Allison Vorcheimer My husband and I talked about getting dive certified for a few years (longer than we had talked about getting married). The cost was the top reason this kept being put off, however a destination wedding to Sandals Antigua – an all inclusive resort which included unlimited diving – finally gave us the push we needed to bite the bullet and make it happen. I am so glad we did! This quickly became one of our favorite hobbies and 1 year later we advanced our skills and got Advanced Open Water certified (up to 100ft!) and have enjoyed diving shipwrecks ever since! But, don’t get overwhelmed just yet. Deciding to start is the first step to exploring the incredible underwater world.
We got dive certified before having children and have enjoyed this as our own little hobby even after. If you have older children, they are eligible to become Jr. Dive certified at the age of 12-15. This will allow them to dive with a strict limit of 60ft depth (the same as a standard Open Water Certification.) So, why have them do any additional classes or certifications? At the age of 16, they will be able to get the adult certifications without an additional retest. So, if you are considering diving as a hobby, it can be a fun activity and lesson for the whole family.
Living in Florida gave us plenty of options to choose from when selecting a dive shop for our certification. After a good amount of research, we chose to get certified at Rainbow Reef Dive Center in Key Largo. They were great! Really easy to work with and super friendly staff. We have returned multiple times to dive with them and recommend them for anyone considering a trip.
The PADI Open Water course consists of 3 parts:
- Classroom learning portion
- 5 pool dives
- 4 Open Water checkout dives
My favorite part about Rainbow Reef was that we did not have to sit and do the classroom portion in an actual classroom! We chose the option to have a DVD and book sent to us. The DVD consisted of 5 different sections, we broke them up and did 1 each night after work and followed along in our books. Not all dive shops offer this, most do however offer to take the course online.
When we arrived at Rainbow reef to complete our course, we spent half a day taking the required tests (to prove we did actually take the class). We must have been a pain in the ass because our original instructor got a stomach bug and we were passed to another instructor the next morning to take our basic swimming skills test (yes, you need to know how to swim to dive. Who knew? I add this comment because I found it on an FAQ section…)
After our swim test, we were then passed to a 3rd instructor to take our course, yes I guess we are that bad! (Ok, this instructor was actually teaching a different course we just tagged into her swimming test so we’re not THAT bad) but this is how Kate got stuck with us.
Another thing we liked about Rainbow was that the classes were structured as 2 days, each morning in the pool to learn skills and then afternoon in the ocean to retest those skills. Some dive shops do 1 full day in the pool, 1 full day in the ocean.
The first pool sessions are of course basics, giant stride into the water, how to use the gear, etc. Taking your first breath underwater was probably one of the most surreal experiences I have ever felt, it feels unnatural, you should be holding your breath but you can breathe! Luckily all of these weird mixed feelings are not so scary considering we were on our knees in 3 feet of water! Once I got over the weirdness of it, everything else really flowed.
Most of the Open Water certification in reality is basics of diving, learning the equipment, communicating underwater and most importantly problem solving. What do I mean by problem solving? Well, knowing what to do if any and everything goes wrong. It sounds scary but understanding what to do in these what if situations (which are rare, but CAN happen) makes you that much more comfortable under water.
Once all of the necessary skills were covered in the pool for the day, we headed to the ocean for our first 2 Open Water checkout dives. Like I said before this is basically taking what we had already learned and done in a 12 foot deep pool and testing it on the ocean floor.
Day 2 was basically a repeat on steps with focus on any skills we needed to work on and a few new skills. This is also the day where Kate got to torture us – the last pool dive waspretty much us swimming in a circle and Kate got to hand us problems to solve. Pulled off our fin, my buddy is out of air, I lost my mask, have to drag my husband (or vice versa) because he got a cramp, etc. I think she enjoyed this more than she should. Of course, the ocean dives were again a repeat. Kate structured our days so most skills we completed between the first 3 ocean dives, so our 4th dive was our problem session and then we actually got to experience the joy and serenity of diving for fun.
This is what the certification is really all about and makes the experience worth it. The class had its challenges- mostly mental blocks for me which I needed to remind myself that I was ok and overcome. For my husband OW dive 2 was physically challenging due to the CESA (controlled emergency swimming ascent – aka the super man), the frequent descending and ascending toward the end made it difficult for him to equalize. This had him nervous for day 2, but in the end, most dives only have 1 descent and 1 ascent so he has not had a problem since!
Are you a certified diver or thinking about getting dive certified? Tell me about it below!
