i wanna scuba

[xdusty6920]

ok heres the deal. i live in columbus. i vacation down in florida almost every summer. when i go this summer, id like to scuba a few times on a reef or a wreck. id like to have it to were i can just make reservations to go dive before i go down to florida. what exactly do i need to get certified for and is there any info anyone can provide to make this happen?

[ri]

If your serious about SCUBA, I would suggest checking out www.padi.com and locating a training center in your area.

You'll learn about scuba itself and more importantly, about safety.

ri

[fppf]

Well I'm about a month ahead of you.
First off find your local scuba shops and talk to the poeple there. This will give you a feel for what there about. When it comes to scuba there is nothing that can't kill you so when your talking to them if they sound like there in a hurry go somewhere else.

There are a few main certs out there NAUI, PADI, SSI, and many more theres like over 10 total. NAUI and PADI are the biggets ones. We choose to go NAUI because we felt the coarse was better and harder, gave more info. PADI is a for profit agency while NAUI is not for profit. To me NAUI just seemed more wanting to teach people to dive while PADI was more towards world domination of scuba.

In any case both are good, the real thing is the instructor. You want to really feel good and trust the instructor. They make or break a course.

The courses have classroom time, pool time, and then 4-5 open water dives. Its a little cold to do open water dives up here until about May. They have a universal referral program so you can do your class and pool work at home and then do the open water dives in FL or anywhere else.

We went through Dip N Dive for our course and equipment. Then went down to Key Largo with Capt Slates to do our open water dives.

[asphaltpilot]

There are courses that will help you earn your C-card in a week or so. Several agencies have their courses on DVD so you can learn some of the class material at home. Ask about it.

Since you live in Ohio, consider only buying basic gear, ie. mask, fins, booties, etc..). Unless you really plan on diving a lot, in my opinion, it isn't worth buying a BC, gauges, 1st & 2nd stages, etc... You'll find it a great pain in the buttocks if you travel with all that gear, especially if you buy a tank.

[Glove]

OHIO
this is in Ohio


GET CERTIFIED!
Go to your local YMCA and sign up for a class

just had to put in the good word for the YMCA....

Being certified by YMCA as an instructor, CMAS Instructor, and PADI as a divemaster,....I can speak from a little exp.
I will suggest the YMCA scuba program to anyone first- I prefer to train as a YMCA instructor because I am not forced to train students from a DVD....
but...
PADI is the most popular- IMO (and more $$$ for less training)
CMAS is popular outside the US- Spain, France...

I no exp of the other programs.
SSI & NAUI have good programs and thier certifications are accepted in the places I have been.

It has been said before that its not really 'who' you get trained with (providing its a popular/ reputable organization)
- its more about how you are trained.
Safety and personal comfort are the most important.

"take only pictures.... leave only bubbles"

[Glove]

and the reason you want to get 'certified' (maybe thats what your askng?)

There are a few things your body needs to be able to handle. A good heart, good lungs, no 'bad ears' - tubes, holes.. and no earplugs!
Some people are not really comfortable at first- breathing under water. Its not normal, so to speak, so being trained in a pool for a few hours before going to the bottom of the ocean is a good idea.
Its a good idea to a certified diver that hasnt dove in the last month too!
to the point... there are a few things to know about breathing compressed air while under pressures greater than 1 ATA. Maximum depth, bottom time, surface intervals, nitrogen narcosis....

Just go take a class. You will probably need to purchase a mask, fins, and a snorkle to start with. I reccomend waiting untill you know wha your looking for there.
You will learn lots in class.

[David P]

The famous quote is "it's not the agency but the instructor"... and I pretty much agree with that. However I agree that PADI is too big for its own britches. I am NAUI and LA county (original) certified for basic certification(along with others) I am now enrolled in PADI Rescue Diver and was surprised that the PADI "by the book" class is what I went through just to get basic open water. I work part time for fun at a PADI dive shop and I cant slam them too bad... they put together a good product but they feel with their superior full colored product, they can spend less time training their instructors.
If you just want to fin around in 30-40 feet of water once or twice a year, any PADI will be fine. If your a little more into it and not affraid of hearing the D word "death" then you may enjoy the slightly more involved NAUI training. If you want to learn how to be a serious diver I higly recomend LA County (due to local its highly unlikely this will happen) followed by YMCA.
Just for fun PADI advanced open water cert requires 5 dives. deep(below 60'), night, navagation, and 2 electives. LA County ADP (advanced diver program) is I believe 13 weeks long. 'nuff said

[Corruptor]

I'm don't frequent salt water, but I'd guess that a Basic Open Water certification from PADI (or the equivilant cert from NAUI, YMCA, etc.) will get you to a ton of reefs in Florida, especially down towards the Keys. Many of the wrecks and deeper reefs will require further training (Advanced Open Water, etc.) and a higher level of skill and comfort in the water.

D2D is a great board for all things scuba (at least for the recreational levels). Do a search for dive operators at your vacation destinations, and then give them a call.

Enjoy this side of the underwater world!

[xdusty6920]

well its not somthing that i plan to do regularly or spend alot of time on. id just like to go to florida, and spend a day or two down there diving some reefs and wrecks. i know literally nothing about it and only need basic training to be able to swim down and check out a reef in person, and not die in the process.
if i go down there and do this successfully, who knows, i might have a new hobby and passion. but until then i just need very basic, just enough to dive a few reefs in florida.

[Glove]

(I hate to even suggest it,..... but)

You might be able to take a 'resort course' just to see if you will like it. This is a short VERY BASIC intro to scuba.
Some places (mostly PADI) will spend a few hours talking to you and letting you breathe on the scuba in a pool then they take you (supervised) to a reef and let you get a first hand look and feel of diving. This is a course and I think you do get a certification, but you can only dive with a licensed instructor and only to 20 or 30 feet (I am not real familiar with this, as I dont practice doing it myself. I will do 'I tried scuba' in a pool)
I am sure you could find a shallow wreck if you just have to see some junk laying on the bottom, but most 'wrecks' are in 100+ feet of water.

I talk to a lot of people that want to just do a few dives here and there on vacation. I always find these are the same people who never dive enough to feel comfortable and actually enjoy diving.

Its not like riding a bicycle.

If you only make 1-2 dives a year you will never find the comfort level that will allow you relax and enjoy the time you spend underwater.
I think you should just go take a basic class, get a certification and go visit as many reefs as possible, before they are gone.

[fppf]

Scuba is one of those things you should just take the time to get the training. Without the training it is very easy to hurt your self.
Just to give you an idea, a volume of gas will double between 33 feet of water and the surface. What that means is if your at 33 feet and take a full breath off your regulator, then something happens and you panic. You Dart to the surfuce while holding your breath, the air in your lungs will double in volume. This leads to a lung over exspansion injury that is life threating, and you wont even know until its to late because the lung tissue has no nerve endings in it.
So what could make someone panic? What if your mask comes off? Your regulator gets rip out of your moulth. You get overwhelmed by the spectatular reef and run out of air?
The classes have 2 goals. One is to get you comfortable underwater so if something does happen you don't panic. Then they teach you ways to deal with problems.
In every class they had us remove our masks and put them back on. Then we threw away our regulatos, found it and put it back in our moulth. In all but 1 class they had use do buddy breathing in case your out of air and controled emergency assents.

Not trying to scare you, but as always, anything worth doing is worth doing right.

[RandyStacyE]

I learned to dive from my (certified) father when I was 5 years old. He taught me the basics in our swimming pool then we went off to France Park which is a very clear X mining quarry now flooded. A pool is totally different from actually being at significant depths. From there he took me to Key Largo where I’ve dove my whole life. I love collecting from the ocean, spearing, I am not claiming to be an expert or master diver; as a matter of fact I try not to go below 60’. This naive “fear� of mine is due to never having been certified. Not being certified sucks, you can’t even get your tanks filled or go on dive trips.

I would take your classes locally and then your "open water" while on vacation.

[xdusty6920]

so pretty much going down and signing up at the ymca is definently worth the time and effort. ive never thought of going to a freshwater lake or somthing to dive. i guess ive just always pictured swimming above reefs with fish all around you. i have a few questions about local diving here in ohio.
1.) from what i can tell all the lakes in my area are pretty murky and i was wondering if things become visable at a certain depth or do you just have to find a clear body of water to freshwater dive?
2.) what is there to see in a lake? in the ocean there are reefs, huge wrecks, etc. what is being in the center and bottum of a lake like?
3.) and this may sound corny but i imagine it being difficult to keep track of were you when your 40ft down in a lake. i keep thinking what if you were to dive down and be down there for a while, drifting along, and you start being vacuumed by the dam?!

[Glove]

OHHH BOY! THeres lots to see in freshwater. I never thought much about freshwater diving either. There is a place in Ohio -Gilboa (sorta north central) the pictures above were taken in that quarry. Gilboa has a huge population of zebra muscles- they are small clam like critters that do a super job of filtering water, this makes the quarry pretty clear year round- unless its a weekend in the summer (hundreds of divers per day create some issues for visability). I have seen the paddle-fish there. They are approx 5 feet long and have a huge mouth to open up and filter feed like a whale. Very shy fish though. There are also lots of bass, bluegill/sunfish, carp, catfish, lake trout and maybe some others I have not seen. I know you can go set on top of a schoolbus (underwater) and feed all these fish. Its a frenzy too! I have had fish knock my mask off trying to get to the food. Very fun times there in Ohio.
Visability differs in bodies of water. For the most part the water is clearest in winter, when all the algea dies and falls to the bottom. Come spring and warmer weather the algea wll start to cycle. there are times like after a good rain that awashes lots of heavy organics into the water making it a little or a lot merky-er because, like our tanks, there is nutrients for the algea to feed on after a rain.
Sometimes there is a very distinctive line (called a thermocline) where the temps are different- this can let the vis be good above the thermocline, or below it.
Sometimes diving in like the great lakes, you cant see anything untill you get to 30-60 feet, then its crystal clear (sometimes).
I dont know about the damn vaccume... I would not advise diving close to damns.... currents can be tricky, thats just another reason why you get trained. You can use a compass underwater so you dont get lost.

[Glove]

ohh.. what to see...
there are cars, boats, soda machines, totem poles, airplanes, street lights, tractor trailers, toilets, sinks, motorcycles, dive gear (my favorite to look for) ... other divers and lots of fish. That just one quarry.

[David P]

Originally posted by RandyStacyE
I would take your classes locally and then your "open water" while on vacation.

I disagree with this, why waste 2 days of your vacation doing boring check out dives. "Suffer" two days in a local lake or quarry (wherever you can get certified) then when your on your vacation, you can dive wherever (remember certified to dive in conditions similar to training) you want.


But thats just my opinion...

[fppf]

Wreck diving can be a lot of fun. The Zebra Muscles in lake erie cleaned it up a lot. Vis has gone up a huge amount in the last 10 years.

Check out this link
http://www.eriewrecks.com/

Reading about a wreck is cool before you dive it.

As for finding your way around you can use a compass or feature navigation. Really basic navigation is in the NAUI open water course but the advanced course actually has an underwater compass section.

[ronc98]

Xdusty,

I just started my classes at Central Ohio School of Dive. They are SSI. So far the instructor has been great and the coarse work as been pretty informative. The Biggest hurdle in the pool is just to simply become comfortable in the water after you get that done most of the time is spent teaching you how to adjust your buoyancy and emergency measures such as clearing your mask and finding your regulator in the event it gets ripped out. I think they teach you these things in the event they get ripped out and you are used to recovering from these types of events without freaking out. As the coarse progresses you begin to learn how to pkan dives and figure out your nitrogen loads and dive times. All in all worth the money I think. There is a lot that goes into safely diving.

I believe there are many CORA people that are certified divers. It would be cool to get a group together to go reef diving.

[Glove]

Ronc98 is correct in saying the pool sessions are preparing you for the open water experience. You will learn about buoyancy control, regulator and mask recovery, out of air emergencies. navigation, decompression, ect... These are all things you really need to be comfortable with and understand.
One thing people often assume about diving is its a 'macho' sport. To be honest, its far from that. Its more about being relaxed and having a good time seeing the things underwater. There is no competition to be a 'better' diver than someone else. You dont need to be an olympic swimmer or a fitness freak, but you do need to be comfortable with your own abilities. If you think a dive is going to to be more than you are comfortable with, dont do it- thats how people get hurt on scuba. There is no shame in calling off a dive.
have you signed up yet?

[ronc98]

I remember the first time the teacher ripped of my mask and yanked out my regulator at the bottom of the pool. fun fun. I am super comfortable in the pool I swim laps everyday however at that moment I thought ***. I can see it would be rather easy to freak out when that happens at depth.

In the end I did find my mask clear it and get my regulator. Just have to keep calm.

[Glove]

Swimming at depth without a mask is no fun. For Divemaster training I had to swim 50 yards underwater with no mask sharing air. April in Indiana quarries is pretty cold on the ole' eyeballs. As soon as I removed my mask and started the swim my lunch was settling and my nose was tickled- yea I was trying to belch, had to sneeze without a mask 30 feet deep and about 45 degrees. I managed to control the situation but I dont dive without a backup mask now.
The point?- training is an important part of diving! Is not like riding a bicycle. You have to be active or you loose the comfort level. Things can go wrong real fast underwater, you need to know how to react and not hurt yourself.
Stop-Breath-Think-Breath-React-Breath....panic is not an option!