Bay Island Beach Resort Boat dock. Dive boats await the arrival of Tropical Storm Gamma!




I have some friends that have decided to get certified this spring so they can go with my wife and I on a trip to a tropical paradise. The plan is for them to get certified this spring and then get some experience locally. They should have plenty underwater time and be comfortable with their gear before making their first ocean dive.

I think that is an ideal situation for new divers. Having logged possibly a hundred dives in less than ideal conditions before my first trip made my first reef dive that much more enjoyable and stress free. My wife on the other hand, decided to do her certification in the most inconvenient way. Two weeks before a trip to Cozumel in '05 she decided she wanted to get certified. I was rather upset at her last minute decision because it usually takes 2 weeks to do your class and pool sessions, and then another weekend to get to the open water check out dives. Not enough time. We took a trip to our local dive shop which a buddy of mine owned. We bought the course book, got her some mask, fins and snorkel and headed home for some home school crash course studies. We made arrangements with the dive shop that I would help her with the book work and pool work on her underwater skills. The pool work proved difficult because she doesn't take instruction from me very well but we managed to cover all of the necessary underwater skills successfully. She did her own book work. I helped her with questions and demonstrations.

We met a class at a pool for some follow up with an instructor who agreed she was doing skills correctly. The night before we left she took the written test and made arrangement on line with the dive shop in Cozumel to do her check out dives there. It was pretty stressful for both of us but we managed to get her up to speed in two weeks. Her check out dives in Mexico went well and she is now an accomplished diver with 10 dives under her belt and a max depth of 80 feet!

Looking up the wall at a diver

I wouldn't ever recommend anyone getting a certification in such a hasty manner. The skills you need to get etched in your mind are not fully there yet. It has been 5 years since her last dive and were going again soon so now she has to "review" her skills in a pool. Now she will be nervous and unsure of herself all over again. She classifies herself as a warm water diver only which is fine but living in the Midwest, doesn't offer much skill development. Now that our friends are getting certified she might push herself to do some local diving and refine her skills.

What my wife doesn't realize is that sooner or later something will go wrong on a dive and she has no practical experience with gear or problem solving underwater. The thought of her mask getting bumped off her face or regulator getting torn out of your mouth is a reality so I'm not sure how she will reacts to these situations at 50, 80, or 100 feet. Most new divers don't plan for such circumstances but they will happen. In my nearly 20 years of diving I have had many scary, if not life threatening situations to deal with. Some were my own stupid mistakes, others were someone elses cause but regardless, it takes some fast thinking and rationalizing to get yourself through it. Stupid mistakes , bad decisions and panic will get you! I witnessed a very experienced diver (much more so than me) make one bad mistake and it killed her! She left a husband and two young children. I keep her obituary in my log book so I don't forget what can happen!

You don't have to be an extreme technical diver to be a good diver. I am a recreational diver with only 5 certifications. I don't even have a rescue diver certification but I know divers that do who are no better in the water than I am. Its easy to get the certification cards by passing courses and some planned water exercises , but it how a diver handles real life scenarios that proves their worth. That comes with experience. I have saved two divers from severe consequences of their bad decision making or for not paying attention to their situation.

Conch Pile. Roatan, Honduras

Everyone gets spooked underwater at some point. Wether in fresh water of in the ocean there is much that can scare you. Its having confidence in your abilities and skills that will get you through it and keep you coming back for more. It a real rush to explore these underwater realms that surround us. BE SAFE