OW Certification Dives on Vacation - Why?

[WV Diver]

For our students, clear warm water means alot and a Feb trip to Florida for check outs is very tempting. Larry covered it well as per usual.

[Divingguy]

I truly do believe that any "advanced" diver should at some point dive or even be required to dive in waters like those at CSSP, so that if the guano hits the fan, and their vis drops unexpectedly during a dive for some reason, they will know how to handle it and not panic.
Tom

[PlatypusMan]

Originally Posted by Divingguy

I truly do believe that any "advanced" diver should at some point dive or even be required to dive in waters like those at CSSP, so that if the guano hits the fan, and their vis drops unexpectedly during a dive for some reason, they will know how to handle it and not panic.
Tom

Tom makes a good point.

What good is it to train if we do so only under the most ideal conditions? Things change while in the water, sometimes very suddenly. By subjecting ourselves to less-than-perfect scenarios, it forces us to Stop-Breathe-Think our way through the different possibilities that can come our way--the better to handle them when 'the guano hits the fan'.

[greyzen]

Honestly, checkout dives in Lake Travis for AOW were in my opinion, awesome.
The vis was for {expletive deleted} and there were tons of non-my group divers all over the place. The funny part is when you catch yourself changing course to catch your "DM" and then realize your DM isn't wearing duel Nitrox stickered tanks

I think the low vis and generally poor conditions helps.. newbies tend to misplace their buddies and kind of let the DM control everything anyhow... The added worry of misplacement I think helps out a lot more than they realize.

[subsur]

Originally Posted by Vercingetorix

First, there's the expense. The training LDS charges $$ to forward the paperwork to the certifying dive operator in the distant land. The foreign operator charges $$ to process the paperwork; there may be additional fees for the actual dives.

it all depends whether LDS charges or not. As few people already pointed out it may be cheaper to do it this way although I'd doubt most people do it to save a few bucks. The main reason, i think, is that often it's much more convenient to do check out dives in warm water with high visability and lots of colorful fishes and corals around than, let's say, in +12 C low vis water of new enagland.

Originally Posted by Vercingetorix

Second, (and this is the biggy), the student pisses-away two days of the vacation working. "Working vacation" is a contradiction in terms. Then, our newly minted diver spends the few remaining days of vacation diving.

not necessarily pissing away vacation. if it's well incorporated into the plan than it is a part of vacations. Also, check out dives are dives afterall.

Originally Posted by Vercingetorix

Why not do the certification open water dives with the training LDS locally, then, spend the ENTIRE vacation vacationing?

some non-diving people would say that diving on vacations is not a vacation but as you said "working vacation", so it's all relative. Truth lies in the eye of the beholder.

[Vercingetorix]

Originally Posted by subsur

some non-diving people would say that diving on vacations is not a vacation but as you said "working vacation", so it's all relative. Truth lies in the eye of the beholder.

I didn't say that "diving on vacation" was a "working vacation"; I said two days of checkout dives makes the first two days a working vacation. The remainder of the vacation is just that...a vacation. You may also want to review my subsequent posts (rather than the OP) on this thread to see how Larry, WV Diver, and others influenced my view.

[dallasdivergirl]

I am pretty glad that I did my OW in CSSP and went diving in Belize. It totally blew me away. Plus I had some extra "special" training.

The AOW class at Lake Travis added to the "special" class experience. I kept a very close eye on my buddy, especially when using the scooters.

[Zenagirl]

Personally, I think you should do your training in the environments you'll be diving in.

[Ajuva]

I agree Zenagirl and I am trying to train in The Atlantic, The Pacific, The Carribean, etc. etc....

[quarkuud]

I did my classroom and pool work in the US, where everything is a lot cheaper than in Australia, but by the time I was ready for my OW checkout dives, I had moved here. My US LDS didn't charge me to forward the paperwork, they just dropped it in the mail to me and I took it to my LDS here.

Some of my friends did their checkout dives on holiday in the Caribbean. They are only planning on doing vacation/resort diving. They lived in Maryland so it was Dutch Springs or wait, neither of them had a lot of ocean swimming experience, so they figured doing the dives in the ocean was a good idea since that was where they were planning on diving.