Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How many of you are scuba certified?

I did the PADI in Edmonds, WA in Jan.2016. The class was 5 days over 2 weekends and 1 weekday. 1 day in the classroom to go over the work and test the material that was supposed to be completed before we showed up. 2 days of half pool half classroom then 2 days for the 4 open water dives. We did all the basics:flooded masks, sharing air, compass navigation, buoyancy control, etc.

Since then I probably have 50-60 dives in the last year. I would recommend underwater sports in Edmonds if your going to travel a little ways.

There's an old Corsair fighter from WW2 just offshore btwn Newport & Laguna down about 50-60ft. You wouldn't recognize it as a Corsair but as an old wrecked plane with growth on it. Great area for spear fishing especially in the kelp.

NAUI and PADI about 10 years apart. Most recent dive was well over a decade ago.

NAUI certified, but that was in 1971. As much as I enjoyed it at the time, I haven't been diving in decades, doubt that I'll take it up again anytime soon.

Well, it seemed to work pretty well for Bob...but he doesn't drink it.

Spent time is SCUBA, Shallow water rigs and a LOT of time in MK 5 hard hat dress but never been certified nor have I ever had a clean water dive. Diving was brutal hard work and hypothermia every day for me and I am service connected disabled because of it. No thanks.

I'm certified for Sky, Scuba and muff diving.

PADI certified nearly 40 years ago. Still dive periodically, primarily in the Sea of Cortez.

I'm certified scared schitless of Great Whites...don't want to hear how good my odds are...if you are in the water, you have been checked out.

Me

me too....

Certified with SSI in the early 1970s

Certified NAUI Open Water and Advanced Open Water with my wife in the early 1990s.

Still love it, but my dive buddy (wife) no longer has any interest. Last time was on a cruise ship excursion in Grand Cayman about 6 years ago.

Have logged a little over 100 dives total, mostly in Belize, Roatan, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, and Bonaire. Love the Caribbean!

I've always considered them more of an ambush type predator for schitt floating near the surface...it's the only reason keeping me from going after abalone...murky shoreline water combined with having to use a snorkel exclusively creeps me out.

Well she is through what I think is the tough part.

The compulsory 200 meter swim, and the 15 min treading water in the deep end. The written tests are also complete. The rules are that no scuba equipment is allowed. There were about half the class using wetsuits. Not exactly to the letter of the rules! A full wetsuit is almost as good as a life jacket!

The swim and the tread water were actually easy for her. I'm always surprised by her ability to do stuff like this. Her only struggle so far is equalizing pressure in her ears. So far they don't like to cooperate.

There are other skills to master in the next 4 weeks of class and the puget sound final dive. However, I think she is over the hump, and getting more comfortable. I'll update this again ins few weeks.

PADI certified Master Scuba Diver with six specialties. However, it has been some 26 or so years now since I have been wet. I would not think of diving again without taking a refresher course. A lot of fun, but potentially very dangerous if you are not properly trained. Enjoy, but be safe!

I'm a PADI certified Rescue Diver. I first got my Open Water certification in 1992, and earned the Advanced Open Water and Rescue Diver certifications in the late 90s.

If I can swing it I try to take a diving vacation every year. I've done more than 300 dives, and I still love it.

I'll dive nearly anywhere. I've dove in frigid quarries(42 F), black water rivers so sediment filled you might as well be blind, high current deep ocean dives in rough seas, and a great many absolutely beautiful high visibility dives on calm warm water Caribbean reefs. I've even managed to log a few hours underwater diving in a surface supplied hard hat (Kirby Morgan 37). My deepest dive to date was 140' in the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize.

You are on the right track in taking a certification course, you will learn things you should have known before now, and I suspect you will come out of it better and safer diver.

I definitely learned some things that I either took for granted or did not know.

One thing is for sure, and I have always been a good swimmer. If you think you're too bad ass for a life jacket go to the deep end of the pool and tread water for 15 minutes, in warm pool water. Betcha think about that life jacket much differently at about the 6-7 minute mark! The last few minutes is really tough.

However, we also learned that fat is way more buoyant than muscle. The few of the more "healthy" people did have a much easier time at this than those of ....... well let's say slender or more fit participants did! The trainer told me " you are built for scuba, you sink like a rock" " you probably won't need any weight to get down to the bottom. On the other hand, one fella needed 40 pounds to get to the bottom! The fat factor is huge in your personal buoyancy!

Swim the 8- 25 meter lengths for 200 meters, that's not all that long in a big lake or big river. Betcha rethink the life jacket idea about the first 50 meters with a hella long way to go! And that is in warm flat pool water, not cold water with waves pounding you!

Good for you.

After you and the wife are certified you should treat yourselves to a dive vacation.

I see you're in the NW, if you've only dived the Pacific get yourselves over to the FL Keys or elsewhere in the Caribbean and enjoy a nice warm water reef dive. Diving is much more enjoyable when a wet suit is not necessary.

I am a PADI certified open water, advanced and rescue diver. I took my certification in the summer of 1993 and worked for a local PD on their marine patrol boat.

Enjoy but be careful.

So am I. I got that in the Navy in 1979. I haven't been down since I came back to Ohio in '82 other than in quarries three times. What do we have her, a big mud hole of Lake Erie or a quarry here and there.