comfortable, although my mask was leaking because I had my snorkel on the inside of my strap, which I didn't realize until like 40 minutes into the dive. I fixed that before our second dive and it made the second one easier without having to clear my mask so often.

My next dive is probably going to be down here again in September with some buddies but I wish I could do it more often.
 
About 10 seconds after jumping in my first dive we saw like a 6ft shark swim right by, which kinda spoiled it because I expected to see that stuff the whole time lol, but that was the only reef shark we saw.

Happens a lot. The big stuff sees the divers when they hit the reef and take off.
 
Whomever you use for a charter - tell them exactly where you are w/ diving, super new and haven't developed a pile of bad habits yet. Trust me, they'll appreciate the honesty. It'll be a relaxing dive if you get into a very calm frame of mind the day before and the morning of. Go easy.
 
Now I have the damn itch to buy more gear like my own regulator and BCD lol. I was talking to the dive master I went out with about it and he recommended if anything to get regulator first and then a BCD, because regulator is easy to travel with since it fits in carry on, and just so you know how well it's been maintained and stuff. He was actually using a travel BCD as his primary one as well, and from the looks of it, it looked decent. I really just have zero clue what to look for in regulators and BCD's lol.

I did use a weight integrated BCD for the first time versus a belt, and I definitely did like it. It just had pockets where you put weights in, not the little weight 'packets' you put your weights in, and then clip those in. I'm guessing most BCD's (at least jacket style) have weight integrated pockets or systems now a days.
 
It was definitely different this time versus my OW dives in the sense that everything was on me. As soon as we stopped the boat, he was in the water and the other person on deck told me when I was ready she would help get me out of the holder thing and then that was it, when I was ready to stride off the boat I just went. Gave her the OK and that was it.

Then when we were diving, I didn't have someone asking me every 5 minutes for my air and worrying about me the whole time. It definitely made me feel like now it's my responsibility to monitor everything, and I did check my air very frequently. The only time I told him my air was at the halfway point (1900 PSI) so that we could start the turn back. But basically other than that, I kind of just followed him around and we were doing basic communication underwater without issue.

It definitely made me feel very comfortable in myself. Prior to diving, even yesterday, I was kind of psyching myself out. But about a minute after being in the water, I felt super comfortable, although my mask was leaking because I had my snorkel on the inside of my strap, which I didn't realize until like 40 minutes into the dive. I fixed that before our second dive and it made the second one easier without having to clear my mask so often.

My next dive is probably going to be down here again in September with some buddies but I wish I could do it more often.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it - post qualification dives are a whole lot different to dives under instruction. On a course it is up to the instructor to ensure everything is done safely - once you qualify the onus shifts to you and your buddy to make sure you are safe between you.

I am glad to hear your DM treated it as a "proper" dive and acted as your buddy instead of as a dive master. That way you learn more about being a diver instead of someone who follows the herd and needs prompting every step of the way. Particularly when you are a new diver you will feel the need to check your air quite a lot but as you get more experienced, you will get more comfortable about how quickly you use your air and it becomes more of a feel with checks being more of a "Is my air usage where I expect it to be at this point in the dive?"
 

Back
Top Bottom